Walgreens 101

Walgreens is a great store to shop for health and beauty items for as well as some food products. They accept store coupons that are found on their website or in their weekly ad usually called Instant Value Coupons or IVCs which can be combined with manufacturer coupons. Store coupons will say 'store coupon' on them and manufacturer coupons will say 'manufacturer coupon'. You cannot use 2 manufacturer coupons on the same item or 2 store coupons on the same item, but you can use one of each to purchase a single item.

Walgreens has an awesome catalina program called "Register Rewards". Register Rewards are catalina coupons (they are called catalina because that is the company who does these coupons, and no it isn't referring to salad dressing!) that are printed when you check out at the register. They are printed from a different printer than your receipt so they will come as a separate piece of paper. In Walgreens ads, they advertise items that have a Register Reward associated with them. Register Rewards are usually a coupon that is good on your next purchase, not necessarily to be used on the same product. Essentially, they are like cash to use off of your next purchase at the store. Register Rewards (RRs) are usually valid for 2 weeks once you receive them.

Register Rewards do have some restrictions of items that they cannot be used on such as stamps, gift cards, milk and other items, so make sure to read the fine print on them once you receive them.

Walgreens is one of the trickier stores to coupon at because they require you have more items than coupons. IVC coupons or Walgreens store coupons don't count in the more items than coupon ratio. I'll give examples for you once I start posting Walgreens deals.

You also can use the Register Rewards to purchase the same item again, but you won't receive a new Register Rewards coupon. For example, if you bought Panetene Shampoo and received a $5 RR, you can use that $5 RR to purchase another bottle of Pantene, but a new RR will not print.

Also, you can use manufacturer or store coupons when purchasing items that qualify for RRs and still receive the RR - this is how you will begin to get items for very little out of pocket or even free!

Tomorrow will be the start of the Walgreens deals I will be posting each week. The list will not be all inclusive of the weekly deals for Walgreens but I will try to post all of the best ones.

If you have questions feel free to email me or post a comment and I'll respond as fast as I can.