Today I have a simple hack to help you save money on allergy medicine.
Let me start by establishing some credibility: I have bad allergies.
I’ve had sinus surgery and the underlying issue is partially due to my bad allergies. After my sinus surgery I went to an allergist and found out I was allergic to 92% of the most common allergens in my home state, Minnesota.
I’ve been taking allergy medicine daily for years now.
There are two types of allergy medicines. Allegra or Claritin do not contain pseudoephedrine, which is the decongestant that is typically paired with an antihistamine; AllegraD and ClaritinD do, though. Unfortunately this is also used to produce meth so you need to get over-the-counter.
AllegraD and ClaritinD 24 hour tablets typically cost over $1 per pill, and that’s after a coupon. A 10-pack can sometimes be priced as high as $18-$20. A $3-$5 coupon helps, but you are still paying over $1 per pill.
If you took one of these AllegraD or ClaritinD tablets every day you would pay roughly $365 a year. Have another allergy sufferer in your family? You may be paying $730 a year, minimum for these drugs. Drugs that do not count towards your health insurance deductible. Crazy!
What about generics? There are some antihistamine + pseudoephedrine generic drugs that are comparable to AllegraD or ClaritinD, but they aren’t available at every store. Even when they are, you are typically looking at $10 minimum for a 10-pack of 24 hour tablets. That still comes out to $1 per day.
The Money-Saving Allergy Medicine Hack
I have to credit a pharmacist for offering advice on a different approach that could save us money.
It’s super simple: buy the antihistamine and pseudoephedrine separately.
Generic pseudoephedrine runs about $5 for a 20 tablet, 12-hour pack. That’s $0.50 per day.
A 70-tablet pack of 24-hour Claritin at Target costs $34.99.
Wait a minute. That’s also about $0.50 per day. When you combine the two we are right back at $1 per day. What gives?
Well, the key is to not buy a name-brand antihistamine.
If you go to this product on Amazon you can see that a full-year’s worth of antihistamine tablets is just $16.99. For me it’s showing as $12.99, which translates to $0.04 per tablet or day.
So let’s compare the two. You can pay $1 per day, minimum, or you can pay ~$0.54 a day.
$365 vs. $197. A savings of $168 a year.
Remember this is the minimum. In many cases you will be paying closer to $1.50 per day per tablet if you are going with the name brand antihistamine + pseudoephedrine.
For anyone suffering allergies I recommend using this hack to save money. There’s no reason to pay more for the same product.
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Wow! I thought getting them at Costco was vastly better than other options, but that pricing on amazon is a slam dunk in comparison.