Rite Aid Black Friday 2013

Starting with the out right freebies!

The food deals, honestly lowest pricest I've seen for these products.  And who doesn't need baking soda?

The Awesome quick cheap stocking stuffers or gift basket products.

I will say that these Home Repair gift cards are golden!! I'm going to get the max, its buy a $50 card and get $10 up reward back.  Thats 20% easy discount!

And the hidden sneaky deal is the Kushyfoot products limit 6, at $1.99 each they are so freakin worth it, it even includes the to go flats!

Rite Aid Look Ahead sales starting Nov 24

Finally, a reason to get excited and back into Rite Aid.!! Lots of freebies for the weekly sale starting Nov 24!  All these freebies are fine to get because you can easily roll your up Rewards to their Black Friday Freebies!  I personally plan to get my freebies on first day and then use them to roll onto the AWESOME Tide aka P&G deal they have.  You do need lots of your P&G coupons though but hopefully you took heed to what I've been saying and stockpiled a bunch of these booklets.

Tide Deal
Scenario 1
Buy 6 Tides  at $5.94 = $35.64
 use 6 $2 off coupons = -$12
Pay OPP or with other ups= $23.64  and get back $15 up rewards making real cost just $8.64!!!
Thats $1.44 a bottle + tax!
note with this scenario you will need to make 2 transactions as its 4 like coupons per transactions.


Other deal to mention not the best but the GROUPON and Living Social movie ticket deals are really scarce these days is the MOVIE gift cards, buy $25 worth and get $5 up reward, basically a 20% discount.  Its a good deal because there should be no exclusions and its an easy gift .

thanks to I heart Rite Aid for the aid scans!

Rite Aid look ahead April 21-27

Not much going on this week but the RAMEN sale! Definately a stock pile opportunity! After ups its $3 for FOUR 6 packs of Ramen!

Rite Aid deals starting March 31

P&G circular in today's paper! Also I found a free source for P&G circulars without having to buy the paper, its the free spanish newspapers!! I love it, its so easy to get and now I look forward to the P&G deals.  This April circular has a really great coupon for Dawn Hand Renewal Dish Detergent, get a $1 off when you buy 2.  It's on sale at Rite Aid for $.97 so if you buy 2 and use coupon its only $.47 each!!!!! To top this deal off there's a buy $30 worth of certain P&G products and get a $10 UP reward!  

If you were really Gung Ho about this you could literally get 32 bottles for about $.17 each! But that would take multiple transactons since P&G has a limit of 4 coupons per day .

The other deal I really like is the Olay Bars at Bo50% because even though its not free with this deal and coupons you can get a bar for about $.20 each, which is a super deal!

Also worth noting, is the POST cereal deal, its not as great as the last one with UP rewards, but if you have the $1 off coupons there on sale 2 for $5 and if you use 2 of your coupons.  You'd get them for $1.50 each!

February Rite Aid Haul : My Couponing Evaluation

I got a little lazy with the Haul photo for February because I had already stored away most of my stuff so not included is the Maxi Pads and Ragu Pasta sauce.  Either way you can see I was a little lazy that month.

So what I've started doing is evaluating the effectiveness of my own personal couponing.  The first thing I do is make a list of the items I got and actual money spent.  Then taking same list put the realistic price I would as a frugal shopper have paid for the item.  It's important to note, I'm not listing the Retail Price because that would really inflate my numbers because its not a part of my reality to ever pay Retail price.  So for this to be an accurate evaluation for me, I'm using my own personal price points.

So for all the items I bought my price point total would have been $106.50 not including sales tax. Notice, I didn't even count the Cover Girl and Revlon stuff because I would never buy it in my every day life.  

Guess the amount I acutally spent...

$ 19.96  

( this takes into account the $10 up I carried over from January and $10 Rebate I've submitted for)

and I still have $23.99 in UP Rewards to use in March

So my February couponing at Rite Aid saved me $86.54 !!!

81% savings basically I paid only 19% of the cost of my items and to be fair since I didn't account for sales tax I really should make my savings 91%.

And to put things in perspective I think about the time I spent (outside of work) to do this and how much I would need to work to pay for this stuff.

So to buy $106.50 worth of stuff and assuming you pay around 30% in taxes, you would need to Earn

$150.56 !  Assuming you make $17 an hour which most people do not you would need to work 8.86 HOURS !!!  That's over a days work!!! My savings this month saved me from working 7.2 Hours just to pay for living essentials.  Or if you were thinking of taking a second job, consider this which would be more effective working an extra 7.2 hours at a second job (consider that most second jobs don't pay well and you will have to consider commuting costs, extra food costs ) or just couponing?  That is what my favorite book this year "Miserly Moms" put into perspective for me.

