The Grocery Game

A Where’s My Desk Wednesday post

Last week I talked about creating a Household Information Center. Part of my center includes menu planning and coupon clipping. So, for my series on The Household Information Center, I am going to start with talking about groceries. Why? Well, for one reason, I need to get back into the groove of shopping smarter and doing better at planning meals. Like I said, I am revamping my system too.

Have you ever played or heard of The Grocery Game? I used too be very involved with it and then for some unknown reason to me, I stopped. Funny how that happens.

Basically the Grocery Game is a great way to save a whole lot of money on your groceries. When I was participating, I cut our weekly groceries down from $100 a week to anywhere between $20 and $40 a week. Yeah, it’s that good. Why did I stop again?

Here’s a brief summary of how it works:

• It is $10 every 8 weeks to participate. (You get to try it out with a $1 4-week trial first.) The “game” pays for itself.
• You choose the store you want to shop at (and yes, you can pick more than one, but it;s $5 extra per store) and every week a list is available for you to print.
• The list is a combination of store sales and what coupons, from the Sunday paper,  to use with these store sales to get more bang for your buck.
• You print out your list, clip the coupons you need, head to the store and save money.
• It took me about 8 weeks to really start saving money. You need a few weeks to get your coupon collection going.

Could I sit down every week and go through the flyers and my coupons and do a list myself for free? Well, yes and I have tried that on many occasions. I stopped for two reasons though: 1. Sheer lack of time and 2. The list that comes out has store savings that are NOT listed in the Sunday flyer. The creator of the Grocery Game has secret spies or something in each store.

The Grocery Game website also has some other wonderful features:

• A forum with meal ideas and many other helpful hints
• Savings stories
• Tips from Teri, the creator
• The ability to earn free weeks by having them email your friends about it. You can earn up to 12 free weeks for every 3 friends referred.

I just signed up with the gorcery game again and am looking forward to saving some money from my family. This will help me tremendously with meal planning. Now I just need to decided what I am going to do with the money I save. That is one of the best parts. Don’t just let the money you save fall into the cracks of your budget. Make a plan for it and it will make coupon clipping so much more enjoyable!