I remember surfing the blog world and seeing all the confusion about Walgreens. It took me 6 months before I saw a deal that made it worth it for me to go it. But once I did…..It was wonderful! Did I mess up? You bet! More than once? Yep! Was it worth it? Yes. Because I did learn what not to do next time. So while you will mess up and kick your self because you could of saved an extra $0.50 cents! Remember that this will take time and be sure to give yourself some time. This is going to be a lot of information to digest so feel free to print it out and take it with you!
Stacking Coupons:
At Walgreens you may use an In-Ad coupon as well as a manufactures coupon on the same item.
Example:
Use 1 Sure Deoderant with an In-Ad coupons is 2/$3 Limit 4
Stack with (4) $1.50 from 1/24 SS
Total OOP: Free
Now in my experience it is always better to give them the Manufacturers Coupon first. Then the Wags coupon. This way it will avoid the infamous BEEEEEPPPPP. It has been said that you have to buy as many items as you have coupons (code: Fillers). I have found this to be true if I give them the WAGs Coupons first but not with you do Manufacturer then Wags.
Where Can I get these Coupons?
Walgreens coupons can be found in store or in the Sunday Paper. Most coupon are only good for 7 days.
They also will put our Monthly Coupon books that are usually at the endcaps of isles Or found in the Pharmacy.
Another great place is Walgreens.com they will have online coupons that you can print and take to the store. All these are stackable with your Manufacturer coupons, Wags and RR.
What is a Register Reward (RR)?
A RR is a coupon that the CAT machine will print out that you can use to buy anything in store on your next purchase. Only one will print per product you buy and you most likely not be able to use them to purchase that product again and get a RR. You must buy something of Equal or greater value.
You will want to look for the RR symbol in the ad to see what items are on promotion. These items are free a lot of the time and even possible overage! 
Here is an example useing your RR:Thermocare Heat Pads 2ct 2.49
use 1/$1 Manufacter Coupon (MC)
Recieve $2.50 in RR
Final OOP: $1.49 plus you get a $2.50 RR which means you just made $1.00 in overage 
You can then use that RR to buy something else in the store or with another RR deal. But make sure you do not use that to buy the same product!
In my experience the people at walgreens are very courteous and don’t seem to mind if you do multiple transactions. But be polite and if someone is behind you get in line again.
There are a lot of RR deals and some of them are good and some are not. Don’t feel like you have to get everyone of them.
Rules to follow:
use coupons in this order!
Register Rewards (RR)
Manufacturer Coupons (MC)
Walgreens Coupons (Store)
What is a Filler item?
You need to have as many items as you have Manufacturers coupons.
Example:
Gillette Razor $8.99
-$4.00 from PG 2/7 (coupon #1)
1 Excedrin Menstral $2.50
-$2.00 Printable (coupon #2)
3 candles in clearance .25 each (filler) I have to buy 3 otherwise I my total is negative .01 cent
-$3.00 RR huggies promo (these are now attaching to the candles) (coupon #3)
-$3.00 RR Tylenol Promo (attaching to the candles) (coupon #4)
Total OOP: $.24, and receive a $4.00 RR from Razor and $2.00 RR from Excedrin
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you help support this site. Thanks!
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
I have found that clerks increasingly demand all the coupons up front. They scan them in the order that they want. And, they have not been nice to work with lately. I'm rather frustrated with Walgreens and have not been going as much lately.
Great post! It also took me a little while to get the hang of Wags, but I am so glad I stuck with it. I get some difficult cashiers from time to time like Marge unfortunately. Luckily there are a lot of Walgreens near my home though.
Another use for filler items. According to the Lynnwood Wags Mngr – if you have a mfg coupon for every item you are buying, you can't pay with RR. RR are considered mfg coupons and you can only use 1 mfg coupon per item. Make sense? Also, if you pay with a RR in the same amount as a RR you are expecting back, it will not print it out. They assume you have already gotten the RR for the item because the amounts are the same. Hopefully this save you some frustration.
Anonymous- Yes that is true that you have to have as many items as you have products. But I did you will not have to include the WAGS coupon as a coupon if you ring those up last. for example
Last night I bought
4 Sure Deoderant
3 Reach Floss
I used:
3) $1.50 off mens
1) $1.00 off womens
3) $1.00 off reach floss
I then gave them the walgreens coupons
2/$3 Sure Deoderant
.99 cent Floss
If I gave them the WAGs coupons first the Reach would not have worked because it is over the amount of the product.
The only time I have not had a RR print is when I use that for the same product.
I meant to say items as you have coupons with the exception of WAGS if you had them those last
@ thanks Kim! This is so much information and I know that different store sometimes do different things.
@ marge- I really hope that you have a better experience soon. One thing you might think of doing is call corp and letting them know
wow….that is just so helpful! I am very new and expect due to my organization skills, and anal retentiveness…that I am going to be an extreme couponer. It took me a minute to figure out what “WAGS” was, but learned quickly. So Manuf. cpns first, then Wag coupons, and if I get RR then I can use them on a second transaction? but one that doesn’t include the original product bought in the previous transaction. Is this correct? I live in Bothell, is this store a good one? thanks for all the helpful tips.
I sooooo can’t believe I used to throw coupons or tuesday coupon inserts Redplum etc…away! What a dummy….lol. Lastly, I watched a previous TLC extreme couponing show, and this one lady basically dumpster dove in the Newspaper bins…..is that legal to do?
Okay get this!I went to Walgreens today and bought 2 scott papertowles and the nasty cashier said that they no longer take manufacture and wags coupons on the same product! Is that true? I argued with her but it was pointless. All the walgreens stores around me I hate going to because they are sooooo nasty and mean! So I email corporate? Thanks!
