Rewards of Poolside Shopping

Disclosure

As you know, the “SAHM” part of SAHM Reviews stands for Stay-At-Home-Mom. But as my kids get older, seldom do I stay at home. Aside from school activities, they are involved in gymnastics, religious education and the big time-sink… Swim team.

We’re there three times a week for an hour and fifteen minutes of practice – plus locker room time on either end of that.  Some parents just drop and go but I like to be onsite so that I can watch and see how they are doing. Plus, if they need me, I’m there. So lately, I’ve been taking my iPad along with me and trying to get some work done. Whether it be editing photos, preparing content or proofing other people’s work for one of the projects that I’m managing… the goal is to be productive. At least some.

The other day, I decided that productive meant shopping. Don’t judge. Shopping is important! Actually, I’ve noticed in the Sunday paper the past few weeks that Walgreens has a new rewards program. They have a card and point system called Balance Rewards and although I had not made it into the store to sign up, it certainly has been on my to-do list! Each week, various items from Walgreens earn points. Points are accumulated on your card and can be cashed in for future purchases. There is a limit to how many purchases you can make each week and while some people may see that as a problem, I think it’s great. You see, in our area, there are some people who abuse the Walgreens “Register Rewards” system. Specifically, going through the register multiple times and wiping the shelves clear of any of the items that are “Free after Register Rewards”. Cashiers have told us that this particular couple will go through the line with multiple transactions (50 or more according to the cashiers) just to get as much free as possible. The management team at my local store is great to work with and has said they’ve reported the issue to loss prevention but haven’t found a way to control it. To add salt to the wound, these people take it home and have their own “store”. Multiple times each summer, they have a yard sale with everything they’ve accumulated and can even be heard saying to one another “See if there are any more in the store in the basement.”

I kid you not. It’s ridiculous.

With the new Balance™ Reward program, I think more will remain on the shelves for the rest of us. So I used my pool time to sign up.  It literally only took me a minute. (Well, two minutes because I was stopping for screen shots.) Here’s all it takes to sign up:

After signing up, I took some time to surf the app on both my iPad and my iPhone. I was thrilled to see that the iPhone app had coupons built in but I’m not sure if they are exclusive to the app or if they are the same ones that are available in the store.

While some items show as available only in the store, many are available online and for purchases greater than $25 qualify for free shipping! As a bonus, the weekly ads are available within the app so you don’t even need to subscribe to the Sunday paper to get it. As we get more digital and the newspaper gets more expensive with less value to us, these types of apps make giving up the newspaper easier.

I spent some time shopping through the app and found a great variety. Not only did it offer different categories that make it easy to search through but there was also a section noting sale items in each category. I was surprised to see that there was also a section for seasonal items such as Halloween costumes and decorations (the current season) as well as Christmas. Already. Sigh. I’m so not ready for that yet.

Ultimately, I decided to take advantage of the sale on children’s vitamins. Buy 1, Get 1 50% off is a great deal. AND it’s the brand we have been purchasing lately. When I checked on the details of the purchase, it showed that this purchase (vitamins) also qualified for points in the new Balance™ Reward program.

Completing my purchase through the app felt exactly like purchasing on the computer. It asked for credit card information, shipping information and even reminded me to log in to get my points added. The entire process was extremely easy.  Easy enough to do on the poolside while waiting for the kids. Or at home vegging on the couch because I was too lazy to go to my computer. Or while waiting in the pickup line at school.  Why drive to the store when it’s so easy and has free shipping?!

You can sign up for the new Walgreens Rewards program via the app but if you prefer, you can sign up for the program and pick up the loyalty card at your local store. For more information, check out Walgreens on Facebook or Twitter. Check out my signup and shopping process here: