Smart Spending: Fabulous Drug Store Deals

Do you remember what you spent on your last tube of toothpaste? Was it on sale or did you pay full price (gasp!). The average tube of name brand toothpaste is $3.00. That is about $3.00 too much for me! I can’t remember the last time I paid more than a few cents for toothpaste, toothbrushes, shampoo, deodorant, or body wash. Don’t be alarmed – our family still uses all of those items daily. In fact, not only do I find fantastic deals on health and beauty products, but many of the best deals are for higher priced national brand products. Smart spenders know that many national drug store chains offer excellent buys on health and beauty items through in-store promotions and rebates. The secret is to use these promotions to stock up and never pay full price again.

Drug stores chains including CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens offer rebate promotions that result in free and almost free products every week. Each chain has weekly and monthly deals that include rebates on name brand items as well as store brand products. The weekly sales begin on Sundays and end on Saturdays. Last week, hand sanitizer was free after rebate at Walgreens. Colgate toothpaste and Lady Speed Stick deodorant were only 13 cents at Rite Aid using manufacturer’s coupons. By combining sales and coupons, Schick women’s razors are free this week at CVS.

With different store promotions offered each week, your best bet is to choose those deals that appeal to you most. Nobody wants to drive all around town looking for every deal. Focus on the great buys for your family’s needs. The more flexible you are with brands, the more money you will save. If you are willing to use Crest, Colgate and Aquafresh, for example, chances are good you will be able to buy at least a couple free tubes per month. Even if you are somewhat brand loyal, you will still find many good deals on the brands you love with these promotions.

Following is a description of the rebate promotions for Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS. To see the weekly and monthly promotions for each store, go to their websites at www.cvs.com, www.walgreens.com, and www.riteaid.com. Sale ads and rebate booklets are available at your local store, as well. If you are not sure which of these stores is in your town, go to the store websites and click on store locator. Enter your zip code and you will see a list of the stores closest to you.

Walgreens offers a traditional rebate program. They publish the monthly Easy Saver Catalog rebate booklet. Buy the promotional items listed in the catalog, send in the rebate form and receipt and receive a check in the mail. You can also request your rebate in the form of a Walgreens gift card and they will add an additional 10% of your rebate amount on to the gift card. If your rebate amount for the month is $20 and you choose to receive your rebate on a Walgreens gift card, they will add an additional $2 (10% of $20) for a total rebate of $22. Then, each month, you pay for your rebate items using your Walgreens gift card you earned from the rebates in the previous month. This is called “rolling” your gift card so you have very little out of pocket expense from month to month. You simply use the gift card from the last month’s rebates to pay for the current rebate items. You send in the rebate form for the month all at once and there is one rebate per household per month. Easy Saver Rebate Catalogs can be seen online at http://www.walgreens.com/store/rebateclub.jsp and can be found in the store.

Rite Aid also offers a traditional rebate program with a rebate booklet that shows the available rebate deals. The biggest difference is that you can request your rebate online at https://riteaid.rebateplus.com/ instead of sending it in via snail mail. You can also check your rebate status at anytime from the Rite Aid website. Rite Aid just bought out Eckerd and Brooks and they are currently changing over those stores to Rite Aid stores.

CVS has a fantastic rebate program that offers ECB’s (Extra Care Bucks) instead of a cash rebate. ECB’s are CVS store coupons that print out at the end of a qualifying sale and can be used to purchase almost anything in the store (except prescriptions, stamps, tobacco and a few other items). For example, Aquafresh Advanced toothpaste was on sale last week for $2.99. There is also an ECB August monthly promotion that offers $2.99 in ECB’s when you buy one of the Aquafresh Advanced toothpaste tubes. If you use the $2.00 Aquafresh Advanced manufacturer’s coupon from the 7/08/07 Sunday newspaper, you will pay 99 cents plus tax for your toothpaste. At the end of the sale, on the bottom of your receipt, you will then receive your $2.99 ECB coupon. The smart CVS shopper will then turn around and “roll” that ECB into another ECB deal to earn more ECB’s lowering the out of pocket expense. Recently, CVS also offered a $20 ECB when you bought $20 of Kraft, Nabisco and other products. So, if you bought $20 in qualifying products (such as Planters peanuts, DiGiorno pizza, Post cereals, Wheat Thins), a $20 ECB coupon printed out at the end of your receipt that can be spent on anything in the store. You also earn $1 in ECB’s for every 2 prescriptions that are filled at CVS. For a much more in depth tutorial of CVS ECB’s see Hot Coupon World at http://hotcouponworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28157.

Remember to read all the rebate details before buying an item at any store. Make sure the rebate is still valid and that you are purchasing the correct brand and size. When filling out rebate forms, be sure to follow all the directions on the form including circling rebate prices on the receipt or enclosing UPC’s. Whenever you are sending in any rebates to drug stores or manufacturer’s, make sure you keep a copy of all the information you sent. If your rebate is lost in the mail or there is a dispute, you will need the copies. Most drug store rebates take 4-8 weeks to receive except the weekly ECB’s from CVS, which print immediately.

Now it is time to take a look at your weekly sales flyers and rebate booklets and discover what you can purchase for pennies this week.