IMPORTANT: If you ever shop at Walgreens, READ THIS!

I have been working with Walgreens to put to rest a lot of the discrepencies everyone has been having.  I spent about an hour today working with Nick, the manager, at the Draper, Utah store. For the first time ever, a manager actually understands coupons and how Walgreens stores will accept them. YAY Nick! He was able to clear up the confusion on a lot of things.

Here are the MUST knows for shopping at Walgreens:

1- UPDATE- We have now transitioned to the same ad as the rest of the Country. Walgreens has an 8 Page Ad and a 16 Page Ad.  I did not know this until today.  Many other money savings sites have posted deals and scenarios for 16 Page Ads.  Unforunately, Utah County only gets an 8 Page Ad and from my experience today in Salt Lake County, they do too!  I will be posting ONLY the 8 page ad deals!  So if you do check out other money saving sites, please remember that the deals they post may be from the 16 Page Ad in their Region.  For example, I was really excited about the Electrosol Register Reward Deal…. however it is only a part of the 16 Page Ad and not valid at my Walgreens.  So make sure you check your ad before you go.  It is not fun to get to Walgreens only to realize that all of the deals you prepared for are out of Region or out of State!

2- You MUST have more items than Manufacturer Coupons.  So, if you buy 6 items and you have 6 manufacturer coupons, you will need to buy a cheap “filler” item like a 10 cent pencil or something else. Before you go to the cashier, just simply count how many items are in your cart and how many manufacturer coupons you have.  If you have too many coupons, just grab something on your way up to checkout. (Nick told me today that Walgreens coupons DO NOT count towards the amount of items to coupons ratio- only manufacturer.)

3- A Register Reward is considered a Manufacturer Coupon.  So, if you are buying 6 items, and you have 6 Manufacturer coupons, and you want to pay with one of your Register Rewards, you need to get two “filler” items.

4- It has always been my understanding that you need to give Walgreens your Manufacturer coupons first and your Walgreens coupons second.  However, from my conversation with Nick today, he said the computer may need it to be the other way around.  He said you are less likely to have the cashier beep at you if you use the Walgreens coupons first.  Again, that is opposite of what I have done, but it may work for you, if you have had problems with that in the past.

5- If you pay with a RR, you may not receive a new RR.  If you have received an RR for let’s say Neosporin, you cannot go and buy Neosporin again and use the RR from the first Neosporin transaction.  You can use an RR from Progresso soup to buy the Neosporin deal and still get a new RR.  So you just cannot pay with an RR from the same transaction that you are repeating again.

6- Walgreens does not have a coupon policy.  Managers can decide at any given time whether or not they want to take your coupon.  So, the deals that I post may not work for you at your Walgreens, if you have a manager who is clueless on how to use coupons.  I personally have to go to a Walgreens that is farther away because of this exact situation.

**In light of this new information, I have updated my Walgreens post from yesterday.  If you want to check out the updated version, go here.

Hope this helps clear up any confusion!