The Grocery Game

I did my weekly shopping yesterday (actually 2 weeks since I missed last week):
Bill before shopper card and coupons was $286
Bill after shopper card and coupons was $146

Dh was with me and was in awe watching the numbers roll off the total :)

I love the grocery game!!! I have been doing it for about 6 months. Prior to the GG, I shopped at Walmart and typically spend $100 a week or more on groceries for DH, me and our now 26 month old daughter. Most times I was buying generic brands or whatever was on sale.

Since starting the GG, my average grocery bill is $60 and I'm purchasing name brand products and shopping at Albertsons and Kroger.

Here's the bottom line, if you are willing to spend about 30 minutes/week planning, then you can save money by doing this. Without monitoring sales and/or using coupons, then Walmart is cheaper.

The way the grocery game works is this....grocery stores have a cycle of sales. These sales typically restart every 12 weeks. The GG tracks all the advertised and unadvertised sale prices along with the coupons that have already been published and match them up. If you catch an item on sale and use it with a coupon that is doubled or tripled, you can pay "rock bottom price" (which is cheaper than Walmart).

GG does all the work in terms of telling you when a coupon came out and where to find it. The trick is to NOT clip coupons each week but keep the entire coupon booklet. When you print out your GG list, you get the following information:
Product
Regular Price
Sale Price
Coupon (including amount, name of coupon booklet and publish date)
% savings with coupon & sale

My hubby didn't quite get how wonder this is until I took him with me on a trip to Kroger. Our retail bill was $133. After sales and coupons, my out of pocket was $33! yes, $33!.

I did a tutorial with some GG experts and that really helped. I'm happy to give help to anyone who wants it. Just send me a note. Only thing is I'm leaving tomorrow out of town for 10 days, but can do something when I return!

Happy shopping!

I honestly have found that I do not have the time to deal with a whole lot of coupons, so I actually cut of very few (if any) most weeks. I have found a couple of ways of saving BIG on our grocery store bills, though...

1) Angel Food Ministries ~ this is a program that has one requirement....Are you ready for this??.....If you *eat*, you are eligible to participate!! For $30, you can get a paperbox full of food, and for my family, that pretty much does us for the month! It FILLS our freezer (not saying much, but you know how apts are), plus we also get dry food to go with the frozen. There are also additional "specials" you can purchase with the purchase of a "menu". (As many specials as you want, but you MUST buy ONE menu to get them.)If you want more info, you can email me at ____@____.com. I know a LOT of churches in the DFW metroplex are participating.

2) I do not buy ANY of my household cleaners or personal care items at the grocery store, Target, or Wal-Mart. I buy them online directly from a company that manufactures products that are naturally derived, and are proven to be SAFER than almost any of the products you can buy in any store. My son has stopped having breathing problems, and his eczema is *gone* (he brings me his lotion when his skin starts feeling dry, and he is 2 1/2!!). If you want more info about these, you can go to www.HealthyFamiliesHappyMoms.biz, or www.LiveTotalWellness.com/hfhm, and check it out! You can also email me at ____@____.com.

Anyway....thought you might be interested in a couple of other ways of saving some money.

Ok i'm stupid when it comes to coupons!

How does this work, do you have to cut up coupons(to lazy for that)and you mentioned trial memberhsip, assuming you paid for this membership. Do you have to go every where in order to use the coupons, or can you pick your local grocery store?

Can someone hear tell me about this coupon game? I have never heard of it, and would love to try it...

I have also done the angel food ministries and they do give ya a lot of food. We have been happy with it.

I did the trial about 6 months ago, and I didnt put much effort into it and didnt see much savings. However, I signed up again recently and I am commited to giving it full effort for a few months and see how it works. My grocery bill last week was 140.00, two weeks before when I went I spent 240.00. That is definately savings to me!! Here is what I spent this week using the grocery game. Albertsons shelf price total 40.00, out of pocket 15.00. Kroger shelf price total 100.00 out of pocket 45.00. Today at walgreens I got all name brand- 2 boxes of cereal, box of oatmeal, 2 rolls of foil, dish soap, a gallon of milk and 2 protein bars for 11.00. The catch is to not buy things you normally wouldnt use- then you are just wasting money. For me if its an item I dont normally use it has to be 50 cents or free for me to buy it. Also, you have to be willing to spend a little extra in the beginning to start building your stock pile. I think that it does work, but you have to be willing to devote the time to it. Im not a pro yet, but if you have any more questions I will be glad to help. ____@____.com

I have to be honest. I didn't feel it was worth paying for something I can do myself just by looking at the advertisements.
I had a trial membership a while back and it was no different than what I was already doing.
Maybe I missed something. So many others like it!
*** Update: After reading another post, I realize now that it must be because I cook fresh, including baked items, and therefore don't use many coupons. Hmmmmmmmmm

LOVE IT!!! I've been doing it for almost a year now and it does take alot of work but it has saved my family at least $50/week and we have more groceries at our house and I don't seem to waste food as much.

