Extra Bucks

As you guys should know by now, Lava is my resident Personal PF blogger. Yesterday morning, she gave me a call ranting and raving about this crazy lady that bought $250 worth of groceries for $10 . Needless to day, I was a bit intrigued. After doing a bit of research myself , I found that the story goes like this:

  1. You sign up for CVS Extra Care program and wait 2 weeks to receive the Extra Care card .
  2. You stalk the store a little bit and get some Extra Value booklet or something like that. This book is supposed to list all the items that are available for Extra Bucks for that week/month.
  3. You buy stuff that gives you Extra Bucks. It’s sort of like an instant rebate .
  4. You use the bucks your got to buy more stuff that gives you bucks.
  5. Rinse and repeat.

Here’s a typical example: You’re first purchase may be some deodorant that normally goes for $3.00 , but this week there’s a special where you get $3.00 extra bucks on that purchase (Yeah, so technically, it’s free - just pay sales tax). Now because you just started this, there’s going to be no initial savings , except if you used some other coupons or something.

The following week, there’s some can’s of tuna or something that goes for $4.00 (yeah, expensive tuna) and gives you $3.00 in extra bucks . You’d use the extra bucks from your previous purchase , sort of like a coupon, to get $3.00 off the price of tuna. Now because you’re smart and chaining these purchases, you’d also get the extra bucks back from that tuna purchase . So you’re net effect is $1.00 for the $4.00 can of tuna , not too bad.

Now this $10 turning into $250 thing needs a little bit more background information. First off, this lady already had a ton of Extra Bucks lying around and she’s turned this thing into a delicate science. She she spends an hour planning ever trip the grocery store and has systems where she uses coupons, extra bucks, and divides up her transactions (up to 5 at a time) so she can get the most benefit out of the program.

But in theory, the idea is if you keep on buying stuff that will give you back extra bucks you’ll be ahead of the curve.

Why I Never Tried Before

Now this sounds like a great idea, but in my defense I’ve never heard of it until now. Also, I suffer from the "try it once" syndrome. I do make an attempt to do things like this to save money, but I always try it once and never look back.

It’s the same story with coupons: Back in the day, after a brief analysis (maybe one attempt), I decided that coupons weren’t for me . Not because, I’m too proud…oh know, but because coupons were always for the expensive brand names and I always bought generic . And that was it; I scrapped the coupon idea.

I didn’t give consideration to the fact that my situation has changed a lot since then. For some items, I’ve worn out my appetite for the generic brands. It’s literally to the point where if I put more of that stuff in my mouth, I’ll puke. But no disrespect to generic, this happens to me with all food. I usually have to cycle through things. So no worries Great Value bread, I’ll be back. Also, some items that I purchase simply don’t have generic brands , like detergent, toothpaste, etc. But after one hour some years ago I decided that: Coupons won’t work for me , like an idiot.

Giving Everything Another Try

So needless to day, I hoped onto the CVS website and signed up for the Extra Care program and I’m patiently awaiting my card. I’ll also take this chance to make a quick spin to the CVS store on my street (in walking distance, closer than Walmart) and see if they even have things that I use.

But don’t be scared Wally World, nothing can replace you for most of my purchases.

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