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Jan
01

Walgreen's 101 – How it all works

by Koupon Karen on January 1, 2009 · 19 comments

wagsWalgreen’s has 3 different ways to help you save money each week, In Ad coupons, Register Rewards and a Monthly coupon book.  They also accept all manufacturers coupons including printable coupons.

The monthly coupon booklet you will find at the front of the store near the weekly ads.  These are store coupons and can be used along with sale items and manufacturers coupons to get even better savings.

You will find the In Ad coupons in each weekly ad.  You must present these to the cashier to receive the sale price.  You can also use manufacturers coupons with these in ad coupons. If you buy more than one of the sale item, you only have to give the cashier one coupon and it will adjust the price for each one in the transaction. That being said,  these In Ad coupons will have a limit on them.  Some stores will stick to the limit, some won’t.  If you go over the limit the register will automatically give you the sale price for each item.  It doesn’t follow the limit.

Walgreen’s has a rebate type program called Register Reward’s or you may see the abbreviation RR.  Basically how it works is you make a qualifying purchase and then a Register Reward will print out that is good on your next purchase.

You can use coupons on purchases that produce Register Rewards and if you do then sometimes you will come out making money on a product.  For  example:

Advil PM, On Sale $2.99
Get $2.99 Register Reward
Use $1.00 coupon
You Pay: $1.99 but you get $2.99 in RR’s so really you made $1.00 on the purchase.

That is completely legal and does happen quite often.

There is one thing about Register Rewards that can be tricky. The system recognizes them as a manufacturers coupon. You can only use 1 manufacturers coupon and 1 store coupon per item. You need to make sure you have enough items to off set the number of manufacturers coupons when you use your Register Reward. For example, you received a $5.00 Register Reward and now your going to use it on your next transaction. You are buying 3 items and you have 3 manufacturers coupons, so essentially you have a manufacturers coupon for every item you are buying. The system will not allow you to also use the RR on that transaction unless you buy one more item without a manufacturers coupon. All you have to do is toss in something small for a filler item. Sometimes they may have .10 pencils or something small like that, just grab that and add it to your order and now you will have 4 items and you’ll be using 3 manufacturers coupons + 1 RR (which really makes it 4 manufacturers coupons).

Register Rewards can be used to purchase just about anything. Any exclusions will be printed on the RR. However, that being said you can not use a RR to purchase the same product you just received the RR for. That is referred to as “Rolling”. If you do then you will not get RR again. For example, when you purchase crest toothpaste for $2.49 and you receive a register reward for $2.49,  you can not purchase another crest toothpaste and use that RR and receive another RR. However if you just want to get two toothpastes that is fine you can use it to buy the second one but you wont get another RR. Basically you are getting 2 for one.

Here are some abbreviations you may see in my Walgreen’s posts and what they mean:

  • BOGO Free = Buy One Get One Free
  • BOG2 Free = Buy One Get Two Free
  • In-Ad coupon = Coupons found in the weekly ad
  • RR = Register Reward
  • OOP: Out of Pocket
  • wyb = When You Buy
  • cpn = Coupon
  • SS = Smart Source Coupon Insert
  • RP = Red Plum Coupon Insert
  • P&G = Proctor & Gamble Coupon Insert
  • GM = General Mills Insert
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1 Naddez November 5, 2009 at 7:10 pm

Thanks for providing precise information regarding Walgreens. I’ll pay closer attention to the coupon booklet the next time I visit them. Nevertheless, I always use their coupons from the sale ads when I shop there.

Have a Blessed day!! :)

2 Carmen November 11, 2009 at 12:36 pm

This is helpful information… I was curious how the “RR” worked and haven’t yet used them, still learning my way around couponing but this was a good “101″ introduction for Walgreens! Thank you!

3 celia January 28, 2010 at 5:15 pm

Thank you for the this intro to walgreens, I have been trying to use them but was not sure how the RR worked.

4 FrugalRIMama January 28, 2010 at 6:48 pm

Hi Celia, I’m glad it helped! Let me know if you have any questions!

