Couponing at Walgreens

I've always stayed away from going to drug stores because traditional wisdom is that they are more expensive than someplace like Target. Yes, in general, they are. But then again, I can't walk into Target and NOT spend at least $40, so perhaps it's better for me to hit the drug stores.

Walgreens opened up a few months ago just up the road, and I love having it so close! So, I clipped some coupons, did my homework and headed up there yesterday. Here's my bounty:

1 box Dora bandaids - $3.49
1 .5 oz Neosporin - $4 on sale
1 Neosporin To Go - $4 on sale
2 Huggies Size 5 (30 in pack) - 2/$19.98 on sale
1 Replinish Contact Solution - $7.99 sale
1 Schick Quattro razor with blades - $8.99 sale
1 breath mint package - .79 cents

Total before coupons: $55.82 w/o tax
Total after coupons: $41.56 w/ tax (so, $11 in coupon savings)
Total Register Rewards: $9.00

Actually, out of pocket I only spent $37.17 because I had a balance on my gift card from the March Easy Saver. Of course, my latest Easy Saver money was uploaded later yesterday afternoon! Unfortunately, Walgreens is discontinuing the Easy Saver program as of May 1, but supposedly, the in-store deals and Register Rewards are supposed to be better.

The important part here was that I had a coupon for everything but the mints. The Walgreens register is set up so that you have to have an item for each coupon. Now, you can have a manufacturer's coupon and a store coupon for the same item, but you would have to pick up a second item as well, or the register just won't put it through. Weird, but that's how it is. My lowest value coupon was $1.00, and my best coupon was $4 for the razor.

I now have $9 in Register Rewards for a return trip. So, I'll just wait for next week's deals to come out and see what I can do between the coupons and RRs!

I'm finding it expensive to get started couponing, but evidently, I'm not alone. Funny thing was that as I was looking for the razor, another woman showed it to me without me asking. She was also a couponer, and on top of that, her husband was a manager at the same Walgreens. We started talking, and she said it definitely gets much easier and cheaper once you get that stockpile going. We agreed that you should never have to pay for razors, shaving cream, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes and shampoo (except I don't use drug store shampoo) because of coupons and deals. We'll see how fast it takes me to get there!