Sunday Top 10, 6/27-7/3

I think I'll try and run through the Sunday ads like I've been doing the Wednesday ones, and just hit the highlights.

Family Thrift Center

• Store brand eggs are 1.39/18, if you have the fab coupon from last week's insert, only .79/18 when you buy 5.
• If that's too many eggs for you, the ice cream novelties at 30% off might be a good filler to get you up to 5 items.
• Chicken leg quarters are 10lbs at .49/lb, so 4.90. This is what I use to make stock.
• Corn on the cob is 5 ears for $1, whoo-hoo!

Target

• Pedigree dog food is 20lbs for 10.99, get a $5 Target card when you buy 2 bags. Use 2 of the $2 coupons here, and your total out of pocket cost is 17.98 for both bags, plus the $5 gift card. Sooo, that's 32.4 cents per pound, factoring in the gift card, and I try to pay less than 40 cents.
• A little more on the whole Target gift card thing; in order to defray the cost of these gift card promotions in the future, I always keep at least one of them to use only for a future gift card generating purchase. Does that make sense? So for the Pedigree, I will use the gift card I got from a previous similar deal (I think it was an Olay promotion), and replace it with a new one. It's kind of annoying, but it helps me figure the cost out to actually reflect a lower out of pocket, rather than a "net" cost.
• Market Pantry pasta is .75/lb, which isn't bad for cuts other than spaghetti, which I try not to pay more than .50/lb for.

Walgreens

• Milk at 1.99/gallon, again! Definitely what I prefer to pay for milk!
• 3 Pack Act 2 mini bags popcorn are $1 each, so .60 for one, or $1 for 2 with coupon here. I usually don't buy microwave popcorn, the old fashioned stuff on the stove is so much cheaper, but these are nice for little kids who need a snack.
• Okay, I have not felt mentally prepared to explain this yet, but I'm going to try. There are some good Register Rewards this week at Wags, so let me list them, and then I'll tell you how they work.
• Pepsi/Mt. Dew 12 packs are 4/$13, get a $5 Register Reward (RR) back.
• Blistex Fruit Smoothies Lip Care are $2.99, get a $3 RR back.
• Airplus socks are $3, get a $3 RR back.

So, about the Register Reward. Here in our zip code, where we don't have CVS or RiteAid, we are forced to figure out the RR program in order to get free/cheap toiletries. It really is something you can master, but I'm not going to lie, they make it tricky. Here are the rules to understand before you start;

1. Register rewards are like gift cards to Walgreens, with lots of little rules, that you get by purchasing certain items, which are listed in the weekly ad, or may be available for the whole month. They are a simple cash register tape type of coupon that prints after you pay for your transaction.
2. The coupon can be used for anything in the store, of course with exceptions that are printed on them (not to be used for lottery tickets, prescriptions, stuff like that). The name of the game is to use them for items which will produce more RRs, so that you only make an initial investement in the items, and then you pay very little out of pocket for more items, continually replacing old RRs with new ones.
3. An RR CAN be used to be for the same item that generated it in the first place, but it WILL NOT result in a new RR printing. If you use the Blistex RR to buy more Blistex, you won't get another RR. This can be tricky, because you might not realize that item A and item B are made by the same company. Most RRs say "courtesy of Blistex" or whatever, so check brands!
4. An RR expires only 2 weeks from the date it prints.
5. When you become a Jedi Knight couponer, and you are using coupons to pay for items that generate RRs, you need to understand that Walgreens has some weird policies. You cannot use more manufacturers coupons in a transaction than the number of items that you have. RRs are manufacturers coupons. So if you have 3 items, you can't use 4 manufacturers coupons. HOWEVER, Walgreens store coupons are not MF coupons, so you can use 100 of them per transaction and no one cares.
6. I will be totally honest with you; if you understood all, most, or some tiny little part of the above, you probably know more about Walgreens coupon policies than the typical employee.

So, if you start with the Blistex and the socks, you will pay 6 bucks plus tax, and then have the same amount in RR. You can then buy the Pepsi, use the RR to bring your out of pocket cost down to 7 bucks, and get 5 RRs back. There are better weeks at Wags, and I will try to highlight when there are more practical items, but I wanted to just give you some insight into how it works.