Category: CVS

This post is sponsored by CVS ExtraCare. All opinions are my own, as is my big love for CVS.
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Over spring break, we took a short trip to Nashville. Everything was going along swimmingly, until the wee hours of the morning on the day we were to leave to go home.

I awoke to the sound no parent wants to hear (but we are all far too familiar with) – vomiting.

It was Kate, and I thought we were totally in for it. We had a five hour drive in front of us… and, if there’s anything worse than puke, it’s puke in a car. I wanted to avoid that situation if at all possible, or – at the very least – be prepared when it did happen.

So I spend the last few hours of our trip on The Google, searching for cures for carsickness.

To spare you the pain of searching for them yourselves, I thought I’d conglomerate them all here.

Thank God we were in a civilized area with a few  CVS stores nearby – not only is CVS my go-to place for what we need in every day life and our family’s medications – it’s also a great place to get everything you need when you have an unexpected detour on your spring break trip! Happily I was able to get all the things that Dr. Google told me I needed for Kate at a  nearby CVS.

First up – Children’s Emetrol. Children’s Emetrol–the first anti-nausea medication formulated for children ages 2 to 12–relieves childrens’ nausea by calming the stomach, not coating. This is what’s known as cola syrup – it’s basically coke without the fizz. Remember when your grandma used to tell you to drink flat coke when you were sick? Yeah, same deal. It’s made with cane sugar, and it doesn’t have any crazy ingredients. It just calms the stomach.

Next – Nauzene. NAUZENE features a specially buffered formula that helps calm and control upset stomach discomfort, including discomfort from overindulgence in food and drink. Because I wasn’t taking any chances, I got another anti-nausea medicine. Nauzene is chewable, and Kate didn’t give me any trouble when I asked her to take it. And, evidently it’s also a hangover cure. {filing that one away…}

Finally, Sea Bands. Sea-Band is a knitted elasticated wrist band, which operates by applying pressure on the Nei Kuan acupressure point on each wrist by means of a plastic stud. I had always heard of these, but had never tried them – but they sounded worth a shot.

So, as a farewell to Nashville, I hit up CVS and dropped $50 on those three concoctions (as well as paper towels, plastic trash bags, and baby wipes). While it wasn’t an expense I was planning for, I took solace in the fact that I got 2 percent back in ExtraBucks Rewards! (Do you know that’s what they’re REALLY called? NOT ECBs like Jenny likes to call them – they are called ExtraBucks Rewards. It gives me great pleasure to know that I know something about CVS that Jenny apparently does NOT.) I’m sure Jenny could have whipped up some coupons in addition, but I was pretty desperate. No time to hit the hotel business center and install the coupon printers on their computers before we left town. But anyway, the expense wasn’t really a huge concern, because not having vomit in my car? PRICELESS.

We made it back to Ohio without incident, amazingly. I’m not sure if these things did the trick or if we just got lucky, but whatever it was, I’ll take it. And the next time, I will know exactly what to grab at CVS for such an occasion!

Have you ever had a kid get sick on a family vacation or in the car? How did you deal with it?

This Shoppin’ It Up series is sponsored by CVS Extra Care. The content is 100% originally my own, as is my big love for all things CVS.

Let’s talk about our households for a minute. Each household is v-e-r-y unique and has specific needs corresponding to the specific needs of each unique member within that household. And of course, these needs change as we and our kids and spouses grow and age…so basically, we are in constant need of different stuff all the ding-dong time.

What are those items your household has to have to function? For many of you, it’s diapers. If you have a food allergy family like mine, it might be a specific food item or items (dairy-free yogurt, coconut milk, and gluten-free cereal for Jonah keep me running to a “special” grocery store each week. Ugh.) When it comes to health, it might be a certain vitamin, allergy medicine, or brand of diapers. Whatever it is, we all have THOSE THINGS.

Of course, in my family, THOSE THINGS just happen to be expensive. And that is why whenever I can, I get THOSE THINGS at CVS, using the ExtraCare program, coupons and ExtraCare Bucks to be able to afford them. THOSE THINGS used to be diapers, which is why in the past you have seen me joyfully posting pictures of giant stacks of diapers for which I paid less that $4 a pack for. But now that Jonah only uses diapers at night, I watch my CVS ad carefully for when they have their CVS brand diapers on sale – often they will be $6.99 with a $2 or $3 ExtraCare buck deal in return! Still a great price when I only need one pack at a time, and I love CVS diapers.

Now for us, there are a few things we canNOT survive without, and I rely on CVS and ExtraCare to help me afford them. THING 1: these guys:

TWO of my three kids (I’m not gonna mention any names, but…)

As I was saying, TWO of my three kids need to take these probiotics EVERY DAY to survive. (And by survive, I mean poop. This is how I keep these kids pooping. Because let’s face it, pooping = life, right?) They can’t DO without it, and a box of 30 of these? COSTS $30. That’s right, $1 a pop. And that’s not the CVS price, that’s the EVERYWHERE price. Two little Rapsons who need this every day = a $60 a month payment on probiotics. But thankfully, and I do mean thankfully, CVS has recently had AWESOME ExtraCare Bucks deals on these, with limits of 2 or 3 per household. The first time they were just $10 with $10 ExtraCare Bucks back (that’s FREE, people!) and the second time they were $22.99 with $5 ExtraCare Bucks back – still a great deal. Both times I had manufacturer’s coupons to use so I got an even better deal, and stocked up. So within about 4 to 6 weeks time, I had enough Culturelle to last my kids three or four months and I paid probably only about 30% of what it would have normally cost me. These are the deals I get down on my knees and thank God for, I am not even kidding you! These ExtraCare deals from CVS are a HUGE blessing to our health and budget.

