After the playground, we got stuck in traffic, and the little guy started to rutz around in the car. Rutz, it’s a PA Dutch word. So I pulled into the Walgreen’s on Penn Green road, remembering that I had the 15% off coupon, and little guy loves to shop.

First thing to catch my eye was the clearance in the w’s beauty department. Basket full of Schick razors, clearanced to $2.49. Having just clipped my coupons yesterday, I knew I had a coupon for those. And I did–a $3 coupon (7/25 inserts) which means….overage! Picked up the last 4 packs and got out 4 coupons.

Meandered around the store a bit, I always check out the baby aisle. There it was…….a stack of GoodNites for $3.19 each, on clearance! I checked my coupon binder, I had seven $2 coupons, so I grabbed seven packs.

Grabbed a few other things that we needed. Went to registers, handed him all my coupons. First, I love this cashier–he did the 15% off coupon first, yippee! Many will do it last, after coupons. But it took 15% off all the clearance stuff too, meaning the GoodNites came down to $2.71.

Free razors with overage, $.71 for a pack of GoodNites……..suddenly my mishap at Kmart wasn’t such a big deal.

That 15% off coupon ends tomorrow!

After looking at the flyer and the Olay rebates and coupons I had, this was my plan:

Buy $50 worth of Olay cleansers
Use the $5 off $50 coupon posted yesterday
Use as many buy one get one Olay cleanser coupons as I needed

Get back-$20 Olay rebate, $10 catalina for buying $35 worth of P&G products, get $5 back for purchasing $30 worth of beauty products.

I love love love those Olay cleansing cloths. On sale $5.39 each, so I picked up 10, got out 5 coupons. (I was even planning to RAOK the leftover coupons to one of my readers, if this worked!)

At register, she rang up the cloths, 53.90 (Delaware, no tax)
I gave her the 5/50 and I saw her scan it. Then she scanned all my other bogo coupons, tells me $26.25. I notice that the 5/50 didn’t take, she tries scanning again, then insists she cannot take it because now it’s less than $50. Grrrr. That’s why she should have scanned it first, and I’m partly mad at myself for not making sure it went through.

I pay the $26.25. And wait. And sign my name vvveerrrrryyyyy slllloooowwwwlllly on my receipt. And pause. And put my cards back in my wallet.

Nothing printed. At the bottom of my receipt I had a $10 voucher, good for next week, but not related to the P&G purchase.

I go over to Customer Service where I am greeted by a less-than-cheery clerk. She looks at my receipt, makes a few calls. Insists that I wasn’t supposed to get a catalina, that it will show up on my Kmart shoppers rewards card. I explain, no, it’s a catalina. Another clerk approaches, claims she needs a nap. Looks at my situation and says “No, that should have been a $10 catalina that came out” and explains it to clerk #1.

Then they both decide that the reason I didn’t get it is because “you used coupons.” Shrug and sigh. This is not true. But once sales clerks get this in their heads, there is little hope for changing their minds. All these catalina deals, Extra Buck deals, Register Rewards…..they all work on the “before coupon” total. That’s what makes it so cool. And profitable. I think that one of the varieties that I purchased was not programmed in. That happens a lot–if there are several varieties or flavors to something, sometimes one SKU can get missed and screw up the whole deal. I’m going to call catalina, they’re usually pretty good about mailing it out. 1-800-catalina

I left. Paid $26.25, will get $20 back from Olay rebate. I know that I should be thrilled that I got 10 boxes of Olay cleanser for the price of one box. I’m spoiled by freebies, what can I say. We were off to the playground………..