Today I learned that the self-checkout computer will complain about two (well, three) things:

#1: Using more than two coupons.
Solution: Have a register monkey come enter their code so I can get into supersekrit cashier mode (SSCM) and scan more in.

#2: The item price is less than the doubled coupon price.
Solution: Tell the computer in SSCM mode to just use the item price as the coupon price.

#3: The hidden cap for coupon usage.
Solution:...

Normal Price: 66.27
Sales + Coupons: 23.41
Total OOP Cost: 42.86

The point behind this is to find out Why it cost as much as it did. Looking over the receipt, I see why I paid as much as I did. I don't have a problem with paying this much, but the why will help me figure out what to do later on.

#1: I bought four boxes of Near East pasta. I learned that Meijer only doubles two coupons of the same type -- in this case I had four $.50 IPs, but only the first...

Over the last week or two, I've made some small purchases at CVS. I forgot to include them, partly because they were pretty small and not quite worth mentioning PLUS they managed to be OUT of something I wanted each and every time I went. Talk about frustrating ...

We went grocery shopping today, so we went to CVS-A that's in the town our Meijer is in (as opposed to CVS-T, which is in the little piddly town I live in). THEY HAD EVERYTHING I WANTED!!! For once, my scenario went...

Went into CVS to do a nice batch of deals and roll some ECBs -- Listerine x2, then bandaids and lots of tuna. I'd heard the limit was raised on the Listerine, so I was going to roll the Listerine once for good measure and end up with four bottles. THEY HAD ONE BOTTLE LEFT. Argh. I spent some time doing emergency math to figure out a new scenario (without a calculator, since I forgot my phone) and ended up just getting the one bottle and some soap. We were almost out anyway. I'm just frustrated...

Rolling those ECBs and making use of the new monthly freebies. My husband made a comment about buying a bunch of stuff we don't need; with that in mind I may skip the Brut deal (and I couldn't find the $2.69 stuff anyway -- maybe it's at a different store). In any case, I used up some ECBs and got a couple things that we could actually use.

CVS Bandaids: $3.98
Oral-B Crossaction two-pack: $6.99 x2
Carefree liners: $.88
Total: $18.84 pre-tax
Coupon: $.50...