Salivating on Saturday Nights

Posted on | July 31, 2009 | No Comments

Summer 2008

 

Note: This was written in the summer of 2008 during my unemployment “vacation”.  Look at the end of the article for up to date information on deals you can score at CVS this week to start your own Drugstore Game! The first article in the series is here.

 

It is not as if I salivate on Saturday nights in anticipation of Sunday’s coupons and CVS flyer. But I have come darn close. The experience is almost maddening; on Saturdays I get sneak previews of what will be in the CVS flyer from several blogs I religiously view online (www.moneysavingmom.com, www.sahmmoney.blogspot.com). Somehow, these frugal gals also know what sorts of coupons will be available in the Sunday paper, and they begin to create scenarios that will earn ECBs and use up ones from previous weeks. Perhaps I have a movie on in the background, the cat is playing a hide-and-seek game, or my boyfriend is reading some delicious novel in the Shogun series. But I play my drugstore game.

Come Sunday morning I find myself galloping out of bed, down the stairs and to my car to find the nearest newspaper stand and gather up a few copies of the paper. Then, I come home around breakfast time and lay everything I will need out on the floor: scissors, my stack of previous weeks’ coupons, the sales flyer, and my calculator. By noon my eyes have turned buggy and enlarged, the slight exhaustion from an overly used addiction setting in. My arm muscles have grown tired from the repetitious work of sifting through hundreds of pages. I find that I have not showered since Friday night, and so I begin to feel stale. I break a small sweat as the morning sun changes its angle in my window and casts down right on top of me (but I can’t move because of the 10+ piles of very specific coupons I have stacked all around me). Yet something keeps me going throughout this grueling process: anticipation.

I am coming to learn that the anticipation of scoring big deals at CVS is bigger than the reward received afterwards, especially after coming home this week with two large bottles of Benefiber products. Do I actually need fiber? No. I could do what any self-respecting twenty-something would do with my 11.98ECBs from last week—splurge on nail polish, mascara, this week’s assorted snack bars, or even chocolate. But instead I choose Fiber because it will allow me to roll my ECBs almost completely over, in turn hitting the reset button on a never-ending game.

And a game it is. I am reading this really neat book by Jason Zweig called “Your Money and Your Brain”. Basically he outlines exactly what I have been feeling. To put it very unscientifically, our minds are built to gain more pleasure out of anticipating something than from actually reaping the rewards from it. It’s the chase that we hunt, the imaginative gains hot on our brains and giving us some hope, making our day go more quickly and putting a light step in our feet.

Put me in front of an aisle at CVS plastered in yellow ticket sale signs, and just like when Pavlov’s dog hears the bell ringing in the distance, my mouth starts to water. At the cash register my heart pounds heavily to the blips taking off coupon after coupon. But get me home with all of my bounty, and suddenly, the excitement is just not there. Sure I smile with pride at being able to show off my gains. But now I put them into the closet, silently feeling a depressing lull until almost one week away on Sunday when the new week’s deals will be exposed.

Of course that fiber was only first trip to CVS this final week. On my second trip I came home with 3 Brita refills, one night light Airwick unit and two refills, with 5ECBs to spare for next week. True, this is my final week on this experiment, but something tells me I will be back for more.

4-Week Totals:

Money out-of-pocket: $34.73

Total merchandise: $164.68

Savings: $134.68

Exchange rate: 1USD: 1.77ECBs

 

Not bad for a stalling economy.


CVS Deals for May 24-May 31 2009

Buy 1 Clearasil Stayclear face wash at $3.99, Get $3.99 ECBs (Limit 1)
Use $1/1 from the 4/19 SmartSource insert

Buy 1 Band-Aids at $2.99, Get $2 ECBs (Limit 2)
Use $1/1 from the 2/8 SmartSource insert or 4/26 RedPlum insert

Buy 1 Playtex Gentle Glide 18 ct. or Sport 16 ct. at $3.99, Get $3 ECBs (Limit 1)
Use $1/1 from the 3/22 SmartSource insert or May All You Magazine

Buy 1 Revlon Nail Color at $3.99, Get $3 ECBs (Limit 1)
Use $1/1 Revlon Cosmetic from the 4/26 SmartSource insert

Colgate Cavity Protection Toothpaste–on sale for $0.88
Use $0.75/1 from the 2/22 SmartSource insert

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