Walgreens 101

If you've ever shopped at Walgreens, then you know you can get some pretty sweet deals there!  Over the years I have gone into Walgreens here and there for what I might need, but in the past 6 months have figured out what AMAZING deals I can get if I do a little research!!  Unfortunately, I don't have a Walgreens super close by, it's about 30 minutes away, so I don't shop there as often as I'd like, but I can't pass up the chance to give you some of the inside scoop on Walgreens!!!

So, it's pretty easy.  Walgreens has TWO main advantages to take advantage of:

1.  STACKING YOUR COUPONS

If you look in the weekly Walgreens flyer, you will find many store coupons available for you to clip, that are good all week.   Since this is a STORE coupon, remember that you can stack your Manufacturer's coupon with it!  Meaning, you can use them BOTH at the same time!  For instance, awhile back, Walgreen's Pepcid AC was regularly $10.00, but was on sale for $8.99.  (With my acid reflux in full swing, due to this pregnancy, I was always looking for deals on Antacids!!)  In that same Ad, they had a store coupon for $4.00 off one Pepcid AC.  That brought it down to $4.99, which, in and of itself, is not a bad deal.  BUT, I had clipped a Manufacturer's coupon a few weeks earlier for $4.00 off one Pepcid AC.  Since I am allowed to stack the store coupon with the Manufacturer's, I got the Pepcid for .99 cents!!!!! Hellooooo!!  Awesome deal!!  So, watch for that......so often you can get an amazing deal by stacking your store coupon with your manufacturer's in conjuction with their sale!!

2.  REGISTER REWARDS


The Walgreens Register Rewards Program simply rewards you for buying certain products each week.  When you buy the certain item(s) that are advertised as producing a Register Reward that week,  you will get a printed coupon at the end of your transaction called a "Register Reward" to use just like CASH on your next purchase!

They, more than often, have a few of these items each week and if you can stack them with a store coupon and/or manufacturer's coupon, you can often get these for FREE or MORE than free after the Register Reward.  Register Rewards are not tied to a store card, as in some other drug stores, so there is no limit to how many times you can do a deal.  It prints for everyone, everytime, no matter what.  But, they've recently changed their system so that you cannot "Roll" the same Register Reward over and over on the same deal.

For instance, a few months ago, Walgreens was running a deal on Dove Products.  For every 10 Dove items you purchased, you got $8 in Register Rewards.  The 10 items that you had to buy to get the RR were not specified, so I bought the least expensive Dove Product that I had coupons for, which happened to be the Beauty Bars.  I am probably mis-stating the price slightly, because I can't 100% remember, but they were somewhere around $2.50/ea.  I had 8 coupons for $1.50 off each bar.  That brought each bar of soap to about $1.00/each.  So, I paid $10.00 out of pocket, but I got $8.00 in RR back, which is just like cash.  So, in reality, I paid $2 for all 10 soaps!  (I hope this is making sense!!)  However, I couldn't do the Dove deal over and over using the $8 RR to pay for my transaction after coupons, since the computer is programmed to NOT print out another $8 RR on the Dove Deal if I paid for it with the RR I got from purchasing them last time.  (Now, I'm probably totally confusing you!!)  It's really is quite easy!!

So, you can either just do the deals once, or you can do the deals multiple times, pay out of pocket and then save the RR's and use them as you collect them on groceries or other things, later.

PLEASE NOTE:

***You have to have as many items as you have coupons***

Walgreens system is set up to not accept any more coupons than the # of items you have.  (Although, count your stacked coupons as 1 coupon for 1 item.)  AND, the Register Rewards count as a coupon, so don't forget to count those!  So, if you have more coupons than items, add a few cheap items to even out the number.  This will guarantee you don't have any issues.  Again, this mainly only when you have a few RR's you want to use.....you have to have the same amount of items to coupons.

***Give your coupons in a SPECIFIC order***

I have learned from other blogs that it really does matter what order you give your coupons, to ensure that your total gets down to the lowest possible.

Here's the order, and you can split your coupons up in batches and hand them to your cashier in steps:

1.  Register Rewards

2.  Then Manufacturer's coupons

3.  Then Store Coupons

I actually tried this out about a month ago.  I had a cashier who wanted me to hand them all to her at the same time.  She wanted to ring them up the way she wanted to.  I stood my ground and did it in the order above.  It all worked great and I got an outstanding deal.  DON'T let a cashier intimidate you.......you are, in no way, doing anything wrong.  RR's and coupons are a FORM OF PAYMENT.  Remember that.  No one can tell you what order to give your FORM OF PAYMENT.  What if you were paying in $20's, $10's and $5's.....can your cashier dictate which order you give your bills to her???  NO!  Do it the way you find best!!

***Item out of Stock***

I have run into many times that an item is already out of stock, just 2 days into the sale.  Don't fret!!  Ask for a RAIN CHECK!!  I have never had an issue asking for a Rain Check on the specified item at the specified sale price.  PLUS, if that item was going to produce a RR, tell the employee that fact and they will work it out for you.  It's happened to me many times and I've always gotten the deal I should have.