CCC Blog #3: Walgreens "Register Rewards"

Friday July 29, 2011

Today's blog topic will be all about Walgreens.

Why dedicate a blog on our couponing site to talking about Walgreens?...Because this place ROCKS when it comes to savings!

Start by browsing their printed ad found in the Sunday paper or in the store. Or, just browse it on the internet...
http://walgreens.shoplocal.com/walgreens/default.aspx?ban=c1_h_wa

Look for the deals marked like this one:

$3.99 ea. or 2/$6

Planters Nuts

Planters

SALE

thru Jul 30

• Peanuts, 16 oz.
• Cashews Halves & Pieces, 9.25 oz.
• Mixed, 11.5 oz.
• Flavor Grove Almonds, 6 oz.

REGISTER REWARDS®*

Sale Price 2/$6 - REGISTER REWARDS* Good on Next Purchase $2 = Like Paying 2/$4

*Limit 1 coupon printed per offer. See coupon for exclusions, limitations and expiration.

 

Now, here is how this works:

Find a coupon for the item that is marked in the sales ad as getting "Register Rewards" with the purchase. Use your coupon and further reduce the sales price they have the item listed for. END YOUR TRANSACTION!!! Very important. Tell the cashier that is all you want on that transaction. I "Catalina" coupon will print off of their special printer that the cashier will hand you with you change. THEY JUST GAVE YOU FREE MONEY!!!!

 

Now, if you do what I did when I worked this system a couple of weeks ago you will see. It is a process. It takes a few minutes. IT WORKS!

 

I just happened to be in the store to pick up a prescription. I needed a bottle of shower gel and had found a bottle I liked before and had bought there. It was Suave 2 in 1. Hair and body. It was only $1. That is their regular price and the bottle happened to be a 50% extra  or larger bottle than the normal size, still $1.

 

OK, I see all the other Suave shower gel varieties for a $1. I got excited. You see, my mom was needing some more. So I get one of each. THEN...I walk over to the deodorant isle and see that they had a sale on Mitchum antiperspirant/deodorant. They were on sale 2 for $6. That's a good deal! And (I forgot to have my binder with me:-( there was a 75 cent off coupon I could have used. That would have made them 2 for $5.25. This offer said you get "$4 register rewards with purchase". So...

 

I get 12 sticks of deodorant.

I get 24 bottles of shower gel.

I approach the register.

I tell the cashier to ring up 2 of the deodorants.

I end the transaction and pay.

A coupon prints for $4 that can be used on future purchase.

 

I put 4 bottles of shower gel on the counter.

 

I asked her to ring them up.

 

I ask her to apply my $4 "Register rewards" coupon.

 

I give her 36 cents for tax.

 

I end transaction.

 

I put the next 2 deodorants on the counter.

 

I pay for them and end the transaction.

 

ANOTHER $4 coupon prints.

 

I lay 4 more bottles of shower gel on the counter.

 

She rings them up.

 

I asked her to apply the "Register Rewards" coupon.

 

I give her 36 cents for tax.

 

I did this same thing over and over.

 

Twelve total transactions in a row. THEY WILL DO IT!

 

I walked out with a stash of deodorant and 24 various bottles of Suave shower gel. I made sure and selected every single one of the 50% more size bottles they had too :-)

 

Here is the picture...

 

Now Jaime chose to use her Register Rewards (and she remembered her coupons!) to buy other needed items either on sale or just because. But the key here is to realize they are giving you FREE MONEY!!! You just have to gain the Register rewards and use the Register Rewards in separate transactions.

You may not need deodorant, peanuts, or some of the stuff that gets you the Register Rewards. But chances are you do. It is a great way to build a stock pile. I have more pictures of deals from other places I'll share in future blogs.

I hope this information is helpful. If so, let me know.

 

CCC Blog #2: A Few Tools of the Trade

Thursday July 28th, 2011

I thought I'd record a short little video with my cell phone camera and show you what I use (and what my sister Brandy suggested I get). My best friend (and group member) Jaime Baker has the same set up too. These are just suggestions...

Today, our inserts arrived :-) I have mine separated and ready to cut already. I may procrastinate and make that a job for tomorrow. For some reason I am worn out. It could have been the late night laundry I was doing along with that song Valarie Durham, one of our group members, blessed me with that got my blood pumping. Hey, just for fun, let me share it with you. Its not about coupons...but it was posted by Val last night and she and her husband are in Germany serving our country. Her husband Neal is a military chaplain. Thank you guys for what you do for all of us! Coupons can bring connection and Christian connection is a great thing and much needed! Here it is...

I looked through this weeks coupons by the way and there are some that should help us actually get the stores to pay us if we play it right. Speaking with group member Jaime Baker earlier, she said she felt that it as really going to work well at the Kroger in her area. We have no Krogers in Dothan. We have Winn Dixie, Publix, Piggly Wiggly (LOL..I know) and that's about it.

I thought I'd let you see the pic I took of the flyers that came...

Refer back to my wall post from earlier today to see how many pages there are to each of them. Then, if you have them, compare them to your circulars from this past Sunday's papers. See a difference?

Tomorrow evening I will try and blog a little about tips that BLOW YOUR MIND when you play the Walgreen "register rewards" game right. It is not a game as such but it is a system that can get you  FREE products!!!! I know because I have 24 free full size bottles of shower gel sitting on my shelf here in the room to prove it. I will post some pics too.

Blessings,

Dave

CCC Blog #1: Welcome

Welcome to the first edition of the Creative Christian Couponing blog!

