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Congratulations! You have been to to Ship Full O' Pirates over 100 times! Just thought you'd like to know.
Yeah, Walgreen’s is rather great, but there are some rules to the game that can help you save big bucks.
First is the Buy 1 Get 1 free thing. I would never have thought of this on my own. You buy two items when they are on special for a buy1 get 1 free deal. It’s abbreviated like this B1G1 or BOGO. But, even though you get one item for free because it’s on special, you can use a manufacturer’s coupon for each item. I know, sounds wrong, but this flies at many, many Walgreen’s. Even the one closest to my house!
So, I had the ultimate Walgreen’s shopping experience yesterday. I didn’t even go to the store and I got a deal on a couple of boxes of Sleepytime Tea by Celestial Seasonings. I love the Sleepytime Tea. I drink a cup every evening.
Oh, you wanna know how I got a deal without leaving the house? My Hubby went for me. Yes sirree! My Hubby, who HATES to shop, actually did the coupon shopping at Walgreen’s for me. I have an excuse reason for not going myself. I was very, very tired. (No, not from the tea, lol.)
So, here’s how the tea deal worked.
- Buy one box of tea for $3.49
- Get one free.
- Use two $1 off coupons from the Sunday paper.
- Pay $1.49
Amazing! $1.49 for two boxes of my favorite brand of tea! That’s a great deal!
Another Walgreen’s rule I learned (thanks Faith!) has to do with the Register Rewards. I got a couple of these last week for doing the vitamin deal. The ones I got were worth $10 each. It’s a coupon that the machine spits out at the end of your transaction.
Now, you cannot spend that Register Reward (RR) to pay for another transaction for the same product that earned you the RR . I don’t know why, but it’s their rule.
Also, when you have a coupon for $10 on whatever you want from Walgreen’s that’s very exciting. But, it’s a coupon. And it spends like a coupon. If you use it to make a purchase that totals less than the value of the RR they don’t give change. So you have to use it on purchases of a greater value.
But there is a way around that. During another transaction buy a gift card valued the same as the RR you will be paying with. Now, I think you need to be buying some other stuff in the same transaction, but, what you are doing, in effect, is trading your RR for a gift card. Which means that now you don’t have to use it all in one transaction.
Why is this important? Well, maybe you just don’t need to spend $10 (or whatever your RR value is) all in one transaction. Or maybe you want to give a gift card to your Pirates and have them walk to Walgreen’s and buy a couple of gallons of milk, some bread, and a Hershey bar, and being Pirates, they totally don’t want to pay with a cheesy coupon. Whatever. Or maybe you just wanna give someone a nice Walgreen’s gift card, you know, as a gift, instead of giving them a cheesy coupon. Anyway, I love this cool trick because it puts me back in control of how I spend my Walgreen’s money.
I’m starting to love Walgreen’s.
Be sure and check out Help for Growing Families for lots of helpful advice from experienced moms of many for young moms with growing families.
And if you enjoy making things yourself you will want to come back tomorrow for Mother Hen’s Homemade Thursday to find lots of links for homemade items from crafts to cooking and everything in between.
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That’s super, Jen! Glad it worked!!!
I tried it today… and it worked!!! You have changed how I shop at Walgreens. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Joyous Blessings for the new year to you and your pirates.
Sounds about right, Jen. But you got one thing all wrong. Faith is the genius! I, on the other hand, can still make using coupons cost me more if I’m not really REALLY really paying attention!
Let me know how it works out for you.
MotherHen, I think I’m seeing what your saying. Would it work like this…
Assume I have $10 RR to start.
>
> Buy
> 4 Zooth tooth brushes for $10
> $10 Wags gift cert
>
> Give the cashier the $10 RR (the register shouldn’t beep beacuse I’m buying $10 worth of non gift cert merchandise)
> Then give the cashier 2 $2 off MQs for the toothbrushes
> Then give the cashier $1 off WAGS Q from the Children’s Activity Book – it should scan 4 times and take $4 off
>
> To recap ($10 Zooth + $10 Wags gift cert= $20… Less… $10 RR, – $4 MQs – $4 Wags Qs = $2 for the amount due)
>
> OOP $2
> Receive $5 RR on the Zooth toothbrushes
> Receive $10 gift cert
If this works… you and Faith are brilliant!!!!
The idea is that you would do the deal without the RR and the gift card anyway. The deal (the rest of that transaction) is kind of like a cover story for the RR buying the gift card. Say you have an RR for $10. You wanna buy some items totaling $10 or more, but you wanna have your coupons stacked so you have as little out of pocket for the purchase as possible, but no overage. Get it down as low as possible. But also, in the same transaction, buy the gift card, and pay with the RR and cash for the small amount left. The thing is, the “cost” of the items needs to be more than the amount of the RR, even if you have coupons for the items. I hope that helps.
I don’t get it… Faith’s comment says you have to group the gift cert transaction with items that total the amt of your RR. Then what’s the point of getting the gift card? Could someone give a specific example? I’d luv to do the gift cert trick but I’m unclear how to do it.
We get all all prescriptions there and I’ve NEVER thought of doing this stuff! What GREAT ideas! Thanks!
Walgreens is always hit or miss for me, but sometimes I do find some amazing deals. I love looking at the receipt and seeing how much I saved…it’s a thrill! Of course, I always have to come home and tell the husband my great deals!
You can also use a BOGO coupon in conjunction with a BOGO sale to get both items free! It doesn’t happen too often but when it does it sure is fun!!
I’ve found coupon acceptance varies from store to store and even cashier to cashier. So if you have a “bad” experience don’t give up! Call the 800 number and complain!
I’m loving your help here! Super idea about the gift card. And, I’m cracking up about sending the pirates and them not wanting to pay with a coupon, my three boys would probably not want to either!
That is very clever ~ !!! We have a couple of Walgreens around here ~ and the BOGO deal was simply amazing! Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime is simply wonderful!
Great tips! I never would have thought of the gift card thing.
Well, Susan, I think I know why you don’t have a Walgreen’s in your area. They are all here. I haven’t done a count, but I bet I have 7 Walgreen’s stores within 5 miles of my house. Maybe ten stores. It’s bizarre.
That sounds great! We don’t have a Walgreen’s yet, but I hope we will!
The gift card purchase will work with any rr, even the ones that say it won’t…if you group your purchase with other items of a value equal to or greater than the rr. You can still use the coupons to pay for your other items…one more trick, that is important to any wags shopper, the giftcard counts as an item…just as the rr counts as a coupon. We all know with wags you must have as many items as physical coupons… : ) …..Happy shoppin with my fav trick, just so ya know. I haven’t used “real” money at wags in 4 months because of this trick!
Neat ideas! I love Walgreen’s also. I especially like your gift card idea for dealing with larger RR’s.
What a FABULOUS idea! I’ll do it for sure next time. I had he same problem last week. Great idea!
What a great idea about the gift card! I also had the $10 RR’s and I was trying to roll it with the St. Ives RR last week. But, that was less than $10. So, I bought some diapers to spend $10. I would have rather had a GC!