Be the early bird!

Live and learn! We finally came up with the perfect game plan for CVS this week, but by the time we finally got there, they were cleaned out. Bummer drag! We actually went to three stores and every one had empty spaces where the Thermacare Heatwraps had been. And it was slim pickin's in the Glade section. Ya snooze, ya loose!

Here, for the sake of reminding me that procrastination costs, was our plan:
We had a $5 off $15 Q from the price scanner, one 10.00 ECB and a 1.00 ECB
BUY
four Glade products for $12
one Thermacare - 2.49
one Alteril - 1.99
one Listerine - 3.99
four VO5 shampoos @ .77 - 3.08
one travel-size item - .50
subtotal ------------- $24.05
USE
$5 off $15 CRT
$1 Thermacare Q
$1 Listerine Q
$3.00 Glade Q
$3.50 Glade Q
$.55 VO5 Q
10.00 ECB
-------------
$0.00 OOP!
well, plus any tax involved
We would have gotten back
4.00 ECB
3.00 ECB
1.99 ECB
2.49 ECB
and still have the 1.00 ECB we came in with
1.48 ECB profit

There would have been 2 more transactions which, for the sake of brevity, we'll just bottom line here.
#2 - using Q's and 4.00 & 2.49 ECB's from #1, total OOP - $.32 (plus applicable tax)
- get back 2.49 & 5.00 ECB
#3 - using Q's and 1.99 ECB from #1, total OOP - $0.00 (plus tax, if any)
- get back 2.49 Q
bottom line - started with 6.00 in ECB's - would have ended with 13.98
(maybe this will be a helpful example for someone else wotking on a game plan)

Since the $5 off $15 was only good for 3 days, we scrambled for an on the spot Plan B. We had to improvise a few times at the register, as some items weren't ringing up right. Here's how it finally worked out:
First, we got a rain check for the Thermacare, which was too good a deal to let go.
BOUGHT:
two Revlon lipsticks @ $6.99 (had two $2 Q's)
- these rang up at next week's price ($8.99/BOGO), so we could only use one Q
four VO5 shampoos @ .77 = 3.08
two Reese's PB cups @ .89 ...
- these also came up at next week's price, BIGI half price = 1.33
By now, the cashier was as frustrated as we, coz next week's prices were bringing us up short of the $15
We finally grabbed a couple fillers and the grand total, after Q's and ECB's, and including tax, was $1.62
We got back a 10.00 and a 1.00 (for a 4th green tag use) ECB