And if I had done a retail price as a comparison look at the first item on my list the 10 Energy Saver Light bulbs I got had a retail price of over $7 each! That would have meant over $70 on just light bulbs alone.  And it would really have inflated my numbers and been misleading for me to effectively evaluate my couponing.

Rite Aid Freebies and Money Makers

I've been super busy lately that I forgot to post about these month long UP deals from Rite Aid.

UTZ pototo chips (regular and Sour Cream are the ones I can confirm) are buy 1 get a $1 UP reward limit 2

Next one requires coupons and is a money maker! The deal is buy $30 worth and get a $20 UP reward.    Buy 3, St Josephs aspirin NYC has them priced 10.49 - 10.79
Use 3 $4.50 off St Josephs Products coupon from 3/3 SS
mines was a $2.02 money maker!

Rite Aid deal Free Sunscreen!!! starting Mar 10

Very exciting week at Rite Aid for free Suncreen!!  Even with out coupons you can get the $7.99 faces Banana boat sunscreen and have a money maker!  Scenario buy 2, because its Buy One Get One Free and you will get two $5 Up Rewards as part of their hidden Monthly up deals (limit is 4 montly ups so this week you can do this deal twice)

Other scenario involves coupons supposedly some stores not just rite have Hang Tags for Sun Screen, use those remember on a BOGO sale, you can use only one coupon for the bought item. Either way its a money maker if you can get these coupons.

Other scenario in this weeks Redplum there is suppose to be a $3 off 2, couponer.  If you use this one you have to buy all 4 bottles at once and it will need to be 3oz or greater.

OTHER super cheap deal is the Arm and Hammer detergent just $1.50 each after UP rewards.  Or if you need Mr Clean products there are $1 off 2 product coupons in P&G insert making them a $1 each.

Also another month long deal is Rite Aid Toilet paper the 4pk is regularly priced at $1.  If you buy $5 worth, you will get a $2up reward.  Making each 4pk cost $.60 each!!!!!!!!

thanks to iheartriteaid for the headsup!

**update went today and there were on the Side Brand new Banana Boat Suncreens with $2 hang tags on them!!!! The cheapest sunscreen was $10.49 so with the coupons after buy the max of 4, you have yourself a $3.02 money maker! I did a combo of the $10.49 and $10.99 spray kind and still had a $2.52 money maker.  The best part there is no SALES tax on Suncreen!!!!!!

Rite Aid P&G scenario Cheap OLAY bath bars

The 3/3 P&G coupon insert finally has OLAY Bath coupons!!  It's get $2 off 2 , OLAY bars or body washes (no travel or trial sizes).  This week is definately a great week to use the coupons warning mine did beep for some reason.  But its totally worth it my Store had the 2 packs for $3.79! So with the Buy One get Second 50% off deal two would cost about $5.69 and you use your $2 off making it $3.69.  But if you buy 6 sets and use 3 coupons to get yourself to the $15 needed to get a $5 up reward, your final cost is $6.06 after UPs!!!!!  And you'll have a tally of $17.05 toward the P&G rebate tally, while you really only spent $6.06!!!!  Or about $.51 a bar of soap before submitting for the rebate.  Meaning you only spent 35% of the tally amount $17.05 but get to have the full  tally counted toward your rebate.  Technically, your final cost if you do submit for rebate and meet the $50 tally is $.85 for all 6 sets !!!!!  I say technically because you may have money makers or lower % paid in the rest of what you use to compose your tally so thereby reducing cost of this transaction.

I personally love these bars, because they are great to stock pile!!

Rite Aid Look Ahead starting Feb 17

This is your opportunity to Grab some Ragu Pasta Sauce for $1 each after UPs.  The best part is that it also counts toward your 50th Anniversary tally!!!!! Also that week and counting as part of your tally is Vaseline Lotion basically $.99 each after Up Rewards!!!!

Kotex Tampons $1.50 on sale at Rite Aid starting Feb 10

This is even better than the Playtex going on for $1.99 with coupons.  Kotex also counts toward you 50th Anniversary tally and if you go to the Load to Card site you can load the Natural Balance Tampon coupons on the site to your card.  Making this $1.50 each!!!!!

