My First CVS Trip

How I did at CVS today. I’ve been waiting to go do my very first transaction at CVS all week. I tried to last Sunday when the sale broke but we were deterred by severe storms in the area. Unlike many of our neighbors we never lost power or suffered any damage so I really can't complain.

By the time I was able to make it back to CVS it was Monday night and they were completely sold out of everything on my list. I gave it another try on Friday after work only to be shot down again.

Finally today after meeting a friend for lunch we were able to attempt my thoroughly planned trip at a different CVS. This time we were successful. Kind of. It seems in my planning I made a few newbie miscalculations. Things like not including our 6% interest and using the wrong price on an item when calculating at home. I still think we did great and it was much easier than I had expected. I’m beginning to love CVS.

Here’s how we did:


:I bought:
2 Sea Breeze Actives: $4.99 @ BOGO so 2.49 a piece
1 Nivea shave gel: $2.79
2 Nivea Extreme Shave gels: $3.99
1 Brut deodorant: $3.39

Total Before Coupons: $19.15

:I used:
1 sea breeze coupon: -.55
1 Brut any item: -1.oo
1 $4/2 Nivea: - 4
1 $2/1 Nivea: -2
1 $3/15 CVS: -3
Total coupon savings: $10.55

Total after tax: $9.57
ECB’s Received: $8.00

Since it was our first CVS transaction we had to pay the $9.57 cents out of pocket. We made $8 in ECB’s so for this transaction I’m going to consider it only 1.57 spent.

I’ll be making it to CVS tomorrow morning so hopefully this week I’ll get in on the deals early. I’ve got some smart rinse to pick up.

Free Woman's Day subscription

Looks like these went fast. I'll keep checking back for more. Trust me I have a new found love for free subscriptions.

Check out Low Price Subscriptions for a free one year subscription to Womans's Day.

I'm so excited I missed out on their last free subscription offering but luckily made it in on this one.

Lots of Changes

Lots of changes on the site. New headers, titles, and hopefully a new layout by the end of the weekend.

Oh and this really neat new signature. I saw Heather's at Freebies 4 Mom and wanted to try one out myself. Hopefully it stays. I'm currently trying to find the best way to link to it.

Breaking Up

Neil Sedaka said “Breaking up was hard to do”; and he was right, but sadly after this week I’ve decided to end my relationship with Target. I know there are great deals to be found there, especially on clearance items. I even have a Target walking distance from where I work which is easy and convenient, but I just can’t maintain an effective relationship with them any longer.

I’m tired of having to read their ad five times to make sure I have the crazy writing figured out for any of their sales. Then when you get to Target the items are either sold out, no where to be found, wrong signs, the list goes on and on. Plus their non sale items are always more expensive than my local Walmart or Meijer. It’s just not worth the hassle to me any longer.

The final straw happened on Saturday. I went in to buy a Fusion and a Venus razor in order to receive the ten dollar gift card. I have plans for it that I’ll blog about later.
We picked out our razors choosing the ones located directly under the sign advertising the ten dollar gift card deal. So imagine my surprise when we got to the register and after checking out no gift card. Of course twenty minutes later the employee at customer service realized the razors were signed incorrectly. We got the right item, which ended up being cheaper than what we originally paid. I was told the difference (1.60) would be credited back to my card, but so far it hasn’t. We’ll see.

When we first checked out we had:
1 Fusion Power Razor 8.94
1 Venus Embrace Razor 9.44

I used:
1 $4 off coupon for the Fusion
1 $2 off coupon for the Venus

After tax and coupons (for our first transaction): $13.48
With no gift card.

Once the gift card issue was figured out we ended up with a Fusion razor for 7.99 and should end up with 1.60 refunded (we’ll see).

That should make my final price $11.88 with a $10 gift card so $1.88 out of pocket.

But like I said we’ll wait and see if I get that buck sixty back on my card. Even if we don’t I still think $3.48 for two razors is a good deal. We were going to buy the gift card anyway. Either way you slice it I won’t be returning to Target in the future unless it’s one heck of a deal.

Anyone have $3,662 laying around?

So as I wrote about earlier, we are about two months away from paying off all our credit card debt. We decided to pay them off in December and have been putting any extra income towards it, while still maintaining a comfortable lifestyle. Depending on your idea of comfort, it’s working for us.

Basically this means living like we did while in college. We maintained the same lifestyle we had in school and since we’ve grown accustom to it we haven’t really noticed a change. We have internet and cable TV but you won’t find us driving new cars any time soon. Although, I’ll admit we could eat out less, something I’m working on.

Anyway back to the credit cards. We started out December with around 12 to 14 thousand in credit card debt. It’s bad I don’t know the exact number I know, but at the time I wasn’t keeping good track. It was just about paying off the cards not about saving money or watching our finances. I figured it would take us years to pay them off unless we did something drastic and started making larger payments.