I work for Walgreens part time (in MO, we have rewards card so we no longer take coupons… I’m told it’s going nation wide in the near future)
As long as you are friendly to us cashiers we have NO problem helping. Most of our couponers like to come to me because I’m more of a people person. (In a store you can normally just spot one out without even talking to them) For me the minute I get yelled at because we didn’t have an item that would of been free after a coupon, nope I don’t wanna help you. (This is only my part time job to keep my busy, I don’t get paid enough to get yelled at. Remember our parents taught us to be nice) You have to realize that there are TONS of people doing coupon staking now, and we still do the same amount of ordering than we did before all this began.
Also yes clerks get frustrated, if you are going to the front cashier. They are going to have customers get CRANKY to them because they were trying to make sure your transaction was correct. I advise as being a employee, walk over to the make up counter, there should always be someone willing to help you over there and you will be aside so that others aren’t yelling at us because we are trying to help you. (Also corporate likes us having as many customers ring up at the make up counter! Hey and it keeps the girl busy!)
Kelly, in our district it really depends on the store manager. Emailing corporate truly probably wouldn’t make it down to that certain store. *again from being an employee* I would call talk to the store manager and more get the vibe from them. Make sure it’s the store manager and not assistant, our assistants I swear make up BS and tell customers. Also I suggest just kinda feeling out the workers, really a lot of my employees aren’t what even I would say was pleasant. But there’s got to be one at one of them! Oh and to answer the question, yes in MO we still take store and manufacture coupons.
Also, today I felt horrible when I talked to our newspaper delivery guy. Today he dropped by our store to give us our weekly invoice. I brought up if Extreme Couponing had helped his newspaper sales. He said “One would think, but no. It’s actually only hurting me. All these people think that the coupon flyers in the newspaper are free, in reality its the ones that stuff and delivery the newspapers that have to pay an amount to the manufactures.” Then he proceeded to tell me how after he dropped off our stores papers (before we got to the store so probably 5am-6am) he passed a CVS and people were already going through all the newspapers that were just dropped off and stealing the newspapers.
I do love that there are so many people doing couponing and donating them, and I praise you for that. But I wanted to reach out to you Amber and express what this is all doing to others. By people thinking “coupon flyers are free” someone else is actually paying for stealing.
I just wanted to answer our Walgreens answer and please ask that if you want to get 12 newspapers for the coupons, please buy the newspapers. Please don’t steal from other’s pockets!
Megan.
At my Walgreens, the employee in the makeup area is ALWAYS nice and friendly to me. I only check out there about half the time, but might do so more often now. I got in line 2 times today after noticing she was pretty busy.
About the papers: I bought two at CVS a couple of weeks ago only to get home to find the inserts were stolen out of them. It was my fault for not checking inside before I bought them…but so rude of whoever goes out there stealing. BTW, I sometime use newspapers as a filler too.
what ss means
Smart Source….it is a type of insert available in the newspapers.
Also, I decided to read this today because I checked out with 5 items and strategically had 2 manufacture coupons and 3 RR. It only took the 2 coupons, then 1 RR, and wouldn’t take anything else. I’m not one to argue, so I just paid and went to the back of the line for my second transaction. For this transaction I had: 5 items, 2 manufacture coupons, 2 wags coupons, and what would have been 1 RR. It took everything plus the 2 RR I couldn’t use with the first transaction. I got lucky, but was confused. I get it now that the wags coupons don’t count towards the number of items, but still don’t understand why I couldn’t use the RR in the first transaction.
PLEASE READ!
I read above that it is a good idea to call corporate when you have problems with a Walgreens cashier. I really disagree! Walgreens is one of the very few companies whom take customer complaints VERY seriously. When you call corporate on a cashier, You cause A LOT of problems for the Store Manager. ALWAYS ALWAYS first approach a member of management and allow them to handle the situation. If they can’t help you then ask for the store manager. 99.9% of the time they will be more than willing to help you. Walgreens Store Managers are highly trained in customer service. Those complaints cost that Store Manager in many ways.
I know this because my husband is a Store Manager. I love couponing too, but remember there is another side to this craze! My husband has no problem helping his “extreme customers” out. He has built a great customer relationship with many of them. But understand this… For every Extreme Customer he has come in and buy 4, 6, 12, 15 sometimes ALL of one product, there are 15 customers behind them that he has to now try and make happy. Those customers WILL and DO call and complain that he never has the products they want when they come in and shop. Now you may think, “well, he needs to buy more product” Well not so easy… 1. no matter how much of the product he orders, his extreme customers will buy it all. 2. The stores warehouse can’t supply such extreme amounts to every store they have. 3. Rainchecks hurt him. They are not meant to cover these types of shopping. every raincheck he has to give out creates a plethora of negatives to him.
So when his Extreme customers are demanding, greedy, and hard on his cashiers it becomes too much and THAT is when everyone will loose. He has customers who spend a lot of money in his store. They are customers in his photo lab, his pharmacy, and every day items they purchase at his store because they like to shop there. When he has to deal with those customers who are now upset because they want something that is on sale in the ad it causes things like quantity restrictions, coupon restrictions etc…
And let’s be honest here…. There are a LARGE percent of Extreme Couponers who take these huge quantities of items and sell them at flea markets, sell them back to small retailers etc… I know because I see them out shopping in our town, at his store… and then all of a sudden they are at these flea markets selling it all.
so PLEASE …. coupon until your hearts content! I love to do it myself…. but don’t be GREEDY, RUDE, and DISHONEST about it. because these retailers CAN and WILL put a stop to it when people start to take advantage of a good thing.