A Source for Gift Cards

I love gift cards. More than that - I love FREE gift cards. Is there anything better? Many stores that have pharmacies offer free gift cards with a value of $10-$25 for a new or transferred prescription. Over the past year I have acquired over $150 in gift cards from Target and our local grocery/pharmacy store. One thing I do recommend though is that you have all the prescriptions for an individual be at ONE pharmacy. The reason for that is because a lot of medications can interact with other meds. If you have prescriptions filled for yourself (or another individual in your family) and you don't fill them at the same pharmacy then pharmacist can't know if you are on something that will interact with the medication you are currently trying to fill.

That said, if you do have multiple pharmacies running a program for free gift cards with a new prescription and you have a second family member that is on medications you can take that persons prescriptions to the 2nd pharmacy to take advantage of their gift card program.

I am currently on 2 medications that I have to take daily. One of these has to be written by the doctor and hand delivered to the pharmacy and had to be filled with a new prescription each month. (No using the new and handy software programs for filling prescriptions with this one!) So I have the potential of earning $120 a year just with this prescription. My daughter is also on 2 prescriptons daily for her allergies.

This last year we saved our gift cards and used them to complete a good portion of our Christmas shopping. Although we did use about $30 worth of them to buy our child's jeans for school.

Sometimes the pharmacies will have printable coupons on their websites, often though the coupon is only in a printed advertisement for them. Some stores that offer gift cards for prescriptions are Target, Shopko, Walgreens, CVS, Hy-vee, Rite Aid, & Kmart. There may be others, these are just the one's that come to mind.

I filled a prescripton today and picked up our first $10 gift card for the new year. This will be put away for Christmas shopping next year. It's never too early to start saving up for Christmas is it?!?

Stock up on Gifts

A couple days ago I had to go to the local Wal-mart to pick up a few things. As I walked to the various departments to find what I needed I noticed many clearance racks throughout the store. What a great time to start picking items needed for gifts throughout the year!

Everything from clothes to toys to household goods were on clearance. I was able to pick up a couple shirts from April for $1 each which will fit her this year and most likely next winter also.

I love to hit huge clearance sales like this. It gives me a chance to replenish my "Oh crap I need a quick gift and don't have time to shop" drawer. I keep a decent variety of items in this drawer for various occasions, along with some wrapping paper, colored bags, tissue paper, and small blank cards. I try to stay away from bags and cards that are occasion-specific so I can use them for ALL occasions. I usually pick up the bags and wrapping after Christmas. Red, green, blue, gold, and silver are top colors at Christmas and are great colors for any occasion and age. I do stay away from anything that looks too Christmas-y. Keep in mind though that you can add stickers and ribbon to your package to make it look less like a gift that was forgotten under the tree.

Here is a list of things that I like to keep on hand: candles, pretty journals or notebooks, spreaders w/ decorative small plates, books (good for various ages), puzzles, coloring books w/ crayons

Toys are one thing that it's pretty hard to stock up on because the "what's hot" toys change constantly. Although you are almost always safe buying Barbies for girls and superhero figures for boys. Another good choice to pick up for your "emergency stash" is games - if you come across a great deal anyway.