YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary

I think that one of the internet abbreviations that tickles me most has got to be YMMV. I don't know why, it just makes me smirk when I see it. Well, today was certainly a YMMV kind of a day.

I did a fair amount of shopping: Stop and Shop, Big Y, Price Chopper, CVS, and Walgreens. (Whew!) Some stores, I did better than I had planned --- some stores were disappointing and deals didn't work out the way I had planned at all. It's just the way of things when you're stacking up sales, coupons and rebates/ECBs all over the place.

So here is how it all played out:

Stop and Shop: I did some fresh food shopping (fish and a few veggies that aren't likely to be at the farmer's market on Saturday). My sales hunting was limited to Windex (2/$5 and then coupons on top of that) and cat food (free coupons -- for the Humane Society). But when I got there, I discovered they actually had a better deal on the Cheerios than Walgreens --- where I had planned to do the Cheerios deal. So -- I shuffled my coupons around and worked the Cheerios deal in Stop and Shop (4/$6 less the Cheerios Challenge coupons -- ended up as 4/$2 Woo Hoo!!)

Big Y: I had rainchecks left from their 08/08/08 sale last week when they ran out of EVERYTHING. So I got two more boxes of Cheerios ($.88 each less a coupon for $.75 off two), and two cans of coffee ($.88 each). They also had L'Oreal Pro Vive shampoo on sale Buy One Get Two free -- and I had three coupons good for $1 each. It ended up at $1.99 for three bottles of shampooo. I really didn't save any money from the CVS L'Oreal deal, but I ended up with three bottles of shampoo instead of two.

Price Chopper: The only thing that really piqued my interest this week was the Scott toilet paper at 12 rolls for $5.99. That's not a bad price, but I had $.75 coupons and the flyer from Price Chopper had coupons for doubling any paper product coupon. Final price 12 rolls for $4.49. So, I bought 24 rolls. I have additional coupons, but I'm not sure I want to stockpile that much toilet paper. The food pantry can't take it because the rolls are not individually wrapped (one of the rules at the local food pantry). I'll have to decide before Saturday when the sale ends. We'll see.

CVS: This was hugely a YMMV kind of a trip. I planned to work the Johnson and Johnson deal with some smallish packages of Bandaids -- and I had a pile of coupons at the ready (realistically, I could have bandaided the entire US forces in Iraq with the bandaids from the coupons (hmmmm, that might have potential for the Charity Challenge....) But YMMV -- so only the funky super bandaids were working and the Neosporin. So I ended up with two tubes of Neosporin for just under $5.00 (paid in ECBs) and 5 ECBs back -- free Neosporin -- that's good. Then I hunted like mad (at two different CVS stores) for the toothpaste that is part of the glucose monitor deal. Not only couldn't I find it, but no one in either store had the first clue about it (I guess none of the other deal hunters in my area have tried this one yet eh???) I ended up with some Colgate that didn't work -- and a gift card for $5.00 because the shift supervisor at my favorite CVS was so terrific (Go Hollie!!) I couldn't find my Crest coupon in the mess I had made of my coupons by that point (I hate revising plans on the go). The Puffs tissues weren't the right ones (so the Grocery Game isn't foolproof then??)

Walgreens: the peanut butter deal worked flawlessly and I am the new owner of no fewer than 12 jars of peanut butter. The Kraft deal wasn't working at all (and they were out of Jello -- just bare shelves). But I did get the Hefty bags and some Jiffy Cornbread mix along with it). I also ended up with two AirWick oil warmers and two oil refills for free (didn't plan on them but I had the coupons handy and they aligned with the sale perfectly)

So, the next time I read YMMV, I'll smirk -- and then sigh --- such is life.