Live Real, Now

The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

Search Results for: slow-carb-diet-how-to-avoid-going-bat-crazy/living-the-xbox-life-on-an-atari-income/future-dreams/medical-costs-and-choices/three-alternatives-to-a-budget/first-3-things-to-do-in-the-new-year/financial-pet-peeve-fees-to-receive-paper-bank-statements/contact-me/4-ways-we-keep-wasting-money

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-01

Misc

  • RT @Dave_Champion Obama asks DOJ to look at whether AZ immigration law is constitutional. Odd that he never did that with #Healthcare #tcot #
  • RT @wilw: You know, kids, when I was your age, the internet was 80 columns wide and built entirely out of text. #
  • RT @BudgetsAreSexy: RT @FinanciallyPoor "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." ~ Unknown #
  • Official review of the double-down: Unimpressive. Not enough bacon and soggy breading on the chicken. #
  • @FARNOOSH Try Ubertwitter. I haven't found a reason to complain. in reply to FARNOOSH #
  • Personal inbox zero! #
  • Work email inbox zero! #
  • StepUp3D: Lame dancing flick using VomitCam instead or choreography. #
  • I approve of the Nightmare remake. #Krueger #

Cheap Drugs – How I Saved $25 in 3 Minutes

Finance

Drugs are bad, mmmkay?
Image by cackhanded via Flickr

Today, I stopped by the grocery store to pick up a couple of prescriptions.  I always get the generics, because they are less than half the price of the name-brands, while still being chemically identical. That’s not what I’m talking about, although it did save me about $75 today.

When the pharmacist rang up my medications, the total came up to $35.   That just wasn’t right.

Many chain pharmacies have gone to a cheap pricing model for generic drugs.  That usually means $4-6 per monthly prescription.  Cub Foods doesn’t have that.

So I asked for the price match.

Cub Foods matches prices on generics with whatever large pharmacy is nearby.  In this case, they matched Target’s prices, bringing the price from $35 to $10.   Instant $25 savings. I just had to wait for them to look up my prescriptions in their match-book.

Pharmacies with cheap generics:

K-Mart offers a 3 month supply for $15.

Target and Wal-Mart both have a 30-day supply for $4.

Publix offers a 14-day prescription for some antibiotics for free.  That’s insane! It’s also a heckuva way to get people in the door.  “Why don’t you shop for half an hour while I fill your scrip?”

If your pharmacy is anywhere near any of these stores, call and ask if they’ll match the price for generic drugs.

A few tips:

Before you go get your cheap drugs, call ahead and make sure what you need is on the cheap list.   Don’t assume.

You won’t be able to use your insurance to buy the cheap generics.   The overhead in insurance processing would mean that the pharmacies would be operating at a loss for each prescription.  You can’t make that up in volume.    Between our copays and deductibles, it’s far cheaper to just pay the generic price without involving the insurance company.

Don’t be afraid of generics.  It’s not like Nike.  Generics are chemically identical to the name brands. There are two differences: the price and the letter stamped on the side of the pill.

The stores offering cheap drugs are generally bigger stores hoping to use the drugs as a loss leader.    Places like Walgreens or CVS make up to 70% of their profits from the pharmacy.  They can’t stay open treating that as a loss leader.

How do you save money on prescriptions?