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Talk It Out:
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"I have used the grocery
game in the past and, while it was
helpful, it did still
require a lot of organization and was
somewhat time consuming. You have
to save your coupons from the paper each
week (it's best to use an accordian
type file folder and keep them in order
by date). You do NOT cut the
coupons out until they are actually
needed. Each week when you get the list it will tell you,
'Find the coupons from such and such
date and cut out the
one for this, then go to this store and
use it for this exact product and
the cost will be X' (sometimes even
free). Like I said, it was very helpful,
but I found myself wasting a lot of
coupons because you have to save them
sometimes for 2-3 months before the list
will tell you to use them. But then
I would hang on to a coupon waiting for
the list to tell me when to use it
(they coordinate it with when the item
is on sale for the biggest discount)
and then would discover that the coupon
had expired and I now had to
buy the item without a coupon or a sale.
The other problem I ran into was that
some stores, especially HEB, resented
the list and would intentionally NOT
put an item on sale that was supposed to
be just to mess up the list. Every
week we would go to HEB and an item that
was supposedly on sale according
to the list would not be on sale. HEB
also started making very strict rules
about how many and what types of coupons
could be used. A friend and I both
used the list for several months and we
had great success, but it became
too time-consuming because we had to go
to three different stores. There
were times, however, that we got $100
worth of groceries for less than $10.
So to sum it up, the grocery game does
not necessarily take the 'work' out
of using coupons; it just takes the
thought out of it. You still have to do all of the work; the
list just helps you get the most savings
out of it. So it
all depends on how much time you have on
your hands and whether or not it
is worth it to you!" ~ April
"I use www.thecouponclippers.com This company is in Florida and is owned by a lovely Christian woman. I have never had a problem and use this site weekly." ~ Tonya
"I do not subscribe to the Grocery Game because few stores in my area are on the list. However, I do visit the discussion boards at the site regularly to get tips - and those boards are FREE as long as you register (FREE also)." ~ Rskmom
"I had tried for years to use coupons efficiently.
Despite my best effort, I was not consistently good at it.
The Grocery Game has helped me to become not only efficient
but extremely thrifty. It is an entirely new way of thinking
about shopping for our basic needs. Read all her materials
online before starting and in case you miss it you need
access to purchase a newspaper from a large local
metropolis to get the best
coupons......Something I did not know is that, in my smaller
community, we were not afforded the best of coupons. Sign
up, check the list, clip, shop and store up your pantry
and your savings! It is a great service with little
investment!" ~ Anonymous
"I
tried The Grocery Game a year or two ago, and I did not
continue on after my initial trial run. The problem was
two-fold. First, they did not (at that time anyway) have
listings for the grocery store I shopped at most often,
although they did have lists for other stores in my area. So
I ended up going to two stores every week, which didn’t
work so well. The second problem, which for me was a
much bigger problem, was that out of the multitude of
listings each week, there were very few that I actually took
advantage of. Maybe my family is weird, but there were just
very few items listed that were part of my regular shopping.
They were either savings on foods my family does not like or
savings on brands my family does not particularly care for
or you were required to buy multiple items in order to use
the coupon, and I just didn’t need multiples. Out of a
hundred items listed, I might check 8 or 9 that were
applicable, and the savings just did not add up to what I
was paying for the service. And, of course, you still need
to hang onto all the coupon sections to find the particular
coupons that you need to have in order to take advantage of
the sale. Several times I could not locate the coupons
referenced. I am guessing that if your family is not fussy
and you are organized enough to be able to find the coupon
sections when you need them, the service probably works very
well. But to me, buying two bottles of a laundry detergent
that I don’t think cleans very well because it’s a great
sale and I have a coupon is really not much of a bargain.
Nor is having to listen to everyone complain about the
dinner because I bought Prego instead of Ragu, and they
don’t like Prego spaghetti sauce that much. So, I just
scan the coupon sections and clip only those coupons that
are for brands I know I can use (for instance, my family is
fussy about spaghetti sauce but not about spaghetti – I
can buy any brand of spaghetti, and they don’t care) and
allow me to purchase quantities I know I can use up. (A
coupon that requires me to buy two or three bags of bagged
salad is useless because we don’t use it enough to go
through multiple bags before it starts to get brown.) And I
look at the store flyers every week to see what’s on sale
and try to stock up as much as possible when things are on
sale. I also have started working on a price book for my
local stores, so I have a pretty good idea now of what the
things I regularly buy cost, so I can tell if it’s really
on sale or not. For instance, my local grocery store sells
Birds’ Eye frozen corn (my family’s favorite and the
only corn they will eat besides fresh) for $0.99/box. So
when another nearby market put it “on sale” at 10/$10, I
didn’t rush over to get any because it was still cheaper
not on sale at my regular market. I’m sure I could do even
better, but there are only so many hours in a day.
"I subscribed to Teri's List a couple of years ago. There are only two of us in my family and I just didn't go grocery shopping enough to handle the cost (which was cheaper back then). I think it would work better for larger families, but I can't justify the cost for just the two of us. There was also the issue of storage for the stockpiled items." ~ Kristi "I read about the Grocery Game about five years ago in Debtproof Living (Mary Hunt). Unfortunately, it was not offered in my state. Recently I found that it is now offered almost everywhere. I signed up for the trial membership and was delighted with the savings! I have been working full-time for the last 2 years and the grocery bill was getting out of control. Even though I tried to continue my frugal shopping ways, working has caused mass increases in my food budget. I have been using the Grocery Game list for 7 weeks now and have shaved $279.00 off my grocery bill so far. I could have saved more, except I lost or threw away some of those valuable coupons -- very frustrating for this professional organizer.
