I promised you a ninja-ing, and a ninja-ing you shall have!

Walgreens had a great ad this week for accumulating donation items.  They had Contac Cold and Flu for $6 with a $6 RR, and they had Colgate Sensitive toothpaste (seriously, why not Colgate Stoic?) for $3.49 with $3.50 RR.  Here's what I did.

Transaction 1:

Contac Cold and Flu medicine   $6.00
Royal Gelatin                             $0.20
Hydrogen Peroxide                    $0.33

Total:                                        $6.53

- $2 Contac coupon                 (2.00)
- $3.50 Colgate RR                 (3.50)
- $1.00 Crest RR                    (1.00)

= $0.03 + tax (0.45) = $0.48 out of pocket cost (OOP), receive $6 Contac RR

Transaction 2:

Colgate Sensitive                   $3.49
Crest Vivid Tootpaste           $2.99
Royal Gelatin                        $0.20
Hydrogen Peroxide               $0.33

Total:                                   $7.01

- $1.00 Colgate coupon      (1.00)
- $6.00 Contac RR             (6.00)

= $0.01 + tax (0.49) = $0.50 OOP, receive $3.50 Colgate RR and $1.00 Crest RR

Then, I just rolled back and forth between #1 and #2, and ended up with this!

We have taken over your kitchen....

and this!

...AND your dining room! (these are two separate donations)

So, for around $15, I was able to donate about $137 worth of stuff.  Almost all the cost was tax--if I can get to work with a specific charity that lets me buy things tax-free, this trip would have cost less than a dollar. 

For the mathematically inclined, that's a leverage factor of 9.13 (137/15), meaning that each dollar bought a little more than $9 worth of stuff.  That's pretty efficient, and really gets at the idea behind "leveraged philanthropy".

You may click to another site once your awe has diminished; in the meantime, be careful while driving or while operating heavy machinery.