I am a recent convert to shopping at the major pharmacies.  In the past I have always found their prices to be majorly inflated.  As a result I only focus on the bargains that are available each week, and what bargains they are.

The three major pharmacies in the States are CVS, Walgreen’s, and Rite Aid.  Every Sunday these three stores change  the promotions they are running and they have a good number of month long promotions.  The two that are similar in the way they run their bargains are Walgreen’s and Rite Aid.  Both of these do a lot of mail in rebates. Many times you get a rebate that makes the item free and then you have a coupon that actually ends up making money for you on the deal.  This is great if you are willing to keep up with all the mail-in rebates and make sure that you get reimbursed.  Personally, I hate mail-in rebates.  Something always seems to go wrong for me.  Usually I have to fight to get the rebate back and it works about 50% of the time.  This has not been my experience with either of these companies in particular, because I just don’t want the hassle of the mail-in rebate.  The upside for me is that both of these companies run sales that are instant off also.  So from time to time I stop in and take advantage of the deals.  I have gotten soap, razors and tylenol recently all for 80% off or more.

My favorite of the three is definately CVS.  Why? no mail-in rebates.  Instead CVS has chosen to use a rewards card style of promotions.  You sign up for the CVS extra care card.  Every time you purchase something at CVS you scan your card, this qualifies you for the promotions for that week.  With every purchase 2% of what you buy goes into an account.   At the end of each quarter the 2% prints out as CVS Extra Bucks (works just like a gift certificate).  This sounds pretty good but the 2% is only the gravy it isn’t the meat of the deal.  The meat comes every week with extra bucks promotions.  The way these work are that you purchase an item or group of items and you will be rewarded with a specific number of extra bucks that print off instantly on the receipt.  So when I purchased sofsoap body wash for $4.99 I got a corresponding $4.99 in extra bucks on my receipt.  The bucks spend just like money the next time you come in.  So after paying full price the first time for a few items I have been able to use my extra bucks to purchase items that produce more extra bucks.  Since my first visit I haven’t spent more than $5 at a CVS store and have bought tons of practical items that I would normally buy at the regular grocery store.  In my last three visits I used coupons on top of the extra bucks promotion and ended up making money.  So now I am up to $18 in extra bucks just waiting for the next good promotion.

The best part about the pharmacies is you do not have to do any work to find what the best deal is.  Couponmom.com gives you a free list every week of all the deals available at these stores.

I hope this series on how I save on my food bills has been very helpful to you and will save everyone money over the long haul.  Now if I could just get my brother,”black sheep,” on this plan.