Welcome to Surviving The Stores!

NBC Dallas originally aired a story about saving money by using blogs and now that story is being aired across the nation!

What you saw in the segment on couponing can happen for you too! It might seem overwhelming at first, but after a few weeks of practice, you too can be getting groceries for next to nothing (and with the economic times as they are, that is VERY helpful!)

I began Surviving The Stores in September 2008 as a way to keep myself accountable in grocery budgeting. I was not raised in a couponing family, so the whole couponing world was very new to me. I mistakenly thought that people who used coupons ended up paying more for items than those who bought the off brands.

After getting the hang of it and saving us literally THOUSANDS of dollars I thought that maybe my experiences and finds could be helpful to others. With the economic times as they are, more and more people are trying to cut back and figure out ways to “Survive The Stores.” I am here to help!

How can Surviving The Stores help you save $$? (and LOTS of it!)

The first place to start is by clicking on “Where To Begin” on my left sidebar at the top. That will give you all of the information you need to get started couponing!

Then, click on the store(s) that you have near you to find the deals and coupon match-ups for that store. I find the weekly deals for:

Tom Thumb (which generally the ad is the same for all Safeway stores including Randalls)
Texas Albertsons
Texas/Louisiana Kroger
CVS (nationwide)
Walgreens(nationwide)

Couponing at CVS and Walgreens has a strategy all of its own. To be honest, it took me a little while to get the hang of it. But now I don’t pay for make-up, toiletries, over the counter medicine, diapers, some food items, CHOCOLATE , and the list keeps going! I recommend reading my CVS and Walgreens weekly posts for a couple of weeks until you feel comfortable with how it works.

If your local grocery store is not one of the ones listed above, make sure to head over to The Grocery Gathering to find a blog that does the coupon match-ups for a store near you!

I also post about Target and Walmart when you can get a really great deal there! (Most of the free items generally come from CVS, Walgreens and the grocery stores, though).

Although there tends to be multiple posts each day here at Surviving The Stores, these are the weekly staples:

Monday: Menu Plan Monday – We have saved SOO much money by me just sitting down once a week and planning out what we will be having. I provide links to the recipes that I use as well as reviews of some of the recipes that we have had previously

Tuesday: Helpful money-saving articles

Wednesday: Grocery store coupon match-ups

Thursday: CVS and Walgeens weekly deals posted

Friday: Fun Friday Freebies! – Each week I post a list of all of the freebies that I have found online the previous week. I have gotten lots of really neat stuff for free including DVDs, TONS of magazines and food! You can check out all of the freebies from previous weeks HERE.

Saturday: Super Savings Saturday – What did I find at my local stores and how much did I spend?

Sunday: CVS and Walgreens trips

If you are already a blog reader, I recommend adding Surviving The Stores to your blog reader (such as google reader) so that you don’t miss out on any great deals!

You can also subscribe to Surviving The Stores for free through email and you will get an email at the end of each day with the posts for that day.

Please feel free to email me or leave a comment with any questions you may have!

Want an easy way to start earning a little extra now? See my post HERE about a neat opportunity called Swagbucks!

Walgreens Weekly Deals

Effective coupon shopping at Drug Stores (like CVS and Walgreens) takes a much different strategy than shopping at the Grocery Stores.

Each drug store has a different couponing method. Here are the basics on how to “Survive Walgreens.”

Before May of 2009, Walgreens was a lot more complicated than it is now. There was a rebate program, Walgreens Easy Saver coupons and something called Register Rewards (which I will explain below). But in May of 2009, Walgreens got rid of their Easy Saver program, thus making “couponing” there much less complicated! The Register Reward program is still active, and is a little similar to CVS’s ECB program, except that you don’t have to have a customer loyalty card to do it.

Each week in the Walgreens ad you will see items that, when you buy them, you earn something called “Register Rewards.” Register Rewards (or RRs in my posts) are coupons that print out from a little machine next to the register (called a Catalina machine). You can use these Register Rewards like cash on any future purchases (with a few exceptions like tobacco products, lottery tickets, gift cards, etc…)

Sounds simple, right? Well, there are a few rules to follow when doing this. I think the best way to explain this is to create a sample scenario with an explanation of each step.

- The weekly ad comes out and there are three items in the ad that say “Free after Register Rewards.” What this means is that if you buy the item, say at $4.99, then you will get $4.99 in Register Rewards back once you pay for your purchase.