Rite Aid starting Feb 3, Revlon Money Maker deal

I can't believe I almost didn't see the Revlon beauty tools coupon is this weeks Smart Source.  Fortunately, I grabbed 8 circulars to do this MONEY Maker deal at Rite Aid! I wished I grabbed more it would have been epic because Sneaky Rite Aid, didn't put the symbol for the Revlon Beauty tools on their sale ad, but if you look at the booklet this should count toward the Anniversary tally, so this truly is a double dip deal.

This week at Rite Aid, All Revlon Beauty Tools are BUY 1 get 2nd at 50% off, and additional $4 UP reward when you buy $10 worth.  In NYC, the cheapest tool is the emory boards at $1.69 and the next cheapest is the Individual Design ones at $2.29.  The ideal scenario is below:

BUY 8 of the small emory boards at $1.69 and use 8 ($1 off coupons)

EVEN with NYC's hefty tax its a $1 money maker after the $4 UP reward!!!!

But the other main reason I would do this deal even if I didn't need the Emory Boards is that your total cost before coupons $10.12 in the above scenario counts toward the $100 you need to get your first $20 UP for the Anniversary Rewards deal.  If you were to pro-rate it the $10 added to your tally, counts for $2 in UPs (making this a double dip deal) aka $3 money maker !

Rite Aid Haul: Power of Couponing, Couponing is it worth it?

I have to say the above Haul from Rite Aid demonstrates the Power of Couponing and Shopping Sales.  I'd been a while since I'd tracked penny for penny my transactions cash wise, so when I started at a clean slate at the end of December it was the opportunity I needed to track my Rite Aid efficiency.  Something people who don't coupon say all the time is I don't have the time or its not worth it to coupon, but I honestly have to say the number ONE thing effective way to save MONEY is couponing and shopping sales. And the effort is worth it!!

Everything in my Haul with the exception of the Sharpies and  Cover Girl stuff, would have been thing's I would have bought any ways.  If were just to shop sales and wait for the right deal.... below are the competitive sales prices I would have hypothetically waited to purchase the items in my haul at.

I would have probably needed to wait months for the right prices to come up, and spent $249.90 on these essentials or $270 with sales tax included.  I'm not even measuring the RETAIL prices which is MUCH more.

Guess how much I spent just buy shopping at Rite Aid timing the rebates, sales and deals and coupons?

My TOTAL Out of Pocket dollars cash spent is currently at $84.89!!  The is deducting the $40 in cash rebates I have submitted for.  And not counting the I charge everything, for an additional 1% back on my rewards credit card.  If I count the $10 in UP Rewards I still hold and plan to use my total true cost would be $74.89 including sales tax which is 8.75% in NYC.

On my personal shopping scale and price targets, that is a savings of $175.01 !!  Or $195 if I estimate with sales tax.  That's a lot saved for just ONE month of shopping.  And it is totally validates why I continue to shop frugally via Rite Aid.

Think of this when you earn a paycheck and get taxes deducted, that final amount you keep is further drained by Sales Tax.  Almost every dollar you earn gets double taxed when you shop.  For me to truly evaluate if Couponing is worth it, I have to ask myself considering in a month I saved myself $195, how many hours would I have to slave away at my day job to be able to purchase $195 worth of stuff?? Estimating that most of us are getting dinged with at least 25% in payroll taxes, would need to earn $244 in pre tax income to spend $195 on taxable goods.  If the average middle class person makes $17/hour, that would mean you would have to work over 14 HOURS to make up for the savings of NOT couponing and shopping sales!!!!!  That's close to 2 days WORK!!!!  That would be the cost to me of not couponing. That's essentially a part time job!! So YES its totally worth it for me to continue couponing! 

AGAIN, that's my own personal evaluation of my shopping at Rite Aid in a Month.  I would suggest to evaluate your own scenario to decide.  Keep track of a month of your own sales shopping and then truthfully estimate what you would have spent to calculate your savings.  And then based on your own salary estimate how many HOURS of work you would need work to make up for not couponing.  Feel free to post and let me know! I personally was very shocked.

A lot of Personal Finance books, will say work more or find a side job/business to earn funds.. While that is sage advice...  right now in this economy its really not that realistic that your job is looking to give you overtime or a higher paying promotion .. or that there will be tons of people with extra income to feed your side business plans...so for now this is the most effective way I SAVE money (a penny saved is a penny earned)

Rite Aid Look Ahead starting Feb 3

Yardley Body Wash is FREE if you have coupons after UP rewards if you buy 3 (Limit 2).  The 1/27 Smartsource, has one coupon for $1 off ONE body wash look carefully at the Coupon language, as I totally missed this.  So buy 3, at $5 - 3 ($1 off coupons) = $2 OPP and you get a $2 Up reward back.  And even better is that the original sale price qualifies for the Anniversary UP rewards tally!!!!!!!!

thanks iheartriteaid for the preview!

