At other stores (like Albertsons or Smiths) these types of coupons are sometimes called Catalinas. When I first started doing this I couldn't figure out what salad dressing had to do with any of this. :) Catalina is a company that companies contract with to promote their products. So they will often offer a catalina or Register Reward for buying their promotional item. These print out along with your receipt.Each week Walgreens will have certain items that when purchased will generate a RR. Each week the expert bloggers (see the links on the right of my page) will post the weekly deals for various stores. My favorite frugal blog is http://www.hip2save.com/. She is amazing! HERE is her post for this weeks deals. She will also add more posts throughout the week as she finds more deals. You can go to her site at http://www.hip2save.com/ and then on the right hand column under "Store Specific Coupons & Info" scroll down and click on the Walgreens link. This will bring you up all the Walgreens links she has posted. I like to keep a word document on my computer called Walgreens.doc where I cut and paste in the weekly deals and any new deals that I see that I want to look for. Then when I am ready to go to the store I know what to look for. She also has a link to Walgreens Q&A and Walgreens #1 and Walgreens #2. I would highly recommend reading these posts. You will learn a ton!
Now back to RRs. On hip2save's post for this week you will see a section called Register Reward Deals and underneath you will see things that should trigger a RR coupon. Some of these deals you will see advertised in their weekly ad but some of these are unadvertised and that's why checking the blogs are a good idea. I don't put all them on my blog, I just direct you to look at the really great blogs that have all that info on them.
If you are new to this I would suggest starting small. Here is an example of what I did today that might be a little easier to follow.
Today I bought 6 of the Skintimate NEW Cream Shave product and 6 Chapstick 100% Natural or True Shimmer Lip Balm.
I did 6 seperate transactions, each with 1 Skintimate and 1 Chapstick in them. When you are buying an item that has a RR, if you buy more then one of these items in a transaction then you will only get one RR. So if you were to buy these 6 Skintimates in the same transaction you would only get one $3RR where if you were to buy these 6 Skintimates, split up in six transaction you will get back six $3RRs totaling $18.
I had A LOT of RRs from last week and I wanted to use some of them up so I bought one Skintimate for $2.99 and one Chapstick for $1.99 in each transaction. My total came to $4.98 + tax. I used one $3.50RR on each coupon which made my OOP for each transaction $1.82. PLUS I got back a $3RR for the Skintimate and a $2RR for the chapstick for each one. So I spent $1.82 and got back $5 in Register Rewards.
And sometimes you can get things even better then free through RRs. For example, this week Wags has Colgate Max White or Max Fresh Toothbrush for $3.29 with a $3.50RR. There is also a $1 coupon that you can print out from here (click on sign up now, you can print each coupon twice per computer) or use the .75 coupon from the 3/29 Smart Source newspaper insert. So in this case you would buy the toothbrush for $3.29 minus the $1 coupon so you pay $2.29 but get back $3.50 in RRs. You just made a profit on buying this toothbrush!
Now you can of course start small. Do a couple transactions, get some RRs and then next week go back in and use those RRs to buy other items that have RRs. My sister in MT calls me every Monday and says "Okay, what do I buy at Wags this week?" I tell her what to get and she takes her stack of RRs and uses those to buy new items. RRs expire 2 weeks after they are issued so you will want to keep that in mind and make sure to use them before they expire.
There are some rules like you can't use a Skintimate RR on a Skintimate product. If you do, the new RR won't print out. You can read on the RR what company issued it. (Those Walgreens posts I mentioned on hip2save's website are great at explaining this and the other rules.)
This may sound like too much to figure out or too much hassle and it may feel like that your first few trips in but IT WILL GET EASIER. Now I can get in and out, even with a big list pretty quickly and it is VERY VERY worth it. I love that we can "shop" out of our own bathroom closet and food storage room. I am so stocked up on many things that I got for very cheap, free or even better then free, things we used to pay full price for because we had run out of and needed it right then. Not anymore for the most part!
Questions?
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