Right now if you asked me about doing rebates, I'd say never again. But after I've forgotten the pain I know I'll be ready to do it again--kind of like childbirth, from what I hear.

Sunday we weren't doing much, so I thought I'd go out and buy what I needed for several rebates due in this month. I've lost track of how many stops I made, trying to find all the items I was looking for. I haven't even entered what I spent yet, because the number of transactions and receipts feels overwhelming. It's one thing to do a rebate for a single item. What's really driving me bonkers are the ones where you need a certain number of products, or a certain dollar amount of stuff from one parent company. Here are some examples:

*Underwood deviled ham, 10 cans for 2 movie tickets. A lot of people must be doing this one, because everywhere I go, they are very low on deviled ham. So I couldn't buy them all in one place.
*Unilever, spend $15 for a $5 KMart gift card. The prices at KMart itself were way too high, so I planned to get everything at Target (it's supposed to work no matter where you buy the products.) I figured very carefully, but my total at Target came to just under $15. So I had to remember and buy a jar of Ragu somewhere else, and keep another receipt.
*Walgreens, $15 on P&G products to get a beauty product sampler and a $10 Walgreens gift card. It's unclear whether it can be any P&G products or just beauty and personal care. They say different things in different flyers. So I figured I get all Clairol products, to be safe. But my regular Walgreens was out of the root touch-up color I use, and were also down to one box of my Nice N Easy color so I couldn't use the $5 off coupon on 2.
*Walgreens, $10 on Pepsi and Frito Lay products, get a $5 gift card. You have to remember to write the UPC codes on the back of your receipts, which is a pain. Plus there's a local Pepsi strike going on, and all the Walgreens I've been to are completely out of Pepsi and Mountain Dew. (Although there's a plentiful supply at Target and the IGA.) Between this and the P&G rebate, I've been to 3 Walgreens and I still haven't been able to buy everything I need to finish up.

Now that I've bought some of the stuff, I feel like I have to complete the rebates or my previous effort and $ spent were a waste. And this isn't all--there are still a Delmonte one for $10 and a Coors one for up to $35 back on meat purchases I planned on doing.

It always looks like it will be worthwhile. And if I could get all the products for one rebate, at one store, on one trip, it would be easy. But in reality, it always turns out to be more complicated--especially compared applying for a Sony credit card in about 2 minutes, and eventually getting $100 from them. But I suppose if I'm not doing anything else, and I'm staying within my gas budget, I might as well be working on rebates as anything.