The Grocery Game

Okay, so I just started participating in this really awesome game...The Grocery Game, to be exact. It's AMAZING!!! To cut right to the chase, I spent $38 at Frys last night and saved $57!! And today I spent $21 at Safeway and Saved $42!! Yes, those numbers are right off of my receipt. :-) So how does this work you wonder and how many long hours did I have to spend figuring out all the sales in order to save that much?? Easy. The Grocery Game compiles a list for each grocery store each week...appropriately entitiled The List (lol). I currently use Safeway, Frys and CVS (although I have yet to actually go to CVS with The List). So once you sign up, you get The List for each store, which lists ALL the sales--advertised and non-advertised--from the previous week (so The List comes out on Sunday and is good for Sunday through Tuesday at midnight when the NEW sales start.). Not only does it list all the sales, it tells you which coupons from which weeks to clip for sale products. I now have a Sunday newspaper subscription, which I scored for only $1/week (delivery, no less!). I'm trying to get a second newspaper delivered for the same price...we'll see if it works or not. So each Sunday I take out the coupon pamphlets from the paper and store them in my 12 month filing case which I have labeled with each Sunday's date (so Jan 11th, Jan 18th, Jan 25th, etc). Most coupons expire by the 12th week, so this filing case should be perfect, I'll just "rotate" the oldest week out once I get to the point where I have 12 weeks stocked up.

Anywho, to recap, The List tells me what's on sale and which coupons to clip. So all I have to do is select which products I want to buy off of The List and then it will give me my own personal shopping list for that store. From there I print it out, then go through and clip all the coupons I will need for that store (according to what The List tells me). I store all of the clipped coupons in a regular sized envelope labeled with the store's name along with my List for that store. So when I go to the store it's easy...I grab the right envelope, follow the shopping List and hand all the coupons to the nice person at the cashier (taking out any coupons for products I don't end up buying). And voila!

Let me tell you some of the deals I got this week to help the awesomeness sink in:
Cottonelle 4-pack toilet paper for FREE--how, you ask? Frys is selling the 4-packs for $0.99 all year until like November. I printed $0.50 off coupons from the Cottonelle website. Frys doubles coupons up to $1, so the $0.50 coupon turned into $1, but since the toilet paper was only $0.99 to begin with, it was FREE!!! You can use 3 of these coupons at once, so I got three 4-packs of toilet paper for free. I'll get 3 more each time I go to Frys. :-)

I got 2 cans of Hormel Chili for FREE because they were on sale for $1.00/2. I had a coupon for $0.50 off of 2. Doubled, that meant they were free. :-)

I got 8 boxes of 200-count Kleenex for $0.80 each.

I got 10 boxes of 10-count Quaker Chewy Granola Bars for $7. Yes, 10 boxes for $7. They were on sale for "Buy 2 get 3 FREE" and right by the boxes was a little coupon dispenser for "Get $1 off when you buy 2 boxes". So I bought 4 boxes and got 6 for free (the sale) and then used five $1 off coupons (one coupon for each set of 2 boxes). Pretty amazing, huh? (however this particular bargain was not on The List because the coupons were in the store as opposed to the newspaper...I heard about it from a friend who went shopping with her List yesterday).

I also got diced tomoatoes for free, and 48 cans of Tomato Sauce for 15 cents each--that was a raincheck from a sale a couple weeks ago (they were out by the time I made it to the store). A couple weeks ago I also stocked up on 93% Lean Ground Beef, because Frys had the 2lb packages for $3.94 (less than $2/lb!!!). I bought the limit of 4. They will be on sale again this next week (I happened to see the store ad), but I wouldn't have known about the meat sale had The List not told me because I do not normally go to Frys. I used to shop at Walmart because it's cheaper...but not now! By the way, there is also a Walmart "List", where you can price match all the sales from each store, but I don't care to stand at the cash register reading off a price for each and every item to the poor cashier. That's just me though, if you want to do that to save yourself a trip to each of the stores then more power to you! But I'm only doing Safeway and Frys, so it's not bad.

Did I really NEED any of this stuff RIGHT NOW? No. But the idea behind this game is to buy products when they are "at rock bottom prices" by combining sales with coupons and then when you NEED the product you won't have to go out and buy full price. You'll have a "stock pile" of groceries and household goods that you purchased dirt cheap! In essence, you'll never have to pay full price for an item again! It takes about 12 weeks to "cycle through" the sales and build a good stockpile as well as accumulate a back-log of coupons to use each week.

So what's the catch? There isn't one really. The cost to get The List is $10 every 8 weeks for one store of your choice, plus $5 every 8 weeks for each additional store. So if I choose to keep receiving Safeway, Frys and CVS, I will be charged $20 every 8 weeks. Then there is the cost of the newspapers. If I get 2/week at $1 each then it will cost me $16 every 8 weeks, which added to the cost of The List is $36 every 8 weeks. I saved more than at one store this week alone...my total savings from Safeway and Frys this week only was $99. So let's just assume I save $99 each week...that would be $792 in eight weeks. So pay $36 and save $792? Sounds to me like it pays for itself many times over in savings, even if I DON'T go shopping every week.

So how do join? Go to www.thegrocerygame.com and sign up for a 4 week trial for only $1. If you sign up PLEASE put my email address in as the referral: maybaby16@gmail.com. Then go sign up for a Sunday newspaper subscription for $1/week at edgej.azcentral.com, promo code EDGEJ. I'm trying to get a 2nd subscription using Scott's name, but I don't know if they're going to allow 2 subscriptions at the same address for the special price of $1/week. If it works, I'll attach an EDIT to this post.

Oh. I forgot to mention how long it took me to prepare my List and clip the coupons for my shopping trip this week. One hour. Yep, 1 hour and I saved $99...that's like earning $99/hr. Pretty good if you ask me.

So there you have it. The Grocery Game. Play if you'd like, it's kind of addicting...like trying to see if you can spend less and save more each week...I'm sure I'll get better at it as I go, but it is rather addicting...hmmm, the only addiction I know of that SAVES money rather than wasting it. Interesting...:-D

Happy saving everyone! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me!
~Abigail~