So I discovered a problem with waiting for a $5 off $20 purchase coupon and planning ahead for it: stores run out of popular items. In retrospect, it seems obvious and I should have planned for it, but I was surprised yesterday evening when my favorite store was out of the Walgreens water pitcher filter. I even went to a different, bigger Walgreens and they were out, too.
I thought about substituting another Bioinfusion shampoo and Duracell batteries, but decided to try a third Walgreens today instead. I’ll let you know if I get lucky.
I did make a purchase at the second Walgreens yesterday. I picked up two packages of plastic spoons and a package of plastic forks for 39 cents each. And I found the Walgreens “Children’s Activity Book” that I’ve read about on various coupon sites, so I grabbed a copy of that as well. It was 99 cents and contains various Walgreens coupons for kid-related products like Johnson & Johnson, Band-Aids, and Huggies. The coupons don’t expire until March 31, 2009, and some stores allow you to keep and re-use them since they are store “Instant Value Coupons” similar to the ones in the Easy Saver Rebate book. I should be able to recoup my 99 cents back and more between now and the end of March.
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I completely understand. I was pretty disappointed when I say the $5 coupon because I had gone to 5, yes 5 of the same store you were just writing about on Thursday! I refused to give up on the deals I wanted and had to hit them all in order to do what I wanted to accomplish. To add to that they store had a problem with coupons, RR and computer problems at each one I went to that day. It was all so frustrating but I did get what I wanted but the coupon for this weekend went to waste because there was nothing else I really needed to get.
What I am planning to do differently next month to plan for the $5/20 coupon is not to use up all the rebates for the month ahead of time.
Also, I felt that Walgreens must have been tacitly encouraging us to print out the coupon more than once because I printed it from the Wags email I received two times and I printed it from a coupon site. Yes–I used it three different times. The first time I mostly stocked up on 12 packs of Coke (3/11. This isn’t a great price but I had a Coke coupon as well). The second time I bought an HP printer cartridge for 19.99 (had to throw in a small item to get it over $20). Walmart has it for the same price (not on sale) but in this case I got it for 14.99 which is a great deal.
The third visit using my $5/20 was today and I just stocked up on lots of odds and ends that were 39 cents plus used some manufacturer’s coupons on sale items such as Weight Watchers candy.
Go girls! Make the most of those coupons :+)