As of 6/6/08 we have fully paid off two credit cards, one bill me later account, and a dental loan. Right now we have 3,662.59 dollars left on my card at 12.9% interest, through our credit union. My card will remain open even after it’s paid off as it has the lowest interest of our cards. The other accounts have been closed, even though I know you’re not suppose to, I just wanted them gone and felt it was the best option for us.

But of course I’m not happy having the card paid off in July. We’re so close I want it paid off NOW. So how can I come up with 3,662.59 in one month? I don’t know but I’m willing to bet it will be an interesting ride and blog post.

My new focus.

So I don’t know who said it but I’ve heard they say life is all about change. And just to make sure it’s true there will be some parts of this blog changing, mainly the whole focus.

Don’t be scared I’ll still be including all my reviews and rants I just also plan to include links and updated to a new topic important in my life… retirement. Or more; the saving our way to early retirement. I love writing all the reviews but I’ve really gotten into the whole financial and retirement thing. Ok, in all honesty Matt would probably call it more of an obsession, which might be true. But it’s a hard thing to swallow when you realize you doubled your household income after college but still can’t afford to buy a tube of toothpaste. At that point I understood we had to make some serious changes if we were ever going to retire let alone retire early. So saving money has become my kick and I’m only becoming more excited by it when I see our results.

In my research I found these wonderful things called coupons which are like free money. Two weeks ago I was able to buy our $4 toothpaste for a buck on sale and with using a coupon. I’m kind of proud, can you tell? That was my first coupon purchase but surely not my last.

This whole thing started out six months ago as a mission to pay off our credit cards but has recently become so much more; a lifestyle. Especially as we are within two months of having our cards paid off, the next question I ask myself is “What can I pay off next? And how much can I save to do it quicker?”

So I hope you enjoy my new quest… financial freedom.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - Movie Review

So we saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull last weekend. I’ve been meaning to write about it but have had a million other things going on in my life right now that needed to be contemplated at length.

So anyway back to Indiana. The movie was…ok, that’s about it. Maybe another reason I didn’t write this review earlier is my inability to properly give a review without handing out some major spoilers.

So beware, everything beyond this point will most certainly contain spoilers.

Seriously: Major spoilers below – You were warned.

If I typed out all my thoughts about this movie you’d be reading for days so I’ll just make a list.

Things I liked about Indian Jones IV:

• Indiana Jones IV – enough said.
• They brought back some of my favorite characters; Indiana and Marion
• Marion was always my favorite and no one else can play Indiana Jones besides Harrison Ford.
• They did tributes to those favorite characters that weren’t included in this movie for various reasons.
• Connery didn’t want to come out of retirement and Brody died from Aids in the 90’s.
• Great one liners as always
• An interesting adventure – something you always want to see
• Even if the topic might not be what I had expected given the topic and my knowledge of the topic.
• Marion doesn’t spend ¾ the movie screaming like most women in movies when faced with a challenge.
• This item almost made the whole movie for me in itself. Nothing ruins a film like a screaming blond… they anger the blood.
• I thought there was great on screen chemistry between everyone.

Things I didn’t like about Indiana Jones IV:

• They give up “the big secret” way too early and easy.
• Even though we all knew it was coming I would have liked more suspense surrounding the unveiling of another Jones.
• Too much CG
• Before seeing the movie we watched a great little program with interviews from the cast. One thing that was continuously stated was how they didn’t use much CG. WRONG. Some scenes CG was needed (ants etc) others I swear it was just thrown in there so they could spend more money. It was worse than the wasted CG cow in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
• Steven ripped off some serious scenes from other movies. If you watch it you should be able to pick them out everything from “reusing” a line to almost identical shots from another film. It was almost as bad as The Messengers, in that the need to figure out where things were from became a game.
• The biggest offender in my book was a comment from Indiana to Mutt about bringing a knife to a gun fight. A line I find to be incredibly similar to a favorite Sean Connery line from The Untouchables. Matt has suggested that it was a tribute to Connery but either way it didn’t set well with me. Plus it ruined the whole scene because I was taken over by my anger and could think of nothing else, I have a tendency to obsess
• Unneeded scene - full of CG (a twofer).
• I won’t go overboard with this rant, even though I could, trust me. There is a scene which is a complete rip off of a popular children’s tale and is at least 95% CG. Not only is the idea of the scene outrageous, but it is completely unnecessary and adds nothing to the film. Well except the chance for me to spend another five minutes gawking at the horror of it.
• Aliens, that’s all Aliens
• Actually I was ok with the aliens I really was. It was done in a way I could stomach… until the spaceship. Insert eye roll here. Didn’t they realize that previous Indiana Jones films worked best with religious relics? Why go so radical on this one. If Steven wanted to remake ET there were so better options out there.

So with all that in mind I’ll buy it when it comes out because it is an Indiana Jones film. But I’ll be glad that it won’t have the privilege of being included in my box set with the originals.