What's the Deal: Walgreens August 2-8, 2009

*ahem. I would be posting a picture, except that my camera has absconded.

Anyhoo, here's the big score for Walgreens this week. Who doesn't need peanut butter? (those with allergies excepted, of course). Who doesn't use pasta sauce? This week at Walgreens, when you buy 8 of selected Unilever products, you get a $10.00 off your next order register reward. Skippy peanut butter and Ragu pasta sauce is on sale this week $2/4. Thus, even without coupons, if you spend $16.00 on any combination of Ragu and Skippy, you get a $10.00 register reward back. That is like paying six bucks for eight jars, or 75 cents per jar! Not bad.

If, however, like me, you have four coupons for 75 cents off 2 Skippys or 2 Ragus (which came in this weeks' Wednesday coupon mailer), your total will be three dollars for eight jars, which is (drumroll please) thirty eight cents per jar.

So that's just what I did.

Transaction one:

4 Skippys
4 Ragus
minus .75X4

$13.00 out of pocket, $10.00 back.

Which I then spent on:

5 jumbo Elmer's glue sticks (school supplies)
2 packages Crayola markers (school supplies)
2 decks playing cards (ditto)
a 2 pack of toothbrushes
and a bag of M&Ms (to get the total over 10 dollars).

total 11.03, minus the 10 dollar register reward =
1.03 out of pocket.

So, look at it this way. I spent $14.03 out of pocket for $27.00 worth of goods. That is almost a fifty percent savings. It took a few seconds to clip the coupons, and a trip to the Walgreens, which took five to ten minutes of my time. I saved $13.00 in that 10 minute trip -- and so, my hourly savings rate is $78.

Do you make $78 per hour? Tax free? Me neither. Ben Franklin was right -- a penny saved is more than a penny earned.

Also this week at Walgreens, Vitamin shampoo and Gum toothbrush 2-packs are free after register rewards.