Rite Aid has definitely been the place for me to buy diapers since I started couponing! Here's what I got:
1 Jumbo Pack Pampers size 3 (on sale for $8.99)
1 Maybelline Great Lash mascara (regularly $5.19, on 40% off sale for $3.11)
1 Oral B Cross Action toothbrush (on sale for $2.99)
3 Reach floss (on sale for $0.99 each)
Subtotal after sales but before coupons: $18.06
Coupons I used:
$4/$20 purchase (my total was not $20 before tax, but I'll explain what happened below)
$1/1 Pampers Coupon
$2/1 Maybelline Cosmetics Rite Aid Video Values Coupon
$1/1 Maybelline Manufacturers Coupon
$0.75/1 Oral B Coupon
(3) $1/1 Reach Coupons
$1/1 Crest Pro Health Coupon (I'll explain below)
Paid $5.31 plus tax, received $1 Up Reward from Pampers and $2.99 Up Reward from Oral B.
Effective price after Up Rewards: $1.32 plus tax!
I had $8 in Up Rewards from last week's Rite Aid shopping, so I didn't pay a cent out of pocket!
Ok, so here's what happened at the store. Crest Pro Health Clinical Gum Protection Toothpaste was on sale for $3.49 with $2.50 Up Rewards. I bought it with my other stuff and used the $1/1 coupon, which effectively made it free. After check-out I felt like something wasn't quite right about the numbers. Sure enough, the $2.50 Up Reward hadn't printed. I asked about it and discovered that I had bought the 5.8 oz toothpaste when the sale was only on the 4 oz tube. I had thought I had the right one because the one I picked up was in the wrong spot on the shelf. They were actually sold out of the kind on sale. So I returned the toothpaste and they gave me back the $4.99 purchase price plus the $0.41 tax. That's how I ended up getting to use a $4/$20 coupon even though in the end I didn't spend $20 before tax. Although, I don't know whether Rite Aid cares whether your BEFORE-tax total is $20. I always make sure my before-tax total is high enough. I honestly didn't even realize until I started writing this post that I had used a $1/1 coupon for the toothpaste, and Rite Aid didn't deduct that $1 from my refund when I returned it. Whoops!
Things I learned from this trip:
Double check sizes to make sure you pick up the exact product that's on sale/coupon.
Double check your receipt to make sure you get all the discounts and Up Rewards you planned on.
Don't be afraid to return products if you didn't get the deal you thought you would. Now that I coupon shop, I can get toothpaste for free all the time. The last thing I want is to pay $4.99 for a tube of toothpaste!
Go to the store with a back-up plan, especially when you have a hot deal planned out and stuff either might be sold out or you're not sure what products you want to buy until you get there. I had actually gone to the store thinking I would buy Garnier Anti-Dandruff shampoo because it was $0.99 after coupons. It turned out that the shampoo doesn't have the right active ingredient for me, so I scratched that idea in the store. Luckily, I had brought along 3 $1/1 Reach floss coupons as well as a few BOGO Edge shave gel coupons. The shave gel wasn't a good price, but the Reach floss was on sale for $0.99 each, making it free after coupons! I really lucked out on that one.
I changed my purchase plan in-store, and didn't completely do the math on what I was going to pay at the register and what I was expecting in Up-Rewards before I checked out. I was lucky to have a feeling that something wasn't right after I checked out. In the future, I need to do the math prior to check-out if I don't buy what I had planned.
