Walgreens Explained with Scenarios this Week ending 1/23/10

I'm not going to get to posting my own scenarios for Walgreens this week - just too busy. Check out Be Frugal, Be Happy, Save a Bundle!: Walgreens 1/17 to 1/23: How Low Can You Go?.

I've posted Walgreens' coupon rules below for those of you who need a refresher.

Some things to remember about Walgreens:
1. Walgreens uses Register Rewards. Register Rewards are coupons that print at the register when you buy qualifying products. Register Rewards can be used almost like cash to purchase more items at Walgreens. Register Rewards are good only for about 2 weeks from the time they are printed. If your purchase total is $2.98 before taxes, you will not be able to use your $3 RR on it. You must add something to your purchase to bring your pre-tax total equal to or above $3 in order to be able to use a $3 RR.
2. There is no limit on how many items (that produce a RR) you can buy. However, the RR will only print once per transaction. So if purchasing contact solution produces a $7 RR, you will not get 2 $7 RRs if you purchase 2 contact solutions in the same transaction, but only 1. If you purchase 2 contact solutions in 2 separate transactions, the RR will print once per transaction, netting you $14 in RRs.
3. Register Rewards cannot be rolled on like items. In other words, in the example above with the contact solution, you could not use the $7 RR from the first transaction to pay for the contact solution in the second transaction. You would either need to pay OOP for the second transaction or use a RR earned on a different purchase. You also could not use a RR earned on Huggies diapers to pay for Huggies wipes and expect another RR to print. Even though the items purchased are different, the manufacturer is the same and therefore the additional RR will not print.
4. You can stack 1 manufacturer’s coupon, 1 Walgreens’ in-ad coupon, and 1 Walgreens’ booklet coupon all on the same item.
5. Walgreens has a rule that you cannot use more manufacturers’ coupons than items you are purchasing. So for example: You want to buy 1 contact solution and 1 Huggies diaper package = 2 items. You have 1 manufacturer’s coupon for each and you have 1 Walgreens’ coupon for each. You are going to pay with cash. This transaction will work fine, since you are purchasing 2 items and have only 2 manufacturer’s coupons. But let’s say that you want to use 1 RR to pay for the items. RRs count as a manufacturer’s coupon. Now you have 2 items and you are using 3 manufacturer’s coupons on them. When you try to do this, the register will beep at you and you will be unable to use your 3rd manufacturer’s coupon/RR. To be able to use your RR on this transaction, you will need to add a filler item. (You can use more than 1 RR on a transaction, and in our example using 2 RRs you would then need 2 filler items.)
6. Filler items are items that you add to your purchase to be able to use all your manufacturer’s coupons and RRs. On the above purchase you would need to add 1 filler item (something really cheap) to bring the number of items you are purchasing up to three. You could then use the 2 manufacturers’ coupons and 1 RR (= three manufacturers’ coupons) on your transaction. It is okay to use a Walgreens’ coupon on your filler item as these do not count toward your manufacturers’ coupon total.
7. Coupon order is very important at Walgreens. If you hand your coupons to the cashier in the wrong order it can cause certain coupons not to scan, and therefore be rejected. The basic rule to remember is to hand over any $/$$ coupons first, then all manufactures’ coupons, followed by Walgreens’ coupons, and finally Register Rewards.