Mall Trip, Tony Romas, Raiding CVS, And a 99-cent Store Hot Deal!
Continuing with the theme of a bad week, this weekend has been filled with incidents that make me want to go to bed right now, and wake up Tuesday morning.
Where should I start? Ah, screw it…let’s not focus on the negatives.
- To beat the heat (a cool 105+ day in Monterey Park), we went to the Glendale Galleria on Saturday. Free air conditioning aside, this was not a good idea.
(I’m going to leave out what happened to us in the parking lot, to stick with the positive-ness of this blog entry.)
Shaken iced tea lemonades taste damn good, especially after being taken on a death march by my sisters for four hours. In their defense, it didn’t feel like we were there for four hours. I didn’t really mind it, though; free air conditioning FTW! Too bad I was wearing the most uncomfortable pair of shoes ever. Stupid shoes!
(By the way, memo to all you store cashiers…er…”associates”: we customers would appreciate it if you didn’t look like you were ready to kill yourself when helping us out. If you hate your damn job so much, do us customers a favor and quit!
Also, to the woman who apparently refused to help us out at Macy’s, seemingly to help another party: thanks for giving me a reason to go out of my way to avoid your store.)
- After we finished shopping, we swung by Tony Roma’s in Glendale and devoured a ton of food. I was ridiculously full after the appetizer, and barely touched my ribs. They made a wonderful midnight snack, though 
(I hope no one is reading this blog while really really hungry.)
The Red Hots sauce was a bit extra spicy this time, and I absolutely loved it
- After Tony Roma’s, we went to CVS (only after driving past three of them that had already closed). My sister had a GC, so I picked up two sticks of Speed Stick deodorant, and some Axe body wash.
(Tangent: I got a sample bottle of Axe body wash, and have been using it religiously. For some reason, I don’t have women flocking all over me :P)
This is when I stumbled upon the uber-ness that is the CVS Extra Care Bucks (ECB) program. Think of it as an instant rebate, in the form of a CVS discount coupon that is good on a future purchase at CVS.
So why are ECBs so awesome? Well, Adidas deodorant was selling at my local CVS for $2.68. For the month of September, CVS is offering $3 in ECBs for every purchase of Adidas deodorant, with a maximum of five ECBs. The beauty of ECBs lies in the fact that you could buy one item, get the ECB, and if the promotion allows it (like this Adidas promo does), you can buy another stick and use the $3 ECB you just earned towards the second purchase! On top of that, you’ll get a second $3 ECB to use again! You could even use coupons in conjunction with ECBs, and you can stack ECBs too!
My oldest sister and I each purchased one stick of Adidas deodorant, and collected the $3 in ECBs (I bought a stick of Old Spice deodorant as well, which gave another $1 in ECBs). Later in the day, we went to another CVS, with the intention of each buying another stick.
(Tangent: At around 8pm, it was still really really hot outside! WTF???)
We arrived at a different CVS, and each bought our stick of deodorant, as well as a bunch of other things with our various ECBs and coupons. I later found out that this CVS charged $3.28 per stick, meaning I wasn’t making any money on this deal!!!
(:P)
So here is my final CVS tally: four sticks of Adidas deodorant (two thanks to my sister), one stick of Old Spice High Endurance, two bottles of Dawn dish washing detergent, and a tube of Colgate toothpaste for ~ $8.50, with $5.99 in unspent ECBs! I also got some Listerine whitening strips for -$3 after rebate; Listerine has a “Satisfaction Guaranteed” offer, where they will refund your purchase price if you are not satisfied with your product. Trust me, I will end up being dissatisfied ;-).
- Finally, we swung by a 99-cent store (I forget the reason why). Normally, I never find hot deals in these stores; yeah, they have some cheap stuff, but most of the time, you get what you pay for.
Not this time! At one endcap, I found some SoftSoap for Men Body Wash! This stuff retails for $4 each, and the best deal I ever got for this stuff was $0.49 ($3.49 on clearance - $2 coupon - $1 VONS double). I grabbed five of the six bottles on the shelf–one was damaged–and my sister moved down one of the aisles. There, she located about 25 bottles! I was really tempted to clear out their stock! I resisted, and grabbed only ten bottles–one ended up leaking, but oh well–and a bottle of Arizona Green Tea with Ginseng and Honey.
Finally, a hot deal from a 99-cent store! Now, WTF am I going to do with ELEVEN bottles of body wash?
Happy blogging!