The Walgreen's Game

I'm trying to figure my way around the Walgreen's Register Rewards game. My non-math-inclined brain has trouble with this one, because it doesn't exactly work by reducing your bill with coupons, but by giving you credit towards your next purchase. So... I think I'm doing ok, but the fact that I really don't have a firm grasp of the whole system might be a bad thing :P Here's what I've done so far:

Transaction 1:
Colgate Toothbrush: 2.99 (on sale)
M Coupon - 0.75
Tax + 0.20
Total = 2.44
*Received $2.00 Register Rewards*

Transaction 2:
Schick Razor Refills: 8.99 (on sale)
M Coupon -2.00
R Rewards -2.00
Apricots +1.00
Tax +0.59
Total = 6.58
*Received $4.00 Register Rewards*

Transaction 3:
2 Lysol Wipes: 2.99x2: 5.98 (on sale)
M Coupon -1.00
R Rewards -4.00
MMs +0.69
Tax+0.37
Total = 2.04
*Received $1.00 Register Rewards*


So... here's how I understand this whole thing. For $21.81 worth of merchandise I paid $11.06. So I pretty much doubled my money. That's pretty good, right??

I have definitely figured some stuff out by trial and error though. Here's what I've learned so far about couponing at Walgreen's:

-At Walgreen's you can't have more coupons than you have items. So if you have 3 coupons (including Register Rewards) you have to have at least three items. So sometimes you have to grab an extra item with no coupons to pad your bill. These items are italicized in my lists above. I knew this the first time I went (and grabbed apricots for me and O to snack on), but I did NOT know...
-...Coupons for a dollar amount off of TWO items counts as two coupons... so my $1 off 2 Lysol wipes coupon counted as two coupons, which is the reason for the random MMs on my bill. So next time I need to have an item in mind that I can quickly grab if something doesn't work out as I expect.
-You can only get one Register Rewards coupon per item per transaction... so if I buy 2 Lysol wipes and use a $1 off 2 coupon I will only get one RR coupon, but if I don't use my $1/2 coupon and purchase the wipes in two separate transactions I will get two RR coupons.


There is a lot to learn and a lot of opportunities to mess up!! I'm glad to be learning though... I'm going to keep trying.


Other recent deals:
-I used two more Ivory coupons to get 6 more bars of soap for free (and made 6 cents).
-I used a $1 off of any Shout product coupon to get a trial sized package of Shout to Go wipes for free.