I always take a shopping list with me to the CVS and RiteAid store to remind me what to buy and how much I am I am going to save to play the drugstore game. That’s a great habit I must say. But I want to know more than what items should I put in the cart, like how much the total price is before and after I use any coupon, how much can I save using coupon, how should I pay the subtotal, that is to say, how much should I pay by ECB (UPR for RiteAid) and cash, and how much will I earn through their program. Of course I will know all after I check out. But knowing these before I head to the cashier will be ideal. It will help me to make better decision. A planner will be useful in this case.
I was about to make one from scratch when I found this planner for CVS from http://bargainbriana.com. This planner is an Excel file. What you need to do is just entering the price of the item you want to buy, the value of coupons and the ECBs. The spreadsheet calculates everything for you: You will know instantly how much you need to pay, how much you are going to save or earn. It’s so great. But do not download it yet, cause I have more for you.
Based on the planner for CVS, I made one for RiteAid. Again, it will calculate everything for you before your RiteAid trip. I put the two worksheet in the same Excel file. If you only do CVS and RiteAid, you can just keep the one you need and delete the other one. And if you do both drugstores like me, you will find it so useful. I enter the information about the items I will buy in the spreadsheet and then print it out to bring it to the store as a shopping list. If I end up buying more or less than what I planned, I edit the exit file when I am back from the shopping trip to reflect what was really done, and then save the file as a new name to document the what I did. It’s good for both planning and tracking my spending.
OK, enough talking. you can download it here.
One more thing, when calculate the sale tax, I use 7.00% tax rate. If you have items with different tax rate, the result will not be accurate. The difference will not be significant though. Just a heads up.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think about it.