5 Annette February 12, 2010 at 10:33 am

This might be slightly confusing… As far as the whole “rolling” over with the RR, could you for example buy the toothpaste and get the $2.49 RR and then buy diapers (that are on sale with a $3 RR) – pay with some cash and your 2.49 RR and still have the $3 RR print out? Also could you then use that $3 RR to buy more toothpaste? Basically if you “pay” with one RR do other RRs still print out??

6 FrugalRIMama February 12, 2010 at 11:18 am

Hi Annette,

Yes if you pay with an RR another RR will print out AS Long as it’s not for the same item. If you pay for a 2nd toothpaste with the RR from the first toothpaste then it will not print out but if you do like you said and buy diapers, use the RR, then get another RR from the diapers and then use that to buy the 2nd toothpaste then you will get another RR.

Does that help?

7 Annette February 12, 2010 at 1:03 pm

Yes, that does help out! Diapers are way cheap at Walgreens, as well as several other items, but i need lots of diapers (as do most moms!) so i was just making sure i could still get RR for my other items if I used the RR from the diapers and then even maybe sneak back for another pack of diapers and pay for them with my other items RR. Thanks so much for all the hard work you to to help Mommas like me get great deals! :-D

8 Annette February 12, 2010 at 1:07 pm

One more question– sorry I’m so new! Can I have another pack of diapers plus other items, pay with my RR from previous diapers and still get a RR? Would the RR go towards the other items so I will still get another diaper RR? Buying things cheap is confusing! lol

9 FrugalRIMama February 12, 2010 at 1:24 pm

No Annette, if you pay with the RR from the Diapers and the Diapers are anywhere in the transaction you will not get the RR.

HOWEVER, I read online this week that the Huggies WERE printing out the RR’s when the you used the Huggies RR’s to pay for it, but that is RARE and might of even been fixed by now.

This is a great deal with the diapers and a great time to stock up. I’m so happy we are finally out of diapers or I’d be stocking up on these too!

10 Annette February 12, 2010 at 1:34 pm

OK thanks! I read some where that the “error” was fixed with the Huggies RR printing out again :( Do you normally just go through the check out many times in order to use your RR and get LOTS of diapers??

11 FrugalRIMama February 12, 2010 at 1:53 pm

I will normally do a few transactions and they let me since there’s rarely a line. I live in a smallish town. I’d ask them if that would be ok. You can always bring your bags to your car and come back and get more OR take a friend!

Have fun shopping and let me know how you make out!

12 Annette February 12, 2010 at 9:33 pm

I spent $16 and saved $42 :-) Basically makes my diapers $0.17 cents each and all my other groceries FREE (men’s soap, soup, double stuf oreos, gum, hand sanitizer…) They actually paid me $0.16 to take each pack of oreos!!! (0.84 after 15% coupon and then $2/2 = -$0.32) Anyways, thanks for all the help!! Hope you got your diapers!

13 FrugalRIMama February 12, 2010 at 9:42 pm

Annette that’s awesome!!! Great shopping trip!

We just finished diapers so I saved more than you by not buying them! LOL But otherwise I would of stocked up for sure.

Great job, thanks for sharing!!!

14 Constance April 3, 2010 at 10:26 pm

What about ECB?

15 Constance April 4, 2010 at 8:23 pm

What is ecb?

16 Koupon Karen April 4, 2010 at 8:58 pm

Hi Constance, ECB are Extra Care Bucks and they are issued at CVS and are like the Register Rewards at Walgreens.

Does that help?

17 April June 8, 2010 at 12:34 am

Please help me, I just went shopping at Walgreens today and bought almost of the register reward itms and no register rewards printed out, what do I do now???? I have my receipt, so I go back to the store and talk to a manager?? Please help, I am so frusterated about this. Any adive alt all would help. Thank you, April

18 Koupon Karen June 8, 2010 at 7:23 am

April yes I would go back and talk to the manager. Did you verify that you had all the correct items?? If they are correct talk to him/her and if they won’t help you then return the items. There is also a number for the catalina company that prints them, let me see if I can find it for you.

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