I grew up in a family where my parents sat at the kitchen table every morning, drinking coffee and reading the morning paper. Well, and my mother smoked her cigarettes, but that’s not something I want to talk about. Nasty things, they will kill you. Anyway, it was a natural for me to subscribe to the daily newspaper once I graduated from college, and I have every day of my adult life. These days, I tend to read the paper at odd times of the day, sometimes in the mornings, sometimes afternoons, and sometimes I just skip it and will pile them up for days, before I finally sit down for one long massive newspaper reading session.
Sunday papers are different though. I love to read them in the mornings and look at all the ads and coupons. That’s my favorite part of the paper, and my favorite paper of the week is the Sunday version. I love me some retail. Target ads are always my favorite, but I love all the electronics stores ones, the craft and chain department store ones, and various and sundry other ad supplements. Now that I’ve learned to drink coffee, I love to get a big mug of coffee and work my way through all the ads and coupons on Sunday morning.
What I do not get, though, are the drug store ads. Every Sunday, my paper comes with an ad for CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens. Every.Single.Week. We have a joke around here that if a new building is going up on a corner, it’s got to either be a drugstore or a bank. They are very prolific where I live, these drugstores. Many of them are open 24×7 and I realize that a lot of people frequent them. Mostly, people who have kids, who are constantly needing medicine, band-aids, benadryl, cough syrup, etc. We’re not “those” kind of people though, and I can honestly say that I rarely, if ever, walk in a chain drugstore. I buy all my drugs, household supplies, etc at either Walmart, Target or the grocery store. I can probably count on one hand how many times I’ve walked into a CVS, Walgreen’s or Rite Aid of my own need in the last 10 years. So, every Sunday, I toss those circulars right out. Never even glance at them.
Just wondering if others are like that, or am I in the small minority?
P.S. I know my sister Suzanne will enjoy this post, her job is newspaper advertising. Blah! Go for it Suzie, comment away!
I get the paper too and read it but….didn’t get one today and I’m NOT happy about it! I feel cheated when I don’t get it! And when I call about it, I only get an automated thing that has you entering info, the machine pulls up your acct and says they will extend your subscription! I want my paper not an extension, which is a joke because now the Clarion Ledger has us on like a bank draft, so they are getting their money no matter what! I CAN’T STAND not to get my paper!
sorry (:
I grew up reading the paper every day. But we don’t subscribe now because our newspaper really sucks. My mom still gets it but she keeps threatening to cancel because it’s just not worth it. The only reason I would read is for local news, and by now they’ve pretty much minimized that to a single page. The rest is just days-old global/sports/gossip news that I’ve already seen online.
I DO miss the ads, though. I used to look through them every Sunday, too. I miss knowing if anything I need might be on sale somewhere.
We’re still working on the coffee thing. My husband tried to drink it at work. He couldn’t stop complaining about how gross it was. The next morning, he couldn’t bring himself to have it again, so he had a soda instead. I would just as soon drink water first thing in the morning. But it seems so inconvienent to NOT drink coffee. People think you’re a freak. Apparently I still have the taste buds of a 10-year-old, because I would MUCH rather drink a Coke or hot chocolate than a beer or coffee.
I also attack the ads in Sunday’s paper. However, I do go into Walgreens quite often. We have 3 of them in my relatively small town – ridiculous. However, like you, I buy most of my things in Walmart or Target – way less expensive.
It is absolutely like that here as well. I was reading my Sunday newspaper this morning and Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS had their usual ads mixed in with the Kmart and other ads we get on Sundays.
Thanks for the Blog Stacy on my profession.
Walgreens is trying hard to go after the “front of the store” kind of items, and will routinely discount milk to get you in, a “lost leader” kind of thing. So look for that.
We just recently sold Target into full circulation into our newspaper, so we will make some happy Sunday subscribers.
As for you, Gail, call them anyway and tell them you want a paper redelivered, if they do that there, and at least a credit !!
Don’t let them get away with it!!
Now I have to go read another Sunday paper, we get 3 here !
We aren’t subscribing currently, but often times I stop and get a Sunday paper. I love to look at all of the ads. I even read the classified section and look at all of the ads for “free puppies” and such that people do.
We seem to have a hundred thousand Walgreens, CVS, and such as well, but even though I have a small child, I think that it has been over a year since I went into a drug store-I always get that kind of stuff at Wal-Mart or Target, too.
Me, too! Me, too! 😀 I love the Sunday ads, too. It’s a weekly ritual. Target is also my very favorite.
We have the Walgreens/CVS epidemic here, also…they’re everywhere. We also rarely go to one.
The only reason we do go into one is whenever they have a sale on Cokes, which is fairly often and they’re usually good sales (this is the only reason I look at their weekly ads, as well–to see if any of them have a Coke sale! 🙂 ). More rarely, I’ll go in to look at their makeup because they have a much wider selection than Walmart does. That’s about it. Like you said, everything else is bought at Walmart or Target, even the emergency kid supplies.
I love the classifieds, too. I always check the lost & found, just in case there’s a lost pet in my area that I can be on the lookout for.
Wow. This makes me feel like the newspaper nemesis or something. I never read the newspaper. Never have, and probably never will. Maybe I’m missing out on something? I don’t really think so, though…at least not these days with the Internet. That’s where I get 90% of my news.
As for the drugstore thing, I hardly ever actually go into the drugstore, but I do go through the drive-thru of my local CVS to get my prescriptions. Everything else that I could by in there comes from good ol’ Wal-Mart.
I have a friend who LOVES Walgreens, though. Every time I ask her, “Where did you get this?”, she says “Walgreens, $1.99” or something like that. 🙂
…..I love me some retail. Me too!
Okay, you are stirring up memories as always Stacy! We lived in a small town, and didn’t have a “local” daily paper available to us. My parent’s subscribed to the local paper, but it only came out on Wednesdays. She would however drive 8 miles into town and buy a Sunday paper from a news stand every Sunday morning. We would sit at the table, and as my mom smoked her cig and drank a coke for breakfast we would pilfer through the paper. As a child I loved the funnies from the Sunday paper, b/c they were in color!
Now that I am all grown up things have changed. I rarely read the comics. We used to subscribe to the paper daily, but I really got depressed reading the news during my lunch every day, and decided to subscribe to the weekend package only. (BTW, if you pay for 6 months at a time you get a discount card good for 20% off at local restaurants, what a deal!) I LOVE the store ads in the Sunday paper. We sit down and have a nice breakfast at the table while we go through the paper. Alan likes the “Come and get it section” and we have gotten some really neat things for free.
My favorita ads are: Michael’s, JoAnn’s, Garden Ridge, Target, Wal-mart, Walgreen’s, and CVS. I realize the last two are not your favorite. I don’t care for the type of ad that they print, in that the paper is not flashy and shiny like all of the other ads, but… I am a photo nut, and they both run specials on digital prints all of the time. Plus the soda discounts are great. You would also be surprised to find out that they tend to have cheaper movie prices when the movies are first released. We have gotten many a bargain on brand new releases at the CVS on the corner. Also, they have some of the greatest sales after holidays. My mother once purchased a Christmas tree, one of the store displays, with all of the trimmings still attached, for $50! There was at least $250 worth of trimmings on that tree.
If you don’t want to go to CVS or Walgreen’s you can take their ads to Wal-mart where they will match the price of most sale items, but for me, CVS is just up the street.
Susie, My mom is the same way. I will find some random thing that she has, and she of course got it at Walgreen’s in the $1 bin. hahaha
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