Price Difference

I had never purchased Pepcid, the acid-control medication, until our vet suggested that it can function as an appetite stimulant in some dogs. It does seem to be working, at least mildly, so we'll keep giving it to the dog.

We finished the box of 30 tablets we bought a month ago, so today I went to get more. I discovered that the CVS-brand generic equivalent costs $8.79 for 30 10-milligram tablets, while the Target-brand generic equivalent costs $3.44 for the same amount and size of tablets. Why? That's roughly two and a half times as much, an outsized price difference.

It was worth it for me to leave CVS and get on the bus, then switch to a different bus to get to Target. CVS is putting so much effort into refashioning its stores into would-be walk-in clinics that maybe they aren't paying as much attention to their competition. I buy a lot less of my personal-car items there than I used to, because they are almost always cheaper at Target.