Take Your Vitamins!
In my younger years, I was very casual about taking vitamins, as they didn’t seem to make much difference, and back then, many doctors thought that if you got a reasonably balanced diet, you didn’t need vitamins.
Well, that’s all changed. Our foods aren’t as nutritious as they once were, due to soil depletion, and at least some doctors have learned more and changed their thinking. Some years back, I went on the Atkins diet (lost 9 lbs.) – I purchased Dr. Atkins’ book and followed his instructions, including taking a long list of supplements he suggested. After a few months, I realized I did have more energy, and I think that I wasn’t giving the vitamins enough time to “kick in” when I made my earlier attempts. Also, the strength of various vitamins and minerals may not have been enough to make a difference.
Like many women over 50, I now consume a large quantity of vitamins and minerals, and this can get to be a real budget-buster! But, I’ve stumbled onto an excellent website that presents an exciting opportunity for all of us to save money, and even make some money!
I’ve been purchasing my vitamins at a neighborhood store that I trust very much. But, friends and relatives have talked about the savings they get from either buying vitamins from a catalog or shopping online. I finally decided to take the plunge. I had a list of six items I was planning to purchase, and I googled one of the hard-to-find items (strontium, suggested in the Bless My Bones book reviewed here last month) from the list. The website that came up in my search is iHerb.com. I was delighted to see that they carried many of the same brands as my trusted store! I especially like the Now Foods brand for various vitamins and minerals (more about this later).
I placed my order at 11:38am – my order total was $81.77, with free shipping because the order was over $60 - At 6:37pm the SAME DAY, I received their email letting me know my order had shipped! I took a copy of my order to the local vitamin store to compare prices, and here is what I found:
|
Item
|
Vitamin Store
|
iHerb.com
|
Difference
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now Foods 5-HTP, 200 mg, 60vcaps
|
23.99
|
18.34
|
5.65
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now Foods Magnesium Citrate, 200mg, 250 tablets
|
15.39
|
12.58
|
2.81
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now Foods Boron, 3mg, 250 capsules
|
9.99
|
7.54
|
2.45
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nature's Way, Horsetail Grass, 440mg, 100 caps
|
5.93
|
4.94
|
0.99
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Now Foods, Vitamin K-2, 100mcg, 100 vcaps*
|
13.99
|
9.43
|
4.56
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Doctor's Best, Strontium Bone Maker, 340mg, 60 vcaps*
|
13.52
|
12.00
|
1.52
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Totals
|
|
|
17.98
|
*I couldn’t get an exact brand/strength/quantity comparison, so I took the lowest price of comparable strength/quantity, different brand.
The total savings for me was actually greater than $17.98 because I ordered more than 1 of each item.
Now, it gets even more interesting – the shipment notification email also contained this little gem:
“Give iHerb $5.00 coupons to friends and relatives who have never ordered from us before, and earn up to 10% overall commission across 4 levels for 365 days! --Plus more
http://www.iherb.com/rewards”
Hmmm, I’m not really into multi-level marketing schemes, but this did pique my curiousity. I clicked the link and found a lot of information on this program, including this item from their FAQ’s:
Is this another MLM (Multi Level Marketing) program?
Good question. It might look that way, but our program has many fundamental differences:
- No start up fees—the program costs you nothing
- No meetings to attend—just spread the word and pass along your code
- No buying requirements. You never have to buy products from us and resell them
- Over 200 brand name products found at major health food stores and other online stores. No fly-by-night, “not-available-in-stores” types of products.
- Your privacy is assured—no one will call you.
Exploring further, I found more information on this company. I googled iHerb, and found nothing but positive information there. This is a big plus, because disgruntled customers would get the word out if there were problems.
Going back to the iHerb site, I explored some more & found many good things. The company has been in business since 1997, they have a very large, climate-controlled warehouse facility. The
iHerb website also has a tab (look at the bottom of any of their pages to see the tabs) called “QC issues”, where they show vendor responses to iHerb’s questions on quality procedures. Here is a link to the Now Foods response:
Now Foods Quality Assurance.(pdf) Wow!
In addition, when you click on a specific supplement, there is a section that gives additional information about that product. Here is the information from the Strontium item:
“Strontium is a naturally occurring mineral present in water and food. Trace amounts of strontium are found in the human skeleton. Strontium has an affinity for bone and is taken up at the bone matrix crystal surface. The influence of strontium on bone metabolism has been researched since the 1950's. Studies indicate that strontium positively affects bone metabolism to promote bone formation and decrease bone resorption, leading to normalized bone density.”
And:
Suggested Use
Adult Use: Take two capsules at the same time daily with or without food. Be sure NOT to take this product at the same time as a calcium supplement, as these minerals may compete with each other for absorption.
Back to the
iHerb.com Coupon Rewards program: When you place your first order, enter coupon code
ITA412 when you check out, it’s that simple! Entering that code will give you $5.00 off your order, regardless of your order size. Then you will receive a coupon code of your own. You can print out cards or flyers to hand to your friends, or you can just email your code to them. You can get a check for your earnings, or apply your earned credits to your own purchases. Such a Deal!
