The Grocery Game!

Over the weekend I decided to give the Grocery Game a try. It has a 4-week free trial so I have nothing to lose. I was very impressed with my results so far. If it is consistent enough I could save a lot of money every week!

Here is the idea: The webmaster of the site, Teri, does research into all of the major chain grocery stores and drug stores including Walmart, CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, Publix, and the list goes on. She has a database that tracks prices and trends every week. She combines this data with available coupons from various sources to save lots of money. It works!

Aside from the site you will need these to get started and maintain the grocery game:

• Loyalty card from your store of choice (if they have one)
• The sunday paper every week (buy it or subscribe)
• Visit her online coupons section for printable coupons and electronic coupons
• Discipline to keep track of all the coupons available and collect them
  

The "fine print": Teri claims it takes about 12 weeks (the alleged cycle of pricing at grocery stores) to fully utilize her system to save the most money. The service does cost money. It is $10 every 8 weeks ($65 a year) for 1 store's data. The price goes up in smaller increments if you want to track more than 1 store. I am running on a 4-week trail (free) on Kroger to see how it goes.

Every Tuesday afternoon she releases the list for that week. She color codes the items. Some are free after coupon(s) (you just pay tax) and others are highly discounted when using more than one coupon. It is a very interesting concept and I am willing to try it. She denotes the items that are near the historical "rock bottom" and you should stock up on them that week (Saturday is the last day for weekly prices).

My experience thus far? I have saved a good bit already. I got 8 cans of Del Monte tomatoes for $0.37 each and 2 boxes of Success boil-in-bag rice for $1.50 per box. Versus the normal prices my first $10 fee is already "paid for" via the savings. If this keeps up I will continue to utilize the system indefintely.

The only downside I see is that every week you MUST get a Sunday newspaper to get the coupons. Obviously you will save more than the cost of the paper but it takes time to clip and sort them and build up inventory. I will be slow at first but will get faster as time goes by. I will report again after my 4 week trial (April 26th) with my true savings.

Have you tried this?