Teri suggests keeping the coupons in a file and clipping
them as needed. This doesn't work for me. What I did was
pull out a binder from my stash. I went to Hobby Lobby
(craft store) and bought a set of trading card sleeves.
These are used in binders to hold all those trading cards
kids collect and hold twelve to a page. The sleeves are
top-loading. I paid $7.00 for a package. Then I took the
sleeves and put them in the binder with labeled divider
sheets between each page. My daughter labeled the
dividers with the letters of the alphabet and we proceeded
to file the coupons by brand name. I can use the front and
back of these pages. Now when I need a coupon I just
flip through my pages. I clip and file the coupons on
Sunday afternoon while the laundry runs and I am spending
time with my family. It takes seconds to find all the
coupons I need when I use the list. Last week I got
$8.00 worth of disposable razors for free. I am sold on
the list! My grocery bill is dropping and I can see a
return to part-time work in the not-so-distant future!"
~ Angie in KY
"You probably already know about this, but at couponmom.com there is a free service which tells you what's on sale at Kroger's (even gives %'s, ie 50% off, etc. for each item). You just click on the Kroger store for your area and you can print up a shopping list for the week. It's great!" ~ Martha "I recently canceled my Grocery Game subscription after trying it out for 3 months. I think it is worth trying the $1 trial to see if this kind of shopping is good for you. I found that it was for products I just do not use that often. It did help me to understand the best way to use the coupons that work for me. I think it is a great service for some, and would recommend it" ~ April "I've been a member of the GG since April and I love it! I pay $15 every 2 months to get lists from Smith's and Walgreens. I also belong to a coupon train, these are groups of coupon clippers that clip coupons from the Sunday paper and pass them along to each other through the mail, you get to pick out what you want, add your new coupons and send it on to the next 'rider.' I will say to make this work, it takes time, effort and planning. I've managed to get my grocery bill down to $100 a week for the most part, for a family of 4 here in Las Vegas, I usually spent between $150 and 200. There are a lot of women then spend even less than that to feed their families. That's my goal: to get my spending down to $50-75 per week! The whole idea is to stockpile sale items and build your own 'store' at home, that way you only need to buy a few items each week. I only buy items that my family actually eats. I don't buy stockpile items just because they are on sale. I also only buy items from the list that I have the matching coupon for, which you will accumulate through clipping.
They have a great message board that has all sorts of
useful info on it and everyone is very friendly and
willing to help 'newbies.'
The reason I joined was due to a layoff lasting 7
months, and when I did finally find a job, the salary
was a lot less than what I made before. Now I'm faced
with my husband's job ending. He works at a local
business that's closing, so I'm still having to watch my
pennies!" ~ Debbie
"I have used The Grocery Game for nearly 2.5 years now, absolutely love it and highly recommend it. I never run out of essential things anymore (toilet paper, toothpaste, laundry supplies for example). We stay stocked up on all the things you typically run out of at the most inconvenient times. I do most of our cooking from scratch, so having a well stocked fridge, freezer and pantry is a tremendous time- and money-saver. Having said that, I would caution you that 4 weeks is not really long enough to fully try The Grocery Game. The $1.00 trial period is a great way to get started (that's how I got started) but in my opinion it takes about 12 weeks to really get the gist of how it all works. You'll start to accumulate the coupons that are mentioned on the list each week and you'll notice less frustration as your stockpile grows. It can be overwhelming at first. There is also a tendency to overdo it as you want to save all that you can. This can mean buying items that you will not use. There is no savings if you throw an item out. You may also find yourself buying items that are not really healthy but since they're such a great deal you don't want to pass them up. If I get a great deal on items I know I cannot personally use, I will donate it to charity (pet food, for example, that would be 'free after coupon'). If an item is unhealthy for me personally (soup, for example, when the reduced sodium or low fat version is not available) but might be useful to the food pantry I will donate it. It is such a feeling of victory to walk out of the grocery store with $200.00 worth of items and have paid less that $80.00. There are so many other wonderful aspects of using The Grocery Game. I cannot say enough good things about it. It has helped my family financially in that we save so much money. But we also have a stronger sense of outreach as we take our donated goods to each charity. The message boards at the Grocery Game are free and do not require you to be a member. You can check out what other members are saying and gain valuable tips and tricks just for reading." ~ Shara
"I will try to answer
your questions. I have never been an avid coupon user.
Thought it was too time consuming.
1.I starting Grocery
Gaming 5-6 wks ago and am an absolute believer. You
don't even have to clip the coupons if you don't want
to. You can just write the date on the flyer and file
it that way and clip your coupons when you need them.
The Grocery Game will tell which flyer the coupons
appeared in.
2.- This has been
extremely useful for me. I am saving 50% on my grocery
bill each trip and many times more. I have learned to
stockpile necessary items at dirt cheap prices. It
takes all the work out of the shopping for bargains. I
don't have time to comb over the sales ads with a fine
tooth comb.
3.- The money I'm saving
definitely makes the fee worth it to me. The money I'm
saving far exceeds what I'm spending.
I encourage everyone to give it try. They offer a 4 wk trial for $1. I would advise you to save the coupon flyers from the paper for 3-4 weeks if you're not impatient ( so that you have many coupons to start with). I also advise that during the 4 week trial, you sign up for as many stores as available in your area." ~ Sally "I
have tried the Grocery Game. I used the service for
about four months. I had seldom used coupons before,
but I found I did save money with the Grocery Game so
I was not disappointed with the service, but it did
require that I cut out coupons every week and file
them away until they were needed. That was too tedious
for me. I have since stopped the service and now use CouponMom.com.
She has a much easier system to use, and the best part
is that it is free." ~ Deanne
Editor's Note: Thanks to these subscribers for taking the time to respond. |
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