Walgreens Explained

I will be honest, when I first started using coupons, I kept hearing all these wonderful things about Walgreens. So I walked into my local store... Only to walk right back out again. I was so intimidated by all of there register rewards, coupon policy lingo, and the multiple transaction thing....

Then, Walgreens had a killer deal on Huggies diapers, I had three babies in diapers at the time and I thought, If I am going to be serious about coupons, and serious about saving money, I had better just swallow hard and do it!

So, if you are anything like me and have avoided Walgreens in the past because of the intimidation factor, I am hoping to help a little there. Most things we are afraid of, are feared in the first place because of a lack of knowledge. So I will try to do my best to help quell those fears by helping you understand the basics of Walgreens shopping, as well as give you some links to the actual Walgreens site so you can do more reading on the topics you are interested in.

Walgreens as whole is a fabulous store! Their pharmacy we have always been happy with, and it is by far the best choice for a pharmacy if you ever need a late night prescription fill. Their customer service also pretty great, from what I have experienced. Yes you will find the occasional ornery sales clerk, but where won't you? Over all though, the atmosphere is great and personable! When they have the really great deals, they are almost always going to include their Register Rewards.

What are Register Rewards? Register Rewards are, for all intents and purposes, cash that print out at the register when your receipt prints out, just from a different machine. Your cashier will hand you your Register Rewards with your receipt once your transaction is complete. You cannot use them anywhere, in fact you can only use them at Walgreens, nut you can use them just like cash on your next visit to the store. But, PLEASE pay attention to your register rewards, they DO expire after a week or so. So just make a note of that when you leave the store.
How do you get them? During different promotions, Register Rewards will print out when you purchase certain items. You can find the different Register Reward deals by looking at their Weekly Ad or by asking a store associate. The promotion may be for a specific item, EXAMPLE: buy 1 Dove Body lotion, get a $2.00 Register Reward. Or it may be for a specified amount of qualifying items, EXAMPLE: Buy $10.00 worth of qualifying items, receive a $5.00 Register Reward.
Now this is the part that got me when I first went, and why I turned and left... You will only get one unique Register Reward per transaction. meaning, if I wanted to get 3 Dove Body lotions, I would have to split it up into 3 different transactions at the register in order to get all $6.00 worth of Register Rewards. But, if I got 1 Dove Body Lotion and then $10.00 worth of participating products, I could buy the lotion and the $10.00 of other things in the same transaction, because the register rewards are completely different. So say I wanted to get those 3 lotions and then $10.00 worth of products. I would break it into 3 different transactions at the register.
Transaction 1: 1 Dove Body lotion and $10.00 worth of participating products
Transaction 2: 1 Dove Body lotion
Transaction 3: 1 Dove Body lotion
I would then walk out of the store with all of my product and $11.00 worth of Register Rewards.
Now, don't use the printed Register Reward from your first bottle of lotion to pay for your second bottle, it will go through just fine, nut it won't print out another one for you. Save it till next time.

As far as using regular coupons goes, you can use regular coupons from your Sunday Paper as well as your Register Rewards and even store coupons all in the same transaction. Here is the rule: 1 coupon per item. So if you want to use those $2.00 RR and the $5.00 RR, but you have news paper coupons for everything you need to buy, don't fret; just go to the clearance section of your store or the candy aisle. Grab 1 item for each additional RR you need to use. You can almost always find things for around .25 cents that you can attach your RR to. Also, when shopping and planning your trip, make sure you don't end up going into the negative with all of your coupons. You will not get cash back.

You can always go to GrocerySmarts to see the current deals and RR that are printing out at Walgreens.

Hopefully, I helped more than scared you more. But don't be afraid to try out Walgreens, you can get some seriously amazing deals. If it helps at all, I still get nervous sometimes when I ask for 5 or 6 different transactions, but it is so worth it, and the nervousness, by the way, kinda just adds to the coupon high I get afterwords.

Happy savings!!!