I hate spending money on basic necessities like toiletries. It’s just one of those things that you have to do though. As I’m getting older, I’m finding the list of “basic necessities” is getting longer. I have a few different medical conditions that have developed over the last 10 years or so that require specialized “necessities”. I struggle with a very large number of allergies. My body fights and rejects so many things that my friends even refer to me as “Bubble Boy”. This creates various issues for me. I have to take an acid reducer and an allergy pill each day (which I buy from Costco at very low cost), have to use Cerave lotion every day to help minimize eczema and even have to use a specialized shampoo to keep the eczema from developing too much on my head. Some of these things are quite expensive. A 12 ounce bottle of Cerave runs $14.49 in the local drugstore. Since I have to use it every day, you can imagine that it gets quite expensive over a year’s time. The shampoo I use costs $18 a bottle at the same drugstore. Needless to say, I’m not a huge fan of spending the money on these types of things but they do help so it’s worth it to me.
In order to help keep these costs as low as possible, I’ve started shopping online for items like these. While some people might just set up an automatic subscription to Amazon, or drugstore.com, I’ve found doing that is nearly as expensive as buying it at my local store. I’ve been much more successful at periodically checking all the major drugstores online and then ordering larger quantities when I do find a good deal. Currently I have 15 bottles of the lotion in my cupboard and an extra bottle of the shampoo. This gives me about a 7-9 month supply on hand and gives me the ability to be flexible on when I buy additional bottles. By doing this, I’m saving roughly $4.50 per bottle as compared to just buying it at the store. Over a year’s time I probably save about $50-60. In the big scheme of things this seems like peanuts but I find it to be a fun challenge to minimize the costs and I actually save a lot of time compared to getting in the car and driving to the drugstore.
I was recently telling a friend of mine how I do this and got an interesting response. He shook his head and said, “Just buy the damn bottle at the store. Don’t be such a cheapskate!” I can’t say I was really surprised at his response. He has a much different approach to spending money. He buys what he wants, when he wants it with no regard to price. He says his time is too valuable to spend looking for the best deal on things. Oh well, I guess that helps explain why we are in vastly different financial situations.