It's a common opinion among couponers that Walgreens is the hardest of the drugstore chains to score great deals at. Sure, their sale prices can be just as good as the other stores, but their coupon policies stink.
In CVS and Rite-Aid, the reward coupons that print after you've made your purchase can be used, for the most part, as cash (you can't pay sales tax with them though). Walgreens rewards coupons, called Register Rewards, or RRs for short, are manufacturer's coupons. Walgreens will only allow you to use one manufacturer's coupon per item. If they're having a great sale this week, and by stacking coupons with the sale you can score big, you might need a filler item or 3 to be able to use last week's RRs on your purchase. Buying filler items, low priced stuff you don't have a coupon for, is something to avoid. While occasionally miscalculating and grabbing a candy bar to cover overage happens from time to time to even the most math proficient couponer, having to make a habit of it just to get the good deal diminishes the value of that good deal.
Walgreens doesn't have a rewards card like CVS and Rite-Aid. On it's face, this looks like a good thing. Limits, after all, are a major impediment to a big score for a couponer. No rewards card, no tracking how many times you've done a particular deal. If you've got the time to separate transactions, functionally, there is no limit, past store stock, to how many times you can score a great deal. There's just one small catch.
If you buy an item that generates RRs, and then try to spend those RRs to pay for an item by the same manufacturer, a new RR will not print for the next transaction. Let's say something is free after RRs. You buy it, and get your RR. If you come back in and try to buy it again, and pay with the first RR, you won't get a new RR. If you pay cash the second time, you would get a new RR. Rarely are there enough items free after RR with the same RR value from different manufacturers in a sale week for you to roll RRs well. Rolling is when you take your rewards and use them to pay for new stuff that generates new rewards.
Sometimes RRs clearly state what you got it for buying, "Thanks from Kleenex," and sometimes they don't, "Thank you for your purchase." Because I don't know whether they'll be clearly identified or not until they print, I try to avoid buying 2 items in the same transaction that will generate the same value RR. If I walk out of Walgreens with 2 $2 RRs, and neither of them clearly specifies a manufacturer, I'm going to have a harder time rolling them. If I walk out of Walgreens with a $1 RR and a $3 RR, I can grab a pencil as soon as I get home and write on the RR that I got it for buying Kleenex. Since it's fresh in my mind, and even if I forget I have my receipt and sale flier to consult, I'm less likely to fail at rolling it because I know what I can't roll it on.
Another weird thing about RRs that makes them hard to roll, if an item is $2.99, free after RR, the RR that will generate will actually be $3. If Walgreens has 3 different items from 3 different manufacturers priced at $2.99, free after RR, you can't just buy one and take the RR to get the next one. You're going to have a penny overage. Walgreens doesn't like overage. You'll need a filler. Fillers diminish the free-ness of the stuff you're getting and make it less a good deal.
Walgreens doesn't really like taking coupons that exceed the value of the item. CVS and Rite-Aid will both take a $1 off coupon for an 88 cent item, and so long as that does not bring your order total negative, they really don't care. The manufacturer is going to send them that $1, plus a small handling fee, so they're not out any money. They won't give you change, but they'll credit $1 towards your order. The amount over the cost of the item is called overage. Target won't go that far, but if you present a $1 coupon for an 88 cent item, they will manually enter 88 cents as the coupon value. I'm OK with that. Walgreens, on the other hand, outright refuses to accept manufacturer's coupons for more than the cost of the item. They can, but many won't, manually enter a coupon for the cost of the item. This makes no sense to me, at all. If I present a $1 coupon for an 88 cent item, and they mark the coupon down to 88 cents so that I can get my freebie, they still get reimbursed $1 by the manufacturer. By taking and marking down my coupon, they'd be making more money on my item than the guy behind me paying cash for the same. Walmart recently announced a change to their coupon policy. They used to discount coupons, like Target, but now they will allow overage to be applied to your order or will even issue you change from your coupon tender.
Walgreens has in ad coupons some weeks. They also publish a monthly coupon book that is good all month. A "month" starts on a Sunday near the beginning of the month and ends on a Saturday near the end of the month, good for either 4 weeks or 5. Both in ad coupons and coupon book coupons are Walgreens store coupons. You can "stack" a store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon. Just remember, if there will be overage, order matters. A manufacturer's coupon will beep and may not be accepted if it exceeds the cost of the item. Give them your manufacturer's coupons first, then your store coupon. A store coupon will not beep if it exceeds the cost of the item, so long as your subtotal (amount before they add tax) will not be negative. You also need to have enough stuff to cover any overage. I recommend keeping your store coupons completely out of the cashier's view until they've accepted all your manufacturer's coupons.
Still, every so often a Walgreens deal comes along that is too good to pass up. Every 6 weeks or so something they have in the ad is good enough to get my attention, and I wander in. I only do it if it's a moneymaker, or something we use all the time, or something that almost never goes on sale that I feel we should have in the house.
This week, they've got a deal on Pediacare. I have an infant, and there's a $5 off Pediacare coupon in their sale ad. It's a Walgreen's coupon, so I could stack it with a manufacturer's coupon if I wanted to. The Pediacare infant fever drops are $5.99 for 0.5 oz, or $9.xx for 1 oz. If I get 2 of the 0.5 oz, which would be 1 oz total, I'll pay $1.98, or I can get one of the 1 oz and pay $4.xx (you don't need to be a math whiz to see I'd be getting the same amount of medication for less money, and why I really didn't care to remember the cents on the 1 oz price). Even if I can't get them to take a manufacturer's coupon, this is something I want in my house. I'll get over it not being free when I crack it open at 3 am to give to my child instead of sending my husband to the 24 hour grocery to pay $8 for it. But, there's an internet printable coupon for $2 off any Pediacare. If I can get them to take them both, I'll have overage. I look through the ad, and there's a Venus razor, $7.99 with $4 RR back. I have a coupon for $5 off a Venus razor, if I'm lucky, when I get in the store it will be included in the sale. If it isn't, I'm going to need to find $2.02 worth of fillers to cover my overage, or the register will beep and I'll have to pay 99 cents for each of my Pediacare. I now have a plan and head off to Walgreens.
As luck would have it, my razor coupon is for the razor that is on special. $7.99 - $5 = $2.99 I'm going to pay $2.99 for my razor, and they're going to give me $4 off my next order. Money maker! I grab 2 of the 0.5 oz Pediacare. $5.99 - $2 -$5 = Money maker (times 2)!
I give my cashier the 2 $2 off Pediacare coupons and the $5 off Venus coupon. She tells me the total. "Oooh, wait!" I open the ad like a ninja, and have her scan the in ad coupon. $5 x 2 comes off. New total, 97 cents plus sales tax (which gets calculated on your pre-coupon total, this would vary by your tax rate).
I kindly pay my 97 cents plus tax. The catalina machine spits out a $4 RR.
While I can trivially carry around $20-40 worth of CVS ECBs or Rite-Aid +UPS at any given time, I get concerned if I have more than $5 in RRs. The whole "free after rewards" thing only works if you use the rewards, otherwise you've paid for your stuff. In a perfect world, you roll your rewards week to week. I have difficulty rolling RRs (as do many couponers, that's why we don't shop Walgreens). In this case, if I fail to use the RR, I'll get over it. 97 cents is not so much to pay for 2 bottles of Pediacare and a Venus razor system. But $4 is a good amount to have for an RR. Between now and when it expires, if no good way to roll it presents itself I can always just buy milk.
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