100 Frugal Tips in 100 Days: Tip # 78

Tip # 78 Play the drugstore game!

Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and CVS all have "rewards" programs that, if you play your cards right, allow you to get tons of household and health/beauty items for free! Money Saving Mom has a great post here on how to get started at any of these stores. You definitely have to stay on top of things, as many of the "reward coupons" expire, so I would suggest picking one of these stores and sticking to it. Juggling 2 or 3 can be very, very time consuming! This post also has links to helpful hints for each of the stores.

Many frugal bloggers do most of the work for you, they list out all of the sales for the week with matching coupons and where you can find them. They also will sometimes work out some deal scenarios for you. You have to be careful though, because sometimes the scenarios have you buying like ten of a certain item which means you may have to have ten coupons for that item, which isn't entirely realistic.

The other thing you have to be careful about is if your drugstore will take certain coupons or certain deals. My advice is to proceed with caution with certain deals, and don't bank on your cashier allowing you to do the deal.