Making Extra Money - Part 2

This post could really be called 'Saving Money' but I figure that money I save is money made, so play along. Did you know that there is a price war going on and it provides you with the opportunity to save a TON of money? I would estimate that Britney and I have saved more than $400 (probably more than that) just this year. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the fight for your business between the major drug stores & pharmacies.

I mentioned this briefly in my post on coupons - but this is a big time opportunity to save a ton of money, so I thought I'd go into it in more detail. Take a look at this picture:



This picture is what's happening in the drugstore industry. Companies are in a fierce battle to get your prescription drug business and they're willing to pay you to get your prescriptions filled. The big three - Walgreens, CVS, and Rite-Aid are all putting out coupons which give you free gift cards for transferring prescriptions to their stores. CVS takes it one step further. They have coupons for free gift cards for transferred and/or NEW prescriptions.

So...how do you get these and what do you do with them? The only ones I find regularly in the Charlotte area are the Rite-Aid ones. They've been coming out in the Rite-Aid ad in the Sunday paper about once per month. I buy the rest of the ones I use on Ebay. They typically sell for about $3.00 for 4 coupons(something in that neighborhood). All you have to do to find them is go to Ebay and type 'CVS Coupon' or 'Walgreens Coupon' in the search field. You'll see tons of them listed.

The next step is easy. If you have a CVS coupon, call the closest CVS and tell them you want to transfer a prescription to them. Give them the information, they'll do the rest and then go pick up your medicine and your gift card (remember to take the coupon with you). Then (and here's the beauty of it), next month, transfer that same prescription to Rite-Aid or Walgreens, take a coupon, get a gift card from them. The following month, transfer it back to CVS, take a coupon, get another gift card. Repeat ad infinitum.

Now - some things to be aware of. Rite-Aid has small print on their coupons saying one per customer per six months. To get around that little issue, I use a different Rite-Aid every time - there are tons around here. They're not connected with each other (at least not to the point where they can tell if you've used a coupon or not) so it works like a charm. Also, pay attention when you're buying these on Ebay. You want ones that have expiration dates out into the future at least a couple of weeks because it takes some time for them to get to you. Finally, some grocery store chains are doing this too. I've seen (and used) at least three Bi-Lo coupons in the last six months. They typically are in the newspaper - but you can find them on Ebay as well.

When we started doing this in January, we dubbed it "Operation Never Pay for Diapers" - it's not been that successful, but pretty close! Enjoy!