Walgreens!

$160 worth for under $20!!!

So we all trekked down to Sioux City yesterday for a few things. Bank, dentist, laundry at my parents, etc. Well I also picked up the free movie passes I won from the radio station the other day and we decided to see if my parents would watch Gabriel while we saw a movie....they said Yes so off on a date we went! We saw Mission Impossible 342, oh I mean 4. It was entertaining enough. Afterward we swung by Walgreens for one of my favorite activities- seeing how cheap I can buy things! I had planned this elaborate shopping trip using my coupons and wags' deals (Register Rewards, store coupons, etc.) and would be getting $203 worth of stuff for under $25. Well, of course because it was Tuesday, a full THREE days after the ad came out, they were out of half the stuff I wanted! That is always so frustrating! And since we're not supposed to shop on Sundays because of religious reasons I feel like I'm always missing out on the great deals. I wish I had other drugstores (CVS, Rite Aid) to shop at but they don't exist here. In fact, there aren't that many great "couponing" options here. Nobody doubles coupons and the main grocery store here won't accept coupons worth more than the product and is very suspicious of internet printed coupons. Thanks to the couponing phenomenon spurred on by the recession, coupon use is at an all time high. So is coupon fraud. And everyone is suspicious that you're trying to pull a fast one on them so they treat you like a criminal every so often. Fortunately its only happened to me twice in 6 months. And boy do I defend myself! More often you will experience people rolling their eyes when you pull out your big stack of coupons. Like I'm a dork because I save money? Please! You're a dork for paying full price for everyday items when you can get them for 50% off or sometimes even free! To be fair though there are also a lot of cashiers who are genuinely excited to see how much money you can save. I always try to share my couponing tips with them...

Anyways here's the details....

I did 8 transactions. The first four were 5 bags of Chex mix and a Syntha 6 bar. There is an unadvertised Catalina deal going on for Chex Mix, and if you buy 5 bags you get a $3 coupon off your next in-store purchase. These work the same way Register Rewards work. I'll break it down below to try to explain it. It is a little bit complicated.

Transaction #5- a summary

1 Tylenol Pain-relief Patch: $5.99, get a $3 RR- I also had a $3 off coupon

1 Reach Floss: $2.99, get a $2 RR- also had a $1 off coupon

1 Omega Kids DHA supplement: $10, get a $10 RR- these are free (just tax) after RR

4 Butterfinger Candy Bars: $0.39 on sale (had to have these as "filler" items)

Sub-total: $20.54, minus my $3 and $1 coupons = $16.54

I now redeemed the four $3 RRs I'd earned from buying the Chex Mix, and then one of the $2 RR I'd earned from buying the Syntha 6 Energy bars (they were $1.89, get a $2 RR so FREE)

So it deducted $14 from my total, leaving me with just $2.54 to pay.

Then here's where a lot of people get messed up when using coupons. TAX. Most of the time you are still responsible for tax, and it's the tax amount on the original price of the item, before coupons. IE: the Reach Floss is on sale for $2.99. I have to pay this amount, THEN I'll get a RR after I buy it worth $2 to use on the next purchase. Tax here in Iowa is 7%, so tax on the floss is .21. But I have a $1 off coupon so I'd only be paying $1.99 for the floss, then get the $2 RR, so it's free. Except for tax. Factoring tax in, if I was just buying the floss I'd pay $1.99 + .21: $2.20. Then I'd get a $2 RR back. So I really paid .21 for the floss. Tax always needs to be taken into consideration in your plans because it can really add up! If I'm getting stuff really cheap or free with coupons, I still have tax to worry about! I have paid more for tax than I did for the products before!

So my sub-total before discounts was $20.54. Add tax, $1.43 appx. So add that to the $2.54 out of pocket I'll pay for these items.

But then the fun part: after you complete your transaction the little catalina machine (it prints coupons at the register, and also prints the Register Rewards) starts spitting out my RRs earned from this transaction. So I get a $3 RR, a $2 RR, and a $10 RR! So I paid $3.97 and got $15 worth of RR for my next transactions. This is also why you break up your purchase into multiple transactions: so you can use the RRs you're earning toward other items, keeping your out of pocket costs low. Others use the strategy of paying out of pocket for all items, then saving all the RRs they earn for the next week's deals.

I then used the $15 RR towards other items, etc, until I purchased everything on my list. I had it planned where I was going to use all my RR, but because they were out of a lot of what I wanted I decided to just keep them for next week rather than use them on something I didn't really want. So I have $12 RR for next week.

The Rules:

---The reason I had to buy the Butterfinger bars is because Walgreens has a policy where you cannot have more manufacturer coupons than you do items purchased. Since Register Rewards are considered manufacturer coupons, without the Butterfingers I wouldn't have had enough items to equal the RRs redeemed. Get it? Confusing I know. It gets worse. Now of course buying items just to make sure you can use your RRs can affect your savings, so its a good strategy to buy super cheap things, preferably ones that you will use. Since candy can ALWAYS be used in my house, and they were a pretty good price, that's what I settled on. Last week I bought a bunch of really cute Christmas ornaments that were 75% off, so they were each .25! And I LOVE them, so it was a win win!

---Another important rule is this (I'll use the Reach Floss again as an example): If you're buying more than one of an item that's offering a RR, such as the floss, you shouldn't use the RR you earned on one floss towards the purchase of another floss. You CAN technically do it, but by redeeming it on the same item it will tell the catalina machine to NOT print another RR for the new floss you're buying. This is because of the fine print on all RR offers- one coupon per item. So it will not let you us the RR you just earned on a floss to get another floss and another RR. BUT- if you use a different RR (to be safe you should make sure it's not from the same manufacturer, if that manufacturer is offering more than one RR deal at a time, such as a RR deal on Tide detergent and an RR deal on Herbal Essences shampoo- both are manufactured by Proctor & Gamble) from another item, you're safe. So that's why I used the Chex Mix RR towards other items, then I used the Reach and Tylenol RR for more items still. See? Its EASY! LOL

I hope I'm explaining this well....it makes sense in my head but I've heard from a lot of people who say they just can't 'get it'. Couponing, especially at Walgreens, does take some skill. Math is required. I honestly think that some people are just not "smart enough" for it, as mean as that sounds!

I know that no one is reading my blog, but if any family who read it have any questions leave a comment and I'll try to help.