I had posted this when my website first started up, but I figured it would be a good idea to repost some of these store policies while I am on vacation. Enjoy!

Single Check Rebates
Rite Aid was the first store where I learned to save money. Rite Aid has a very easy to use program called Single Check Rebates. The first week that I went to Rite Aid they had $144 of free products on sale. While I have not seen that many free items duplicated, they still often have several free items each week. With this program you do pay cash up front and you are refunded your money later. This is how their program works:

Look at the ads, or on my blog, at the free or almost free items Rite Aid is offering. I usually post these deals on Saturday before the sale starts on Sunday so you can get your coupons together.

Example:

Rite Aid has a sale where a razor is $5 and the store offers a single check rebate for that item for $5. In this case, you would buy the razor for $5, pay the $5 and save the receipt. When you get home, go to riteaid.com, go to the bottom of the screen for single check rebates, sign up for their program and enter your receipt. Make sure that you pay attention to what you are buying, how many ounces etc so that you purchase the correct item for the rebate. At the end of the month, submit for payment and wait for your check.

Submit Your Receipts Once a Month
You can only submit your receipts once each month. Make sure that you are finished shopping at Rite Aid for the month so that you can get all of your single check rebates back. A wonderful thing about Rite Aid is that you have time at Rite Aid to submit your receipts. As an example, April savings ran from March 27, 2009 to April 23, 2009, but you had until May 25, 2009 to enter all of your receipts. Just make sure that you keep up with your receipts so you don’t end up paying for something and not getting your money back.

Real Life Example of Saving Money
This really does work. The first time that I bought the $144 of free items, my husband was convinced that it was too good to be true. I promised him I would not open any of the items and kept them in the bag with my receipt, so that I could return them if I did not get my check, but sure enough we got the check for the correct amount. Also, many of these items we did not technically need at the time since some of them were cold medicines. However, it was wonderful when cold season rolled around and we did not have to go to the store to purchase medicine, because we already had it for free.

How to save even more money on your budget with this program
Say you have a coupon for $3 off of that same razor that was $5. Use the coupon when you check out, pay $2 plus tax. When you input your receipt, you can request your check for $5 even though you only paid $2 out of pocket. This means that you got a free razor + $3 back. You just got paid to shop. I love budget saving deals like this.

To access their coupon policy, click here. Thanks, Deal Seeking Mom!