The next must-have (THING 2!) in the Rapson house is for me and my terrible sleeping self. A few months ago I discovered this sleeping medication and it helps me fall asleep SO much better at night than I have for years. I take this every night, and can’t live without it, so I carefully watch for sales on it as well. Last week I was thrilled to see a good one:

I bought four boxes, paid $29.96 minus a $1 off coupon I got from the magic coupon printer, and got back $10 ExtraCare Bucks, making it just $18.96 or $4.74 a box for my much needed-meds (over 40% off!)- plus I am stocked up for awhile now, which is awesome, because if Mama doesn’t sleep well, EVERYONE in the house feels it! And of course I can use that $10 ExtraCare Bucks on my next purchase just like cash.

The third and final must-have (THING 3!) for our household this season is allergy medicine. Joshua’s eyes blow up like two pink balloons and he sneezes and sniffles like a banshee every spring without his Claritin. We also love the CVS brand equivalent, but I happened to catch a good deal on these Claritin chewables last week, which Joshua prefers, so I went for it!

When I arrived at CVS, the Magic Coupon Machine printed me off a $2 off $10 allergy purchase coupon, and I already had a $3 Claritin manufacturer’s coupon, so I paid $14.99 and got 3 ExtraCare Bucks back, making my purchase over 40% off – plus since I paid in part with ExtraCare Bucks I already had, my actual out-of-pocket was just a couple of dollars. THAT’s the way to buy your must-haves, my friends!

One last thing that I LOVE about the ExtraCare program that is *new and fabulous*: you can now send ExtraCare offers (like those cool emails with $5/$30 purchase coupons and things like that) directly to your card! No more printing coupons off of your email! You can send them to your card directly from the email, or by viewing your available offers in the ExtraCare section of MyWeeklyAd on CVS.com (sadly I didn’t have any offers available this week, but if I did, you would see them here.)

I love this because it’s eco-friendly AND it’s great that I have less coupons to keep organized, less paper to tote around. This is an awesome ExtraCare feature, and just another great way I know I am going to be able to save on ALL THE THINGS we can’t live without at CVS.

What are the THINGS your household can’t live without, and what ways do you find of making them affordable? I’d love to hear in the comments!

 

This Shoppin’ It Up series is sponsored by CVS Extra Care. The content is 100% originally my own, as is my big love for all things CVS.
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So I’m not sure if we’ve mentioned it or not, but Jenny and I are spending this weekend in Atlanta for our third Mom 2.0 Summit. (I am being totally serious – I don’t know if we’ve talked about it. We typically can’t shut up about these things but this year it sneaked up on us!) We’ve both spent the week getting ourselves/homes/families ready for our departure, and in less than 24 hours we’ll be sitting poolside.

It would sound fantastic if I could only forget about the pre-trip to-do list that is most decidedly not done.

One thing I can mark off the list, though, is buying essential travel supplies. Thanks to a lunch-hour trip to CVS, I am ready to go.

The most obvious thing I needed to get was a prescription. I had a mild panic attack a couple days ago, when my medicine (the one I take five of per day, and the one I need in order to function) was running alarmingly low. I knew it wasn’t quite time for a refill, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get it filled before we left. I was able to breathe again upon remembering that I was going to Atlanta and not the Antartic and that there are CVS stores where I could get my prescription if necessary. Crisis averted.

You know what I love about CVS prescriptions? First of all, there’s an app to request refills. But even better than that, they text me when I have one to pick up – whether it’s on auto-refill and I get it once a month or it’s one I dropped off 15 minute before, I get a text when it’s ready.

Anyway, medicine aside, I picked up an odd and random assortment of other things I needed for my trip – and on this busy day, I was grateful for a one-stop-shop! And as an added bonus, I of course used my ExtraCare card where I always earn 2% back on all purchases I buy. Love it!

I hit the sunscreen aisle first, because last year Jenny and I both forgot to pack it and because we are both albino, we had to buy some from the gift shop at the Ritz. As you can imagine, that was reasonably priced.

I strolled through the travel-size aisle too, just to see what struck my fancy. It’s not such an issue this time because we are checking our bags, but the last time I flew with just a carry-on, I had to throw away my (very expensive and very full) bottles of mousse and hairspray because they were too big. Fortunately, CVS has small-size everything.

I bought miniature toothpaste, Advil, Tylenol PM (in case I can’t sleep at the hotel OR if I don’t want to listen to Jenny talk on the plane), and hand sanitizer (because airports).

I even grabbed a travel iPhone charger, because you can’t be too careful (which reminds me of the teenaged couple I saw in the “family planning” aisle, but that’s another story.)

After grabbing a few more must-haves, I was good to go.

I should add that there is one section of the store I completely skipped.

The make up aisle.

Clearly, Jenny had already cleaned them out.