I participated in the grocery game for over a year when we lived in San Diego. It does take time and organization, but you can save a lot of money. I would spend at least an hour clipping and organizing coupons once a week. We had stock piles of toothpaste, deodorant, and barbecue sauce. It is good for cleaning and personal supplies. It also works well if you use prepacked/prepared foods. I found that I was purchasing a lot of things I wouldn't normally use just because it was such a great deal I couldn't pass it up, but then I always had food to donate at church, etc.
Once a week you go to their website and check the items you have coupons for and want to purchase, print out your list, pull your matching coupons, then go shopping. The catch is that the list comes out on Sunday, and the food ads run to Tuesday, so you have three days to get your deals purchased. Really hot items would often be gone by the time I got to the grocery store though. The advice of keeping coupons before you actually start is exellent advice, because without the coupons, what's the point? The trial period is great, it's cheap, and you get to see if it's something you'd like to continue. And the long you do it, the better/more efficient you become. I've thought of picking it back up since we've moved here, but just haven't felt organized enough yet. Good luck.

Hi, H.. I have been using the grocery game for about a year now and I love it. It has saved me a ton of money. I don't save 75% on each grocery bill, but my average savings is around 45%. I go grocery shopping each week and I have gotten my weekly bill under $100 each week, except for special occasions where we might be entertaining company. It also stops me from making impulse purchases...I try to stick to my list and the items I have coupons for as much as possible. Hope this helps!

www.thegrocerygame.com

It is a subscription where you get to choose your stores. I believe in the DFW metroplex there are the following stores from which to choose:

Kroger
Albertson's
Tom Thumb
CVS
Walgreens

You pay $10 for each two months. It is $5 more for each additional store. I use Kroger and Walgreens and pay $15 every two months--or $7.50 a month. You should really choose one grocery and one pharmacy. I find I save more at Walgreens than anywhere else.

It is a lot of work and I am not sure it is worth it for me. I am undecided. I always hear about the great savings but when it comes right down to it, the great savings are for the people who buy name brands and convenience foods. We usually only buy generic brands and try not to eat a great deal of pre-packaged items.

The first few times I shopped with my list, I literally wrote down the price of what I would have bought--the Kroger sour cream instead of the Bordon, the Kroger applesauce instead of the Motts's, etc.. and I only ended up saving about $4.00 on my whole bill. Now of course, the bottom of the receipt told me I saved $40 or $50 dollars but had I been shopping as I normally do--generic, I really don't save much at all with the game.

I have continued for this month past my trial because the true savings on certain items--usually toiletries--comes by having the 12 weeks of coupons saved. Most of the FREE items are with coupons that are two to three months old. I am finding better deals the longer I have held coupons.

I will tell you--DON'T CLIP COUPONS!!-- what a waste of time. Plus, you usually only clip the few you think you will use and when the FREE stuff comes up, you will find you didn't clip that coupon.

I have a three ring binder with clear sheet protectors in it. Each week, I simply stick that weeks Smart Savers inside and stick a post it note saying which week it is. Then, when the grocery game has a free or more than 75% off item, I can simply go back to that week and cut out that one coupon. It is soooooo much easier than the first few weeks I sat around cutting out coupons. I refuse to do that.

Good luck with the game. I have friends who love it. They admit they use name brands so they do save for their families.

We have been doing it for a few months now and love it. It is a lot of work but once you get into the swing of things it is a lot easier. It has really save me and my family a bunch of money, and we seem to never run out of things since we have such a great stockpile. Good luck!

I used the grocery game for a while about 3 or 4 years ago. Overall it REALLY is a good program. Totally legit, and while it does require a bit of a time investment, for some it is a lot less time than seaching through deals and coupons themselves. Time is money! So paying for the GG's time, isn't really all that bad b/c w/o the GG you may not have found certain deals.

After a while I quit b/c my youngest 2 kiddos had food allergy issues, and we were still in the process of discovering what exactly the youngest was allegic to. So we had to pretty much make everything from scratch so I knew exactly what was in everything.

Which of course meant no pre-packaged items. But through that experience, I finally learned how to really "cook" (I had never really made much from scratch before that time) and how to save money that way, and also ensure that everything we ate was made from whole foods and I knew exactly what was in our food.

So here we are years later, and we still eat this way :) I rarely buy prepackaged items, just meat, produce, dairy case items, and baking supplies - and there are rarely coupons on those items. My youngest also does still have a dairy allergy, so prepacked items w/o dairy are hard to come by.

So for us, the grocery game isn't worth the monthly fee, b/c we don't buy many things you can use a coupon for. We buy our toilet paper at Sams, we don't use household cleaners (only vinegar - also from Sams), I buy 25 lb bags of flour and bread flour at Sams, and 25 lb bags of rice from the Oriental Store. So I don't need coupons for cleaners or boxed items.

The best way to save money is to cook from scratch, bake your own bread, snacks, waffles, pancakes, muffins,etc ,, cook w/ whole foods (meats, grains, produce) and buy your baking supplies and grains in bulk --- but again, time is money. I CAN do that b/c I stay at home w/ my 4 kids - so I have the time to save money that way.

If I worked outside the home (I work from home), then I would not have time to prepare our family's food the way I do -- in which case I would probably use the grocery game b/c I would need more boxed, pre-packaged, and convenience foods.

So depending on what type of eating habits and purchasing habits your family has, the grocery game can work for you :)

Good Luck!

Can someone tell me about this I have never heard of it. I have coupons and cut them out. What is this! I am so interested!

Holy cow, the greatest find of my financial life! I've cut our grocery bill from $400+ to about $200 per month.

I've been participating since September and love love love it. Yeah, it's work, but it's work I do willingly and I have fun doing it.

Some great advice I got was to collect coupons for a few weeks before beginning the trial, since so many of the items listed will call for coupons from previous weeks.