Well, I have not been using coupons for a few years now, due to life and the completion of my education taking a front seat.  However, I have now started to finally run out of some of the essential stock pile that I had accumulated and decided it was time to start rebuilding.  This time around, I thought it might be a bit wiser to limit my purchases as I really don't need 10 of any one item, so I am only going to purchase 2 like inserts to begin with.  Since it is just myself and my teenage daughter in a small house, we don't really need to be filling our rafters.  That may change over time if I feel I am missing out on some of the good deals.  Obviously there are more people that have been exposed to the extreme form of shopping via the TLC show depicting extreme couponers, so I hope that the local stores are not being depleted of all products.  Anyway, I received my first batch of coupons today and had to put together a quick run to CVS.  I even had to refresh myself on some of the basics of BOGO plus $ off coupons, also known as piggy-backing.  I plan to venture out to Wags sometime this week as well, but am a bit put off by their changes.  The last time I shopped there with coupons they had their monthly rebate program and register rewards.  Now they are switching to a point based system, so I am not sure if it will be profitable to do any large deals there.  Due to my recent surgery and altered eating options, grocery deals may be somewhat limited as well.  There are nutritious options to be had, so instead of having the 25+ boxes of cereal I once did, I may have to opt for a stockpile of soup.

Here is what I purchased this evening:
2 Robitussin cold medicines
1 Schick razor
2 Zantac (much needed for my post op lifestyle)
2 Softsoap body washes (I was going to try my hand at some home made body soap via Pinterest, but I may wait on that adventure!)
2 Crest mouthwashes
2 Febreeze car deodorizers
2 Covergirl Outlast lipsticks
4 bottles of Pantene (2 each shampoo and conditioner)
2 Kit-Kats for daughter who was craving chocolate.

Total of items was $95.30 + $6.67 tax = $101.97
I used $40.00 in coupons.
I used $22.08 in ECB.
$39.89 was final total.  I had a $10 credit from Google Wallet that I needed to use before 10/06/12.  GW is a phone app that allows user to "tap" their phone on the card reader to process transaction via network.  I've not had much luck with it, but was determined to persist until it worked.  I did not want to lose that free money!  Finally after about 5 minutes of hitting my phone on the scanner, it went through.  My total OOP was $29.89.

My purchases earned me $25 in ECB, so net cost was $4.89.  Obviously, this total is a bit off, as I already had $22 in ECB from a transaction last week.  I no longer have that receipt,otherwise I could figure in the real cost.  Regardless, I'm still thrilled.