Why I won't shop at Walgreens

My very first coupon endeavor was to a Walgreens.  I got 2 bags of Planters Nuts for FREE!  It was exhilarating!  The cashier was nice and told me about the people who would come in and get $80 worth of merchandise for a few dollars.  I was excited.  This was before I met Rite Aid.  I was naive.  As time has passed (since March 18, 2010), Walgreens has changed a little and in ways that make it too difficult to bother with any but the most earth shattering deals, and even those are usually out of stock by the time I get there.  Anyway, here are the differences that keep me away.

One, their Register Rewards (equivalent to an +Up Reward or Extra Care Buck) are considered manufacturer coupons.  This slight difference means that if you want to buy a razor and have a coupon from the paper, you can't spend your Register Reward at the same time unless you want to buy another item (maybe a candy bar or something) so you don't have more coupons than items.  It doesn't matter the amount of the other item, as long as your subtotal doesn't exceed the amount of the RR, but still, I don't want to have to buy a $.50 item to use my coupon.  I think that's lame.  CVS and Rite Aid have no limit on the amount of Rewards you can spend in a transaction.

Two, if you were at Walgreens last week and got a Register Reward for buying...oh, say, Cottenelle Toilet Paper and this week they have a deal on Huggies Diapers (something like buy one get $3.00 in Register Rewards).  If you use that Register Reward from last week with your Huggies Diapers and candy bar or whatever, your Register Reward for the diaper will NOT print because both last week's deal and this week's deal are from Kimberly Clark.  They do this so you won't go and buy a razor, get the Rewards and spend them on another razor and so on but how would the average person know the parent company of every item they are buying?  Rite Aid and CVS both have membership cards, loyalty cards, or whatever you want to call them, so they can limit the number of times you can buy an item at a certain price.  While some see that as an invasion of privacy, and I do understand that, I see it as a way of keeping the shelves stocked for people who don't show up the first hour of a good sale.  Those foil helmeted conspiracy theorists are welcome to shop at Walgreens where there is no invasion of your privacy.  They can even were fake glasses and a mustache to keep the security cameras from facially recognizing them if they want, but I will shop at Rite Aid.  :)

So that's why I won't post many Walgreens deals here although there are people who LOVE Walgreens and only shop there.  They do have good deals occasionally that don't require you to jump through hoops, and if I see one, I will let you know, but you better get in the car and go immediately or they will be out.  Actually, call first.  They will do a stock check for you and save you some gas and time.