Friday, October 29, 2010

Questions Answered

3gakids1521:
MY personal policy is to always have the lowest oop as possible. But that's because I really don't need most of this stuff, but I do need my money. Now some other shopper's will justify spending more oop if they are making a profit on the money after +UPs. But to me, +UPs aren't exactly the same thing as real money. I can only spend them in Rite Aid, buying alot of stuff I don't really need, and if I accidently let them expire then I'm just out.

I don't know how small an amount you're talking about starting out with, but if you find a deal like the NYC cosmetics this week, where you have to spend like $20.87 + tax oop, to get $26.00 +UPs back, if you have somewhere close to $20.00 of +UPs to start with, then yes, do that deal first, then you can roll all those little $1.00 +UPs on lesser +UPs deals.

But if you only have a couple +UPs dollars to spend, then how I would start out would be to put together a deal of smaller +UPs deals and free stuff that, with coupons and the $5/$25, came out to a low oop, but gave me back more +UPs than the oop I had spent. I would do that until I had built up the larger amount needed for the bigger deals.

Even if you can't find enough stuff to put together a $25 deal and have a low oop afterwards, if you even find one item that gives a profit after coupon and +UP...there are generally free after +UPs deals like toothbrushes and toothpastes that you can find coupons for...and do those, one or a few at a time if you have to, if you can't find enough for a $25 deal....to build up your +UPs until you have a large enough stash to be able to play the big deals with.

Hope that answered your question...I'm not really good at explaining this stuff.

Which brings me to Tina's question:

In my right side menu, scroll down to underneath where it says Grab My Button and you'll see Buttons for some other blogger sites.
Southern Savers and Hip2Save both have very good tutorials and instructions, with videos and everything.

I couldn't explain it half as well as they do.

If you have a specific question I can try to answer, but I have to warn you in advance, I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, lol. (Which is why I always insist that if *I* can do this, anyone can do this.)

I visit Southern Savers and Hip2Save, along with Iheartpublix and weusecoupons to get my deal plans for the week...which again I don't bother posting here because it seems kind of redundant, when the stuff is already posted at the other sites.
What I post here is my own shopping experiences and rambling thoughts and occassionally a heads-up regarding something I think might not be general knowledge, like when those certain Rite Aid coupons started beeping last week, but then started working again this week.

Anyway, if you need any help, let me know. If I don't know the answer, maybe I can point you to someone who does :-)

4 comments:

Earthy Mama said...

Hey Mel! I'm happy to help- been out of the loop lately. :) Let me know what I can helpo answer, be happy to.

-Brandy

Melissa said...

Brandy, it was this question from 3gakids1521:

If I have a list of items that all warrant +UP's after the transaction, and if I start out with
a small amount of +UP's to use, do I make my first transaction the highest amount of +UP's to keep
my o.o.p. at the minimum and then work my way down to the smaller +UP's or do I start off with the
transaction that has the smallest amount of +UP's warranted and work my way up from there? I am not
sure which one would keep my o.o.p. the lowest. I have tried both ways and can't tell.


What's your take on it?

Earthy Mama said...

Well, I guess it depends on your goal. Sometimes you can "make more money" by doing the smaller deals first, using more oop up front.

But I personally, want to keep my oop as LOW as humanly possible. So I look for the scenarios using the lowest oop, with the best +up yield in return, then add in what Ups I need to to fill the remainder.

It may not be the biggest in terms of what I get back, but I gotta keep that oop low, since my budget is super low.

My next transaction at RA is going to be:

4 Children's or Infant Advil @ $6.99/ea; $5.59/ea after 20% discount
2 Mentos 1.59 bogo
3 Band-Aid travel kit $.99 bogo = $2.47
=$26.42

Use:
$5/$25
4x $2/1 in-ad Qs
2x $2/1 Advil IPQs http://www.advil.com/default.aspx
$1/1 Advil, Children's (Oct VV)
$1/1 Advil, Children's 4 oz. (Nov VV)
2x $1/1 Advil mq 9.26 RP
2x $1/1 Mentos
1x $3/3 Band-Aid mq
= -$26

Pay $42 OOP, get back $4 +UP

It's not a huge yield of +ups, but it's very little oop, and I don't have to use any +ups to do the deal, so I can save those for the next transaction and get $4 more +up for my pile. :)

Melissa said...

Thanks for your input, B. The lowest oop is my modus operandi, too.