- So for this example, let’s say that there is a brand of Toothpaste that costs $2.99 and you will get $3.00 in Register Rewards back (the Register Rewards always round up – if it says $2.99, then you will get a RR for $3.00 – if it says $3.49 then you will get a RR for $3.50). There is also a 6 pack of toilet paper that is $3.50 (and you get $3.50 in Register Rewards back). Then there is a package of Tylenol that costs $6.00, and if you buy it you get $6.00 in Register Rewards back.

{Are you getting confused yet? Just stay with me, read through to the end, and then read it all over again. Read through the Walgreens scenarios that I post each Saturday for a couple of weeks and you will start to get the hang of it!}

- You have a coupon that gives you $1 off the toothpaste and a coupon that gives you 50¢ off of the paper towels. Here is what a possible trip to Walgreens might look like:

Your first transaction (all you need to do is tell the cashier you want to do separate transactions – you don’t have to go out of the store and then back in or anything):

You buy the Toothpaste for $2.99
and you buy the toilet paper for $3.50

Then you give them your $1 off coupon for the toothpaste
and you give them your 50¢ off coupon for the toilet paper

You would pay $4.99 out of pocket (with real money!)

And you would get back two slips of paper from the catalina machine by the register. You would get out one that says, “Save $3 on your next purchase” and one that says, “Save $3.50 on your next purchase.”

NOTE: YES, you can use manufacturer coupons and still get your Register Rewards. Sometimes cashiers/managers who don’t know how their system works will say that you can’t get Register Rewards if you use a coupon. If they use this as an excuse for why your Register Reward didn’t print, it’s NOT true. More than likely it is because either the catalina machine is offline (or out of paper), or you didn’t get the right item.

Here is what your second transaction might look like:

Buy the Tylenol for $6.00

You can’t use the Register Rewards to pay for this just yet for two reasons:

1) Because you have $6.50 in Register Rewards and your purchase will only be $6.00.

2) Because you only have one item and you have two Register Rewards (i.e. coupons) that you will want to use from your first transaction. You cannot use more coupons than you have items and Register Rewards count as coupons (as we will see again in the next transaction).

So, you will need to purchase what I refer to as a “filler” item to get your total at or above $6.50.

Once your total is at least $6.50 then you can give them your $6.50 in Register Rewards to pay.

You would pay out of pocket whatever the amount is above $6.50 (if you bought an item for 59¢ then you would end up paying 9¢ plus tax out of pocket)

And you would get back $6 in Register Rewards

Here is what your third transaction might look like (very similar to Transaction #1 but with a small change):

You buy the Toothpaste for $2.99
and you buy the toilet paper for $3.50

Then you give them your $1 off coupon for the toothpaste
and you give them your 50¢ off coupon for the toilet paper

Again, you can’t use your Register Rewards from Transaction #2 just yet for the same two reasons that were listed above:

1) Our total is only $4.99 and we have a $6 Register Reward

2) We only have two items and we’ve already used two coupons. Since the Register Reward counts as a coupon, we will need three items to be able to use three coupons.

So you will need to buy another item that is at least $1.01 so that the total will be at least $6. Then you can use your $6 Register Reward to pay.

You will pay out of pocket whatever the final amount was over $6.

And you will get back $6.50 in Register Rewards

You could then do Transaction #2 all over again, then transaction #3 and back and forth and back and forth (depending on how many coupons you had!)

Now I’m sure the question going through your mind is, “Why couldn’t I buy the Tylenol for $6, get the $6 Register Reward, and then buy the Tylenol again with that $6 Register Reward, get another $6 Register Reward, etc, etc…” The answer is that the computer system won’t let you do that. You cannot use a Register Reward that you got from one item to buy that same item and still get a Register Reward again. That’s why in the transactions above I “roll” the Register Rewards to get different items.

If you look through the Walgreens Scenarios from previous weeks, you’ll get the hang of what I’m talking about.

There is one more type of coupon at Walgreens that you should know about. If you look at a Walgreens ad, you will see Walgreens coupons (called in-ad coupons) all over the ad. In order to get the price that’s in the ad for the particular item, you have to have the cashier scan the coupon from the ad. You don’t have to cut out the coupon, just hand the ad to the cashier. These coupons are considered Walgreens coupons. You can use one Walgreens coupon and one Manufacturer coupon (a Register Reward is considered a manufacturer coupon) per item.

If you have a question about a specific week’s ad, just leave a comment on that post and either I or another reader will answer it.

—————————-
****Be sure to sign up to receive free updates from Surviving The Stores in your inbox or your blog reader