Officially the week that starts Rite Aid's next round of 50th Anniversary Special Up Rewards, for your first $100 on eligible products you will get a $20 Up reward, and $10 Up for every additional $50 spent max $50 in UP rewards.

 This week is the Stayfree Maxi pads, basically $1 each after UP rewards limit 2.

The other awesome deal is Keri Lotion, the in store ad has a coupon for $5 off, making the price for a lotion just $.99!!!! For the advance couponer this deal is a potential gold mine because the full price should be counted for the tally in the Anniversary Up Reward deal.  The coupon basically allows you to get an 84% discount!!!  And when you consider that if you can meet the first $100 tally of the Anniversary promo, you get an additional 20% off, this would be a freebie if you could meet the tally.  ** There is also a smartsource coupon for $2 off making it an even further money maker if you have a printer!

Con: I will say the coupon will beep and it will be up to your store to rightly adjust the coupon down.  Plus most stores will probably only let you buy this once per trip.

In an ideal world of massive inventory, if you brought 17 of the Keri Lotion's it would make all of them free if you count the $20 Up reward you would get for meeting the $100 tally.

I put the Conair Scunci Deal up, because its Buy 2 products and get a $3 Up reward.  You might be able to find cheap Bobbie pins for this deal.  That may turn into freebie since this is counted in the Anniversary eligible products.  Also there was a January $1 off Video Value coupon but it requires the coupon be used on something at least $3.99.  

Rite Aid Look Ahead starting Jan 27

This weeks sales are more lackluster because its not apart of the 50th anniversary promo :( so really I'm using the opportunity to churn ups and buy some non freebie things.  Like Drano!! That is something I will never score as a freebie, so this weeks deal is pretty great tricky Rite Aid you have to buy 2 at $3.99 each and then you can get a $3 up, make the total cost about $4.98 for two Drano's after UP rewards.  Its a necessary thing to stockpile because its super expensive not to have around when you need it even on sale I get it for around $5.

And while I still say the biggest drain on a food budget is JUNK FOOD, the Super Bowl is coming up so I figure maybe chips and soda's are must have.  And Rite Aid does have a buy $15 worth of certain stuff and get a $5 UP reward back.  So thats 33% off with the UP reward.  The deals to me are getting the Lays Stax and TGIF snacks, although there is a buy 2 Hormel Chilli electronic Load to Card for  $.65 off.  And of course the buy Three 12 pack of Pepsi use Rite Aid Ad coupon for final price of $10 which is included in your $15 tally.

Rite Aid 50 cent Whole Grain Cereal and free deodorant

Man it's been a long time since a Cereal deal has come along and this Post Cereal deal of 2 for $5, with $2 UP rewards when you buy 2, makes each box $.50!!!!!  If you picked up the last smart source they had $1 off coupon for Grape Nuts or Shredded Wheat Cereal use 4 coupons total.  I picked the Grape Nuts because its 24 oz!!!!!! And has more fiber and protein than Oatmeal as well.  And if you've been eyeing the price of Oatmeal the best sale I've seen was $1.98 this is an awesome substitute!  There is a limit of 2 offers, so you can pick up a total of 4 boxes!!

Another hidden deal is for SURE or BRUT deodorant.  It's Buy One GET One free ,NYC prices are $3.79 for BRUT get two $2 Up MONTHLY rewards.  And SURE was $3.49 at my store.  Limit 2 so you can only pick up 2 for FREE.

L'Oreal Revitalift Wrinkle Cream deal at Rite Aid update

Hopefully, you all were able to get in on this deal you can goto my prior post for Details
This deal worked out even better than I expected because I had a Load2Card coupon for $2 off any L'Oreal Paris items.  And my sales tax for some reason was only $.88 vs the $3+ I thought it was going to be.  So after UPs both deal and Anniversary, and Rebate my cost for each item will be $2.62!!!!!! That includes taxes so its Awesome!!!!! I really suggest if you have the Cover Girl coupons and have gone past your $100 tally for the Anniversary UP reward PROMO , GO GO get this deal! I've noticed that Nov-Jan is usually when we get the best Wrinkle Cream deals!

L'Oreal Wrinkle Cream under $ 5 each at Rite Aid

Ladies heads up WRINKLE CREAM Deal!!!

So annoyed my Printer is broken, either way with out Coupons you can get 3 L'Oreal Revitalift Wrinkle creams (great deal because Drugstore.com has each for $13 each and Target $15) for under $5 this week if you still have extra P&G coupons and have already passed the $100 tally for the Rite Aid Anniversary Up Rewards deal.

