Why do I start my grocery shopping at Walgreens? It sounds weird, I know, especially considering that 99.9% of the time I don't even buy anything edible there, but it's an integral part of my grocery shopping strategy. Let me explain...
Walgreens, like most pharmacies today, offer special perks for their customers. Walgreen's calls their program 'Register Rewards', or as I will refer to them, RRs. (I'm lazy OK, I try to abbreviate EVERYTHING!) Basically how it works is that if you buy a featured item, the Catalina machine at the register will print a coupon that Walgreen's hopes you will use on your next purchase there.
Sometimes the deals are so-so, like a $2 RR on a $10 item. Now don't get me wrong, if you were planning on purchasing this item anyway a $2 coupon is more than welcome, but I like it when I'm getting as much if not more than what I'm paying back to use for something else.
Here's an example from this week's sale flier:
Vitamin Schtick Lip care. It's a fancy-schmancy version of chap-stick. It's on sale this week for $1.99, and once you purchase it the register will print a RR for $1.99 making this item FREE after the RR.
This is what I'm talking about! Nothing makes a couponer happier than getting something FREE!
Oh wait, there is something that makes us happier...getting something for FREE and getting more money back than what you paid!
Here's an example (again, from this week's flier):
Blink Tears. This item is on sale for $7.99, and it triggers a RR for $7.99 (FREE!), but it gets even better! When I buy this product I'm also going to hand the cashier this coupon. That means you'll pay $6.49, but walk out with $7.99 in RRs. That's a $1.50 MONEYMAKER!
Did I need the eye drops? No, but therein lies the sheer genius of this strategy. See, the RR has 'Manufacturer Coupon' written clearly across the top, which means that I can use it wherever manufacturer's coupons are accepted. Are you thinking what I'm thinking???? PUBLIX!
That's right, I'm going to take my $7.99 RR to Publix where I can use it on any item I want! Remember in my last post that I mentioned I earned $42 in RRs from my first stop at Walgreens? Well all of it but $5 worth were used on my Publix grocery total. Did I need even half of what I bought at Walgreen's yesterday? Nope, but I did need the $42 in RRs (that I only paid $33 to get = a $9 MONEYMAKER!) to turn around and buy groceries with.
Now the RRs aren't perfect. You can't roll them. That means that I can't take the $7.99 RR that I earned buying the eye drops to turn around and buy more of the same eye drops. If I do, another RR won't print. I could pay for more eye drops with different RRs and it would work out just fine.
And since a RR is considered a manufacturer coupon, if you're planning on using htem to pay for your purchase anywhere, you have to pay attention to how many items you purchase compared to how many coupons you're using. This is very important: You cannot have more coupons than items. If you do, the register will beep and will require a supervisor's over-ride for every single coupon after that. An easy fix is to grab a few filler items (extremely cheap items to balance out your ratio of coupons:items) Think an individual package of ramen noodles or a single pencil from the school supplies aisle.
Walgreen's also issues their own coupons, which allows for some great coupon stacking possibilities (that's one MC and one store coupon together) as well as BOGO deals (pay for one item but use a coupon on both).
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