Rebates for this year

The tally:

Kraft Live Active Cheese: $7.98
Walgreens: $8.48

Total as of March 9th: $16.46

CVS + Rebate

Good news abounds on the money-saving front. First, my Live Active Cheese rebate arrived by mail the other day, putting $7.98 back in my pocket.

And here is the latest haul from CVS:

1 Suave Conditioner
1 Suave Mousse
1 Tresemme Shampoo
1 Gillette Fusion Razor
1 box Kleenex
1 Colgate Total Mint Gel Toothpaste

—coupons and ECB

=$4.83 out of pocket
$8 in ECB earned

 Tresemme is also on sale this week: buy $10, receive $5 in ECB. The trick is that all of their 32 oz. shampoos are priced at $4.99. This means an additional purchase, pushing the total above the $10 requirement. Most of their other products—hair gel, sprays, etc.—are also priced at $4.99, except a tiny tube of $1.99 spray. This isn’t an everyday item for me, but I can forsee its use in the future and I wasn’t about to spent an additional $5 to get $5 back.

      2 Shampoos @ 4.99 each = 9.98
+    1 Hairspray @ 1.99

= 11.97 OOP — $5 ECB = $6.97 for three hair care items

Rebates, Walgreens and CVS

On the rebate front: I should be getting $7.98 back from Kraft LiveActive, making my aforementioned cheese purchase free.   

The following items from Walgreens are also free after rebates:

1 Garnier Fructis Conditioner $3.99
1 Softsoap Spa Radiant Body Wash $3.74 (w/ $.45 coupon)

Walgreen’s TOTAL = $7.73

OOP TOTAL = $0

And although my CVS purchases are NOT free after rebate, I got some pretty good deals:

1 Garnier Fructis Shampoo +
1 Garnier Fructis Conditioner = $10 ($5 in ECB)
1 Stayfree Item = $3.29 ($3.29 ECB)

1 $1.00 Stayfree Coupon
$2 CVS ECB

= $10.77 w/ tax — $8.29 ECB

CVS OOP TOTAL = $2.49 

It just goes to show that while there is nothing inherently wrong with buying the least expensive generic-brand shampoos, being frugal doesn’t necessarily mean limiting oneself to them. In fact, with the right combo of store deals and coupons, the name-brand items end up being better deals.

Just an example: The cheapest priced toothpaste in my area is arguably Aim, at $.99 a box. I have purchased about 7 tubes of Colgate and Aquafresh Advanced in recent weeks and while I can’t give you the actual breakdown in price — they were combined with other deals — the cost was nominal: far less than $.99 per box.

Free Cheese

Cheese enthusiasts should visit the Kraft website for a $9 mail-in rebate on LiveActive cheese.