This is just a place for me to tell anyone who cares about deals I happen to run across, sales that I run into and people I run over while driving and thumbing through my coupons. Just kidding.

I created a special Facebook group tonight and named it, you guessed it, "Creative Christian Couponing". Look us up and ask to join. This group is intended to be a place to encourage each other and share tips and tricks to work the system and save money. Who doesn't need to save money?

A little background on me might be appropriate. I am a father of four. Garrett, Byron, Alaina and Camden. I have been unemployed now for about nine months and recently relocated to Dothan, Alabama. I am still trying very hard to land a job so say a prayer for me. My mother, a cancer survivor and 70 years young needed my help. Before coming down here, I had caught a few episodes of Extreme Couponing on TV. I, like most who watched it was amazed and overwhelmed at the thought of the prep that goes into getting those killer deals. Let me tell you...

You can do it!

My sister, Brandy, who is not a Facebook user herself (sad for us in the group, but I am trying to bring her on board), has helped me to develop a system and bring some order to the madness of couponing. Believe me, cutting coupons out of six to twelve FULL circulars (explanation to follow) every week and getting them in my binder is MADNESS!!!! But it is well worth it! Tonight alone, I went to Publix and bought:

3 boxes of Kellogg's Pop Tarts
2 big boxes of Reese's Puffs cereal
2 big boxes of Lucky Charms
4 full-size packages of Oreo Double Stuffed Cookies
2 boxes of 8-count Nature Valley granola bars
2 half-gallon bottles V8 Splash Tropical Juice

Retail price: $59.82
I paid: $24.36
I saved: $35.05

I also saved similarly at Target and Walmart today too!

My kids are coming to visit this weekend so I needed to start stocking up on some food. Up until now, my focus has been on stuff like toothpaste and body wash, batteries, razors, laundry detergent. I am always looking for a deal. My sister helps keep me in-the-know about what to look for. She is a jewel!

So how does one get started? The Sunday paper would seem to be the first and most obvious place to start. This is true and FALSE at the same time. Let me explain...

Here in Dothan, as in your town, the Sunday paper is known to have tons of circulars and it will generally feature one or more of the following actual "coupon" inserts:

Redplum
Smart Source
P & G (Proctor and Gamble)

Most weeks, here anyway, we only get the Redplum. It also is a VERY scaled-back version from what is actually printed by the one's who produce the circular. For months, there has been no Smart Source or P & G in the Dothan Eagle. My sister Brandy and I decided to ask the local Publix (who carries the "Atlanta Journal Constitution") when they best time to buy it from them is. They said be here when we open at 7am. They were not kidding! The line was about 20 people deep and some folks were carrying out stacks of those papers at $3.00 a pop! Brandy got one and there were all the circulars. The Redplum for Atlanta had about THREE TIMES the pages of our local one and thus more coupons. They had what seemed to be every coupon available. The Dothan Eagle is $1.50 and has very little.

Please keep in mind that I am talking about the coupon inserts and not the Walgreens, HH Gregg, JC Penney-type ads. There is a HUGE Walgreens tip I will share soon.

Brandy did some research and found THE PLACE to get ALL the available coupons EACH AND EVERY WEEK! No more buying newspapers (unless you just want to and have the money to blow on multiple copies) For two months, she and I have gone in together and ordered our inserts directly from the printer, at a HUGE discount over the cost of the newspaper! The place to go is http://www.sundaycouponinserts.com/

We buy ours in sets of six each, Meaning she will get six Redplum and so will I. This past weekend, all three inserts, Redplum, Smart Source and P& G were printed. I can assure you, not every paper in America gets them. We are lucky just to see a six-page Redplum. So, Brandy and I ordered 3 sets of 6 each. Read the site's info about pricing. On weeks where only one or two of the 3 available inserts print, we get them and split the cost of the inserts and shipping between us. It is usually $9 or $10 bucks. If you keep the order under 30 individual inserts, it keeps the shipping at about $5 instead of $10. This week, We could not avoid the higher shipping cost but its all good. We will save so much more than we are paying for the inserts and we will each have 18 inserts total this week. They usually arrive on Wednesday but did not come today. They should be here tomorrow. They came on Thursday last week too. Its been Wednesday every week before that though. I am not complaining because I JUST got caught up on my cutting and sorting and putting them in my binder. I will talk about helpful (and necessary) things you'll need shortly.

WHATEVER YOU DO...Order your circulars from this company just after midnight on Saturday (First few moments of Sunday). If you don't, they will get scooped up and then you'll have to wait until later in the next week for re-prints. We have found this system works for us.

I compared via Skype (internet video conferencing) with my children's mother her Redplum from the Chattanooga paper and the one I received from http://www.sundaycouponinserts.com/ . Her's had about 10 pages if I recall and mine had 26! It was the same front and back, but she was missing a lot of coupons!

There are so many sources on the web for coupons. Target.com is an excellent source. Walmart as well as many Supermarkets) honor competitor coupons. Most all of them do down here. Check each store for the policies in your on area. We have no stores that double coupons, but Chattanooga and other areas have Bi-Lo supermarkets and they do double coupons. Some "stack" coupons. This means they will take a manufacturer's coupon like in the inserts I have mentioned as well as Target coupons and actually let you count them both on your purchases. That is how I save at Publix tonight.

There is SO MUCH to say and SO MANY tips. I will have to stretch my own tips, tricks and the supplies and websites you need to get the great deals over the next few blogs.

Don't get overwhelmed. Get to saving some money!

Watch the official group page for shared success stories and let's motivate each other.

God bless,

Dave