GG Totals #1

I've mentioned The Grocery Game before..it's a way to save quite a bit of money on your groceries, household products, and bath/beauty products. In the past, I've been able to save between 55% and 65% off the shelf price by stocking up on things we use when it is at its lowest sale price and with a coupon. Then when we need it, we already have it and don't have to pay full price for it.

I haven't been able to get quite that good of a percentage off the last few weeks because I let my stockpile dwindle and I'm having to buy some things at a higher price than I'd otherwise pay. I'm still doing fairly well though. These are my totals for Safeway and Albertson's. I haven't made it to Walgreens yet. I have to look at that list to see if I want to fit it in still or not.

Shelf Price- $357.43
Amound Paid - $185.11
Amount Saved - $172.32
Percent Saved- 48.2%

As you can see, I spent quite a bit at the two stores even though I got it all at almost half off. You should know that this is way more than just what I need for this week. And, if you choose to play the game, you don't have to spend this much. Eventually, when my stockpile is restocked, my weekly totals will go down to about $75 a week or so.

Gotta Love It

So this week's shopping totals look a little better than last week. I bought some things I wouldn't normally have bought (Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers) so my overall amount spent is higher too. Here's how I did:

Full retail price: $262.96
Amount paid: $119.56
Amount saved: $143.40
Percentage saved: 54.5%

See that? I saved more than I spent. Gotta love it.

Coupons

Now that you've signed up for this amazing service and started getting the newspaper, what do you do with all the coupons? There are a few different ways people file their coupons.

First of all, The Grocery Game makes finding the correct coupon easy. They provide you with the product name, the amount of the coupon, which insert it came in, and the date of the newspaper in came in.

One way to deal with coupons, is to file the entire insert in a hanging file system by date. The nice thing about this method is that you don't have to cut or file your coupons. Before shopping, all you need to do is pull the listed insert, find the coupon you need, and cut THAT coupon. The bad part is that you cannot easily find individual coupons you may need when buying things off the list. Say you need to buy garbage bags this week because, for some reason, you did not stock up on enough to last you until the next sale. How do you find a coupon for your garbage bags? You don't. Nor can you bring your coupons to the store with you in case you find an incredible deal that would be made sweeter with a coupon.

Another way is to cut and file them. There are a couple different ways to do this. One is to file them into categories. This has never worked for me because I have a hard time deciding which categories to use and I can never remember which category I put a coupon under. What's worse is that each category may have tons of coupons in it! It takes FOREVER to find each coupon so I end up giving up on them altogether. Another filing method is to file by brand name. I like this one because it is very easy to find the coupons you need with or without the list. This method takes a bit of time to cut and file but I think the easy of use is worth it. To use this method, pick up a large zippered three-ring binder, a set of alphabetical divider tabs, and baseball card holders. The baseball card holders allows you to file nine brands per page. You'll need quite a few of them. The zippered binder holds your baseball card holders and keeps any coupons from accidentally falling out.

Whichever method you chose, don't be afraid to change if you find it not working for you.

So, get filing and start saving money!

The Grocery Game

Do you play the grocery game? I do. And it is a lot of fun. I only wish I didn't neglect to play it some weeks...sometimes even weeks at a time. It so worth playing that it really should be played weekly.

"What's the grocery game?" you ask. Well, it is a system of buying groceries, household supplies, and bath/beauty/health products for significantly less than retail prices. All it takes is a very inexpensive subscription to the website (http://www.thegrocerygame.com/), a newspaper, and a very little time.

"How does it work?" you ask. Grocery and drug stores offer three prices for their products: full retail price, phantom sale price, and rock bottom sale price. The phantom sale price is when they place a sale tag on the item but only knock of a few cents from the price. It really isn't a good price for the item but customers buy them anyway because "it's on sale." The rock bottom sale price is the lowest price they are going to mark the item down to. Isn't this the price you want to pay? What if you had a coupon to go with that rock bottom sale price? (For those of you who think clipping coupons is a waste of time, think of each one you throw away as being actual cash going into the dumpster. You can either pay the store $1 or give them a $1 coupon. Multiply that but however many coupons you use each week for a year and it really adds up...if you use them, that is.) But how do you keep up with all that information? The real sales and the coupons, combined, at the right time? You pay someone a small fee to do it for you! That's how. The Grocery Game only costs $10 for 8 weeks for one store...that's only $1.25 a week. Each additional store costs only $5 for 8 weeks. I recommend you sign up for one grocery store and one drug store. Why a drug store? Because the major drug stores (Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS) all offer rebate programs which make a lot of your home, beauty, and health products completely free or better than free (they pay you!).

Are you convinced yet? Go ahead and try it out. The Grocery Game offers a $1 trial for four weeks. Sign up for all the stores available in your area (for $1) so you can see what each list looks like. Cancel any stores you don't want before your next billing date. They make it incredibly easy to know when your next billing date is and to cancel any you don't want....REALLY!

A note of caution: At first, you probably won't save any money at all! Why is that NOT bad? Because, if you are like most people, you'll bring home twice your normal amount of groceries without spending any extra money. The idea is to buy enough to last you until the next time that item goes on sale again...about 12 weeks. After about twelve weeks, you'll have about all the coupons that the list refers to and a stockpile of stuff like you wouldn't believe. After that, you'll only be buying a few items to replace what you've used. Now where to put all that stuff is another story. But wouldn't you rather stock that $0.25 shampoo when it is on sale rather than paying $4.99 when you run out? I would. And that's why I'm a grocery gamer.

I'll leave you with this week's savings (certainly not my best by a long shot):

Total for my three stores (Safeway, Albertsons, Rite Aid):
Full retail price: $244.27
Price paid: $129.71
Amount saved: $114.56
Percentage saved: 47%

Like I said, not my best week. I've had weeks where my savings was 65%. Some people can get up to 98% savings because they live in areas that have stores that double and even triple the value of coupons. Around here, they don't do that. Still...I'd rather pay $119 for my groceries than $244. This includes items I need for this week and items I don't yet need.