Walgreens 101

I've been shopping at Walgreens for about a year now. The best way to shop at Walgreens is buying the Walgreens FAR (Free After Rebate Items) and submitting your rebates on line and getting them on a Gift Card for future purchases.

1. First pick up the "monthly" Rebate Booklet, Easy Saver Catalog (ESC) at the entrance of the store next to the Walgreens Weekly ads. You will want to grab one of these to see the monthly rebates and use the Instant Value Coupons (IVC) that can be combine with Manufacturer coupons (mfr). You can check out the January ESC Rebate book valid 12/28/08-1/31/09 here, thanks to HCW!


2. You can submit your rebates on line by registering here or filling out the rebates on the rebate form of the ESC (usually in the middle of the catalog). If this is your first time you can get a Walgreens gift card and get an additional 10% back, or you can request a check. This process can take up to 4-6 weeks for the first time. If this is your second time then the gift card can be reloaded within 5-10 business days.
   
3. To make money on the Walgreens rebates, you will need to pay some money out of pocket (OOP) first, to take advantage of sale items, and combine it with a manufacturer coupon (mfr).
   
4. Also, you will need to watch the weekly ads from Walgreens. These ads come out in the Sunday Newspaper and run for 1 week. The ad will have the weekly sales, and in-ad coupons (or store coupons) that you can combine with a mfr & IVC. Usually, rebate items from the ESC will be on sale sometime within that month. You will be able to get it for free (or better than free) if you use a mfr on FAR rebate item.
   
5. Register Rewards (RR's) are a printed coupon from the cashier at checkout (like a coupon) that you can use on your next offer (onyo) or purchase.
   For instance: Starting tomorrow 12/28, Walgreens is running a RR deal when you buy (wyb) 1 Gillette Fusion Razor for $8.99, you will get a $3 RR back. Stack that with the $4 mfr from P&G (Proctor & Gamble) Sunday insert 12/28 and you will pay $4.99 OOP + getting a $3 RR, so making the deal $1.99! Note: Here are a few more things you need to know about RR's. They are treated like a manufacturers coupons so when you are checking out and using a RR to help pay for your purchase, you need to make sure that you have an equal amount of items purchased to mfq coupons. In many cases, if everything you are buying you have a mfq for, you will need to find an inexpensive "filler" item so that the numbers match. Also, the stores have different policies as to how they deal with RR's. Most of the ones I have run across will only let you use one RR per transaction when checking out. It's a pain to have to do separate transactions, but Walgreens is funny like that. Another thing, do not use a RR to pay for the same item in the next transaction. A new RR won't print. For example, if buying a Fusion razor triggers a $4 RR, do not use the $4 RR that you got from that to buy another Fusion razor. Try to use the RR on another RR promotion and then use that RR to pay for another Fusion.

Please post a question or comment or anything that we could add to this post to help others. Shopping at Walgreens can be a little confusing at first as you learn all the "rules" and figure it out, but it is worth it so don't give up!

Happy Shopping!!

Christina