Extreme Couponing

Have you watched this show on TLC? I alternate between being fascinated that these folks can leave the grocery story with $1000 of stuff that they only paid $10 for and thinking that they are totally insane. I mean, seriously, what are you going to do with 75 bottles of mustard? I use one, maybe two bottles of mustard a year.

Anyway, I can't stop watching and because I like to get stuff for free, I try to score a good deal. We get a lot of our drug store stuff at CVS. We like the CVS because it is one of the few places where your loyalty card actually gets you something. You earn 2% back on every purchase and $1 for every 2 prescriptions you fill and they give you a coupon at the end of each quarter that you can use on anything in the store.

Second quarter Extra Care bucks came out on July 1 and I earned $4.50. I took this to the store on Saturday, the last day of that week's sale paper. For last week, you could get a box of tampons on sale for $6.79 and they would print a coupon for $6.79 in Extra Care bucks on your receipt. I also had a $1.00 coupon for these tampons. This sale was $6.79 - $1 coupon - $4.50 in second quarter Extra Care bucks = $1.29, plus I got another $6.79 in Extra Care bucks.

For my second purchase, I bought toothpaste. I could get three tubes of Crest on sale for $9.00. I had a coupon for $1 off of two. On that sale, I got three toothpastes for $9.00 - $1.00 coupon - $6.79 in Extra Care bucks = $1.21.

My total was $2.50 for a box of tampons and three tubes of toothpaste. I say that was a successful shopping trip!

To Your Health and other Random Musings

So, after two trips to the urgent care center over the weekend, it turns out that the fever and crazy sweating that I was blaming on the heat earlier in the week and hot flashes later in the week was really a rampaging case of strep throat. Which, by the way, I diagnosed myself, by shining a flashlight at my tonsils. Can you tell who had strep a lot when she was younger? I learned several things from the strep incident: 1) Arlington Urgent Care is open 24/7, the staff is very nice, the service is fast and my co-pay there is CHEAP; 2) unless something changed this morning, the boyfriend seems to be immune to my particular brand of cooties, because I made him go to the doctor Monday and he's fine; 3) the aforementioned staff at Arlington Urgent Care has a miracle rinse for a sore throat that is made up of lidocane (pain), benedryl (swelling) and mylanta (to make it sticky) which you can use before you try to eat a meal. Anyway, I've been on a Z-pack for two days now - it still hurts a bit to swallow, but I feel much better.

In a related note, while I really can't recommend it as a weight loss technique, the strep did make me feel so bad last week that I didn't want to eat much of anything, so I lost about five pounds (by randomly bursting into flames most likely). Now that I am past the same two pounds that I kept gaining and losing for the last six weeks, hopefully I am back on the forward track.

In a totally not related note, I got economically stimulated yesterday. Well, a third stimulated. Like most everyone I know, I am using about a third to pay off some debt, putting a third in my savings account and spending a third. Yesterday, I ordered the textbooks for my accounting class and I was able to get them both used. I'm starting to get excited about it now.

Cool Things Happen on Monday

So far today, two totally cool things have happened:

1) I got voted onto Team Artemis at diet.com (It's a competition like Biggest Loser in reverse). Now I am super motivated so I don't let my team down.

2) I got chosen to be a secret shopper at Coldwater Creek, one of my favorite stores. They are going to send me two $50 gifts cards to go shop twice between now and the end of July. I just have to report back on my shopping experience.