Save Money on Drugs by Buying Generic

I've covered this before -- that you can save tons of money by buying generic medicines -- but I recently ran into two new articles on the subject that I wanted to share with you, so here we go again.

The first piece highlights the fact that generic drugs are the same thing and are as safe as brand name drugs:

Due to the marketing muscle of the large consumer products companies that manufacture brand-name drugs such as Benadryl, Zantac and Cortaid, many consumers harbor the mistaken notion that such brands are safer and more reliable than their off-brand siblings.

Not so, says Findlay, who notes that "the same regulations apply to the manufacturers of off-brand, over-the-counter medications as apply to brand medications. The FDA regulates both in a fairly rigorous way."

What consumers don't realize is that in many cases, the brand-name and off-brand drug may be produced in the same factory, just placed in different boxes. So a store-brand bottle of pain-relieving ibuprofen may come from the same manufacturer as the brand-name ibuprofen.

Yep. It's the same stuff. It works just the same. Believe me. I buy generic allergy medicine, pain relievers, muscle rubs, etc. all the time and they work great. And they cost a TON less than their brand name counterparts. I usually get the Equate brand at Walmart and I can easily save 25-40%, but I usually save much more.

The second piece says the key to picking the exact duplicate of the brand name you want to substitute for is to know the active ingredient. Bankrate has a list of 18 drugs and their active ingredients.

All I do is look on the Equate package. It will say something like "Compare to Tylenol Extra Strength Allergy." Then look at the ingredients on both of them -- I've always found them to be exactly the same, an easy way to get the same product and yet save a ton of money.

Comments

[Curtis]

It goes well beyond this. Buy generic food also. I used to work for a company the manufactured and sold generic foods. You'd be amazed at how much name brand product is made in the same factory and just packaged in the name brand box!