Friday, February 12, 2010

Spending RRs

I'm loving WAGS a little this week. A few days ago I earned $23 in RRs, and have spent $20 of it on things I would have had to buy eventually anyways.

Trans #1:
4 Progresso Soups ($5/4 with In-Ad coupon)
2 Quaker Instant Oatmeal boxes ($5/2)
3 Lindsey Olives ($0.99 ea with In-Ad coupon)
Subtotal: 12.97
-2*$0.50/2 Progresso Coupons
-$1/1 Quaker Instant Oatmeal
-$10 RR (from nyquil/dayquil)
Total: $0.97 OOP

Trans #2
Valentines card for DBF $2.49
Valentines card for Dear Mom $3.99
4 Progresso Soups ($5/4 with In-Ad coupon)
Subtotal: 11.48
-2*$0.50/2 Progresso Coupons
-2 $5 RRs (from Theraflu and Sudafed)
Total: $0.48+ $0.63 tax = $1.11 OOP

The Progresso Q's were from the 1/3 inserts, the Quaker from a February insert. A slight word of caution- be sure to check the best by dates on the canned goods before you buy- mine all are sometime in 2011 but since WAGS may not move a whole lot of this kind of stuff it's definately something to watch out for.

Happy Hounding!
Annathy

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Getting Creative with FSA

Okay, not SUPER creative (after all, I have to follow the rules... I don't have any plans to anger the tax man). But really, anyone else overestimate their health expenses for their benefit year? Yeah, me too. Getting my wisdom teeth out cost about $300 less than I was expecting, and switching from a PPO to an HMO last year about halved my prescription costs. Both of these things are great, but I have to be sure I spend that money on something else now since FSA funds are use it or lose it!

I've decided to stock up on over-the-counter items, which is totally OK to do provided the products are for me (and they are). For the getting creative part, I'm doing it with products at WAGS, CVS, and RA that somehow reward you so that I can lower my OOP for groceries. My FSA program is pretty good about completing reimbursements quickly, so any OOP for those will come back to me soon enough for me to dismiss that cost. After all, the moola has already been deducted from my checks, so it's already gone no matter if I use it or not.

This week there are several RR deals on medicine at Walgreens, and I've done:
NyQuil/Dayquil: Spend $20 get $10RR. Well, spend $22.45, get $10RR since the prices don't permit you to hit $20 on the nose. With enough $1.50/1 Q's from the 2/7 P&G this would have been a fantastic price (I only had 1 Q, but it was still pretty good)
Sudafed/Tylenol Cold: Spend $15, get $5RR. Again, you have to spend more than that (19.96 actually) since the prices are $4.99 each. This annoyed me a touch, but I use Sudafed regularly when the weather goes wakky. Plus, the Q's out are for $3/2 (from the 1/4 inserts).
BenGay (or Tylenol): Buy 2 ($9.98 total), get $3RR. BenGay has $2/1 Q's in the 1/4 insert, which makes these way cheaper than usual.
Theraflu/Triaminic: Buy 2 ($10 total), get $5RR. There are $1.50 Q's out for each.

To sum it up, my transaction went like this:
5 Nyquil/Dayquil * $4.49 each
4 Sudafed/Tylenol Cold * 4.99 each
2 BenGay * 4.99 each
2 Theraflu/Triaminic * $5 each
-$1.50 Nyquil Q
-$1.50 Thereaflu Q
-$1.50 Triaminic Q
-$2 BenGay Q
-$2 BenGay Q
-$3 Sudafed/Tylenol Cold Q
-$3 Sudafed/Tylenol Cold Q

With tax my total came to right around $53, all of which will be reimbursed from my FSA fund. In return, I got $23 in RR that I can now spend on groceries, etc. I'm pretty excited about the Progresso and Quaker being on sale this week, but we'll see what I end up getting. Thanks for reading, and happy hounding!