How 5 Minutes, a Smart Phone & a Printer Saved Me $17.70 (And How You Can Do It, Too)

How I Save $17.70 at Target in 5 Minutes - And You Can, Too

Yesterday afternoon, I found myself needing a few things for my kiddos who are starting summer camp today. Namely, sunscreen (we had two half-full bottles in our pool bag, but I wanted them to have their own bottles to take to camp in their backpacks) and new sneakers for my 9 year old.

Target prices on these items are usually pretty good, so I planned to go there. But before heading out, I did a few quick things, which ended up saving us $17.70.

First, I clicked over to the blog Totally Target. This All-Things-Target blog is excellent for helping you to save money in store and online.

I quickly scanned her round-up of the best weekly Target deals, and found a sunscreen deal! Coopertone products are included in this week’s Spend $20, Get a $5 Gift Card promotion. (To get it, text CARE to 827438 – then show the bar code to the cashier at checkout.)

I also navigated to the Carthwheel app on my phone and found a 10% off Coppertone Kids coupon on Cartwheel. (Learn more about Cartwheel HERE.)

And I printed a $3 off 2 Coppertone coupon from Coupons.com. Finally, I had gotten a catalina coupon from a past trip to Target, which was good for $2 off any Coppertone Sport.

Once in the store, I bought three spray bottles of Coppertone (2 @ $7.99 and 1 @ $8.99, since it came with a face stick, too. For $1, I was happy to throw that in my purse.) Here’s what my transaction looked like:

1 Bottle Coppertone Kids – $7.99
1 Bottle Coopertone Kids + Face Stick – $8.99
1 Bottle Coopertone Sport – $7.99
= $24.97
Save 10% with Cartwheel – $1.70
Use $3/2 Coppertone coupon
Use $2/1 Coppertone Sports Target coupon (catalina)
Pay $18.27 + tax out of pocket
Earn $5 Target Gift Card
= Like paying $13.27 for all three bottles after coupons

That works out to be about $4.40 per bottle (a little less when you take into account the face stick). At the end of the season, I aim to pay $3 or less for a bottle — but at the beginning of the season, I’m pretty pleased to pay in the $4 – $5 per bottle range. And these were the 33% bonus bottles!

Next up, I needed to get my 9 year old some sneakers. He is now into men’s sizes (a 7 or 7.5), so I have found that deals are fewer and farther between. Target had two pairs that would work for him — and he choose one of them. On the shelf, they were priced at $29.99, but I did a quick search on my phone and noticed that they were on sale at Target.com for $23.99.

Target will match Target.com prices, so when we got up to the cashier — before she scanned the shoes — I mentioned the price difference and showed her the screen from my phone. She was able to quickly adjust the price right at the register, and we got the shoes for $6 less (a 20% savings).

(By the way, I did check for a Cartwheel coupon, by scanning the bar code on the shoe box. Unfortunately there were non additional savings, but it took all of 15 seconds to find this out.)

All in all, I saved $17.70 – and it didn’t add more than 5 minutes to my total errand-time.  I get that not everyone wants to be an extreme couponer — myself included! — but if I can save almost $18 for only 5 minutes of effort, then that’s for sure worth it to me!

Anyone else have a great story about a small investment for some big savings at the store? I’d love to hear about them in the comments section below!

Comments

  1. galileegirl says

    Couponing in Israel just isn’t the same but I did really well at TCP Israel this week. First of all, they lowered their prices in general. Second, they have a buy 200 NIS and pay 100 NIS promotion going on now. I bought 3 nightgowns that had been reduced to 60 NIS each and then threw in a shrug for 50 NIS to get over the 200 NIS. I ended up paying 130 NIS for 4 items plus I earned 13 points on their club card that will be a 13 NIS discount on a future purchase. Almost as good at shopping in the USA.

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