Coupons, Part III: Pharmacy

The pharmacy is a strange, hard, but sometimes very rewarding place. Number one rule: Go in with a plan and do not deviate. Let me back up... I guess I began at the end.

To start with, like I have said before, I only choose one pharmacy to watch. You can watch all of them if you aren't consumed with a job and/or have a one year old hanging on your leg all day. My choice is CVS simply because they were (and still are! Yay!) the closest to my house.

I begin by pulling their ad from the Sunday paper. You can also check in on {Southern Savers} and probably their website, but I really like having the paper copy in front of me as well. As with groceries, I check on {Southern Savers} to see what sales match with coupons that I have. Now, as you probably know, most items are marked way up at pharmacies, so you need to either have a written down list of the highest price you will pay on items (I have one from {Grocery University}), or just have a good idea of what good prices are.

Where you are really going to benefit from shopping at pharmacies, though, is from their "Extra Bucks." Each pharmacy calls it something different, but they all have something similar. You buy a product for X amount and you get Y amount back in store credit. At CVS, most weeks they will have an item for "free"... where you get the same amount back in store credit as you bought it for. The great part about this is that you can also use a coupon on this item. Thus, If you buy a "free" item that is $5 and use a $1 coupon... you are paying $4 and getting $5 in store credit. It happens quite a bit. You can turn around and use the store credit on a second transaction or you can save it for next time and use it on another Extra Care Buck item. If you keep "buying" these items with store credit that you receive store credit for, then you will essentially get things for free every week.

I don't always want the "free" things, and you probably won't either. Most of the time I spend my ECBs on items that I needed anyway... when paired with coupons it all comes out really great. I've gotten lots of free or near-free toothpaste, razors, soap, paper towels, etc.

Here are my rules for shopping the pharmacy:

• As with groceries, have and stick to the budget. Only buy what we normally use. 
• Make a plan before going (One transaction or two? What coupons do I use? What happens if they are out of this item?)
• Do not deviate from plan. A lot of times CVS will have something like: buy $25 of these selected items and get $5 ECB. By stacking coupons on the items, it can be a really good deal. However, it never seems to fail that at least one of the items I plan on buying is out of stock. In this case, I either have a back up plan (something else that I have coupons for) or scrap the whole deal. I'm telling you that if you try to substitute on the spot you will end up spending more than you need for these items. These are rarely great deals without coupons. 

I think that's all I have to share on coupons for now. As with everything else, I'm still growing and learning in how to be the best steward with our money... so I'm anything but an expert on this. My main goal has been to take care of our home and family well within our budget.

What about you? Any treasures of wisdom you would like to share on how to stay in your budget with groceries?