If you do have a Printer you can get each about $3 each after rebate and UP Rewards.  The Link for coupons is Here go to special offers and you should see one coupon for $3 off 2 and another for $1 off 1 or if you have the 1/6 Red Plums there should be a $1 off coupon as well.

Here's the Scenario, do the Cover Girl Scenario I posted about previous have $15 counted toward the $50 you need to get a $10 up.  The cost of the Cover Girl Scenario is about $3 for me because about $1.50 is taxes in NYC.

Now buy 3 in One Transaction of any of the Revitalift Eligible Products for $11.99 each, OPP is $35.97.    You'll then get two $5 Up rewards.  And if you did the Cover Girl Transaction first, then this L'Oreal transaction will push you past the $50 needed and you will get another $10 Up reward (only counting $7 Up in reducing cost of L'Oreal Scenario and allocating $3 to making Cover Girl transaction free after UPs).  All the Ups will bring cost down to $18.97 and you will submit for $10 rebate LINK   there by reducing cost down to $8.97.  I'm adding NYC tax of 8.75% so my cost will be $12.12 total. Or $4.04 each with TAXES.  If I had coupons it would be $3.04 each for Retin A wrinkle cream!!  That's a Killer DEAL!!!!!!!

Also, if you don't need this buy the day and night cream and give it as an AWESOME gift!

Rite Aid look ahead starting Jan 13

There two obvious freebies for the week of Jan 13 at Rite Aid.  The Culterelle is great especially if you have existing UP rewards you need to roll over.  ThermaCare is just plain free with the coupon in the Ad.

But the deal I'm most excited about because I only need $12.55 to get another $10 UP reward as part of their Anniversary promotion is the Cover Girl promotion Buy ONE get other 50% off and an additional $5 Up when you buy $15 worth (before coupons).  And Cover Girl counts toward the Anniversary tally , Note Jan 26 is last day to make qualifying purchases!

I was going to use the last of my Coke Rewards Free 12pk to get myself over $200 but this COVER GIRL sale is even better !!! The key to getting the most out of the Anniversary PROMO is to have your purchase price counted as high as possible but paying as little as possible after coupons and UPs.  It's a great strategy to have this turn into a Money Maker scenario.

So Covergirl's cheapest product is the Eye Shadow for $3.39, and I still have my P&G coupons for $3 off two products.

So buy 3 at regular price $3.39 = 10.17

buy 3 at 50% off at $1.70 = 5.10

Sub total is $15.27

use 3 coupons (-$9) and total OPP is $6.27

Get back $5 UP Reward making final price $1.27

This is great scenario if your really close to getting that next $10 Up reward for the Anniversary Promo, you have $15.27 counted toward your promo tally but only spend $1.27.

This purchase of Covergirl will generate me my last $10 Up reward and basically is a money maker for me.  My tally is currently at $188, I only need $12 in eligible product to get another $10 UP .  If I have a coupon or Up Reward of at least $2 attached to my next $12 in purchases, my next purchase becomes free!. If I have even higher like my $9 in coupons, it becomes a money maker!

Free Sharpies at Rite Aid last day today!

This week Sharpie's are Buy One Get One Free!!

The Fine Sharpie, 2 pk cost $3.69 in NYC.  If you pick up two, you'll get two $2 UP rewards generated (limit 4) as part of this months hidden UP Reward deals.  Making it FREE!!!!! The product number is 071641301627  becareful because there are other 2pks that look similar but only this one is generating the hidden ups. Whats extra great is that these also count toward the Anniversary Month long up tally.  If your close to getting your UPS for that this would be a great way to get there since its basically free after UPs.

The other great deal on Sharpies is the plain 8 count markers NYC price was $10.39.  Get 2, and pay $10.39 and you will get two $4 Up rewards, making final price $2.39 for two large packs (limit 4).  This didn't get auto tallied to my anniversary rewards, but after contacting customer service they added it to my tally.

Also, Rite Aid's video values is offering a free sample of Clear Shampoo.  So watch and print the coupon !

Rite Aid Look Ahead week of 1/20-26: Post Shredded Wheat Cereal deal

Hurry, pick up those Coupon Circular on your door step, there's a $1 off coupon for Post Shredded Wheat Cereal in this weeks Smart Source!!  With this preview of the upcoming sale, that would make each Cereal cost $.50 each after Up rewards!! (Limit 2)

Thanks to iheartriteaid for the preview!