Shopping Trip 6/12: Left Behind Coupons And Lessons Learned

I was soooo tired after church this afternoon, I was kind of hoping to take a nap, but my husband was out of his two prescriptions that were sitting at CVS waiting to be picked up, so I hurriedly made my shopping list to the sounds of Dora DVDs and crying toddlers.

I had a great plan.  I was going to pick up some cheap meds, spend only $0.49, and get back more ECBs than I started off with.  When I got to the store, I went back to the pharmacy, and got his meds.  Their prices had gone down, so I ended up paying about $6 less for those than he thought they would cost.

After I paid for those, I grabbed my 5ct. Zyrtec, Bayer Advanced, and 2 Motrin PM.  I went to the register, put all my stuff, and all my coupons up on the counter.  At this point I realized that I left one of my coupons at home.  I was bummed, but figured it was just $1, so it was no huge loss.  Then she said my total was upwards of $6.  I shook my head and said that can't be right.  One of my Motrin PM had rang up $9.99.  It was a 40 ct. that was in the same spot with the 20ct. that was on sale.  The boxes were the exact same size, and the same thing has happened to me before at Kroger, but I didn't notice it until I was home.

The cashier let me run and switched them out and get the correct one, and then my total was $1.49, which is what I was expecting, without my poor forgotten coupon.

Here is what I got:

Total Shelf Price:  $23.06
Total Sale Price:   $16.99
 -Used  $2/1 Zyrtec Printable    (Thanks to Cheryl at SimplyCVS)
 -Used $2/1 Bayer Advanced from today's paper, or there is a $1.50/1 printable
 (will submit for rebate in this morning's paper as well)
 -Used $1/1 Motrin PM from today's paper.  Left this printable at home.
Total After Coupons:  $11.99
Price Paid After $10.50 in ECBs from last trip:  $1.49    94% Savings  and I got back $12.99 in ECBs  ($6 from the 2 Motrin, $5.99 from Zyrtec, and $1 from Bayer)


After this, I headed over to Fiesta, which shares a parking lot with CVS.  I wanted to grab some of the Old Orchard Juice I had told you about.  They were on sale for $0.99 each which is a great price to begin with, but I had found a $0.50/1 printable coupon.  When I got to the register, I handed them over to the cashier.  She asked me if they were from the internet.  I said yes, wondering where else you would get a printed coupon from.  She said she would go ask the manager and walked away from the register.  A long line formed behind me before she returned shaking her head "no".  Apparently Fiesta does not accept printable coupons, only those from the Sunday paper.  I had planned to get 6, since I had 6 coupons, but I decided to get only 4, and asked her to take off the two flavors we had not tried before, in case we didn't like them.  We really like this juice (especially for use in smoothies) and hadn't had any in a very long time, so I thought the price was good enough to grab a few even without coupons.

I still wasn't done, though.  I then went across the street to Save-A-Lot hoping to find some of the Butterball Turkey bacon they have on sale for $1.  I had stopped after last week's CVS trip also, but found none.   Today was the same, and once again I left the store empty handed.  I still couldn't even find an empty place where it had been in stock.

After all was said and done, I paid less for my husband's meds, but more for my meds and my juice, and I didn't even find the bacon, so I guess I ended up a few bucks ahead.  Plus, I'm now aware of Fiesta's no printable coupon policy, so I won't make anymore wasted trips.

Did you do any shopping this weekend?  How did it go for you?