Today, Meijers had a 5% off grocery if you use their credit card. I happened to be in the area so I went. Checked out the organic coffee (not much to choose from) and bought 2 Newmans Own bags @ $5.63 each. Used my 10% off (first time purchase on my cc) and got the 5% off for the day on top of that! Good, right? Out of the Catalina machine pops a coupon for B1G1 Melitta Harvest coffee AND another coupon for $3 off Melitta Organic coffee! Holy smokes! Didn't even leave the store. Took my cart back to the coffee aisle and grabbed 2 Melitta organic coffees @ $6.63 ea. Let's just say that after I paid, oh, $3.xx for those 2 bags I headed straight for customer service and returned the Newman's Own coffee.

I really, really like Meijers.

I don't usually buy online but I received an email alert that Sear's has 10% off today so I checked out the site to see about their detergent. It is on sale for 50% off (they do this a few times each year) and I got the 10% off AND they have a rebate for free shipping!

Paid for it with a rebate CC (1%). The only thing I could have done better would have been to use Fatwallet cashback for another 2%. Oh well.

I was meaning to do something about the long distance charges on our phone bill.

After mom first got sick I took over the finances and discovered she was paying a fortune for the phone plans. The local/local toll plan I originally signed up for is still a good one. Something that is not offered today. The cost is about $40/mnth. The long distance plan however just doesn't pan out anymore. I thought we'd be making calls to Canada and finally came to the realization that I don't call anyone unless I absolutely have to! The long distance plan was costing $15.xx/mn without any actual long distance calls. The original intention was to dump it altogether and get One Suite, but old habits die hard. Convience won over and instead I changed over to a cheaper plan. It will be half of what we are now paying for the luxury of getting discount rates on the rare occasion that a long distance call is actually placed.

I just know I'll be revisiting this topic in another couple months or so.

Well, there's the good news and the bad news.

Good news: found another pharmacy with cheaper prices for my dogs' diabetes needs. Meijer pharmacy charges $12.99 for 100 syringes vs. $14.99 and $26.99 vs. $29.99 for the insulin. This means I will save about $90/yr by making this switch.

I did find out something new from the pharmacist: you can buy insulin w/out a scrip! If you use a scrip they will charge $28.97 vs. the no scrip price of $26.99! Now, how much "sense" does that make? The more I look into this prescription drug thing the more disgusted I get!

OK, now the bad news: Remember I became a AAA club member for their prescription card? For some reason (transposition of numbers?) the charge never went through. A call to AAA and questions about drug savings netted me NOTHING. In other words, they could not tell me exactly what kind of savings I could expect to see. Said each pharmacy determines the discount they want to give despite the AAA website claiming a savings of 15%-30%. I next called Costco pharmacy to feel them out and was told the MOST discount Costco would give was 10% on old drugs. Newer (expensive) drugs would get as low as 1% discount since the pharmacy makes a smaller profit. In the end I chose not to become a AAA member. Why pay for membership when there are free drug discount cards on the internet?

Is it me or am I losing my mind???