An Interview with Teri Gault, CEO and Founder of The Grocery Game

I’ve been talking about The Grocery Game for months.  And it seems obvious that I would because this has been the top avenue that I have found to save the most moolah on your grocery bill. I’ve talked the talk and I’ve walked the walk.  I’ve taught you all how to use it and I’ve showed you the savings. 

Imagine my surprise and delight when I was contacted by a Grocery Game rep and offered the opportunity to interview Teri Gault, CEO and founder of The Grocery Game.  Me?  Really?  

The interview took place last week and I’ll just tell you that from the bat, Teri was warm and friendly and interested in sharing our love of saving money.  Here’s a bit of how the interview went.  There was so much information.  I hope I can share it all and not mess up anything.  Enjoy!

First of all, I’d like to ask how The Grocery Game came into existence.

Well, I have always been a bargain hunter. We’re a kindred spirit.

When I was only 12 years old, I began shopping for my family because my mom was in ICU.  It was such an early age and we were broke with hospital bills.  It was my job to make the money stretch. 

Everything started with a jar of peanut butter.  I had bought a jar of peanut butter for my family and then the next week it went on sale.  We had limited money and I had already bought the peanut butter, but realized I could have saved money by buying it while it was on sale.  It was sort of an epiphany moment for me with stockpiling.

Then later when I got married, I was an actress and my husband was a stunt man.  I continued couponing.  In the late 90s the business took us to Canada.  I had only $35 per week to feed our family of four.  Those were rough years.  I used that time to develop saving strategies.
 
By November of 1999, I was spending four to six hours each week clipping coupons and searching sale ads, but I was saving about $100 per week.  Even then, I was rolling coins to buy groceries.  I wished that someone would let me know what they were buying instead of me spending all that time figuring it out on my own.  Then I had wondered what would happen if I put my grocery list on the internet each week and and if people would pay me for my time.  I had never had been on the internet, but I went to computer store, bought a computer and internet.  I didn’t even know what to do.  I got my sister on phone and she taught me how to do email.

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My sister did not like coupons.  She used super stores and she did not understand value of coupons.  I thought she would make a good guinea pig, so I sent her the first document via word.  I told her to look at it and try it without asking any questions. She immediately saved $150.
 
Next, I got 5 families to test the list.  I rolled coins to get business license. Within a few months had emails from all over the country.  In 2000, I started putting all of the money back into the business for franchises.  By 2003, I had attorneys in place and was a franchise owner.  I went from 2 states to 26 states in 2003.  We are now in all 50 states, including Puerto Rico, the UK, and France.  By end of year, we’ll be in Canada and Germany,  and possibly China. 
 
The first 2 years I still worked several jobs.  I was a grant writer, I taught private voice lessons, and I in a performance group, all while doing The Grocery Game.  I was working 80 hours a week and 7 days a week.

(Of course, we chatted throughout all of this information.  She is quite the entrepreneur.)
 
Could you tell me about how many members you have?

There are about 100,000 households using The Grocery Game.  Traffic to the site has tripled on the site this year, since we have coupons that can be printed on the site.  We have doubled our membership since the beginning of the year.  Just last month, there were 400,000 coupons printed on the site. 

What are your plans for adding additional stores?

We are constantly adding more stores.  Last month we added 9 more stores.  We can only go at a certain pace due to quality control and we have a full-time attorney.  In the near future we plan to add Giant, Hannoford, and Legmans to our list.  

We pick the number 1 store that is best for The Grocery Game. This is based upon sale cycles, coupons, and how low prices go.  We track the stores for a while.  We do have Wal-Mart on the list, but it doesn’t have the best savings, so it’s the last to be added.

I have found that the biggest savings come from combining store sales with double coupon offers.  Do you have any tips for those living in areas that don’t live near larger grocery store chains and don’t have stores that double coupons? 

The savings are still relevant.  In an area where they don’t double coupons, the coupons values are higher.  The savings are the same.  Usually the prices are lower and The Grocery Game savings still apply.  If you will stockpile sales and use a coupon when you can, you still save 70% even when the stores don’t double coupons.  It’s important to know when to stock up.  
 
I’ve heard that there is a 12 week cycle to TGG.  Could you tell more about that? 

There are categorical sale trends that we track.  The sales come about once every 12 weeks for 15 major categories.  You stockpile what you will need for about 12 weeks.  Then you will need to add your produce and milk.  With you produce, you only buy what’s on sale.  

I see what you mean about stockpiling.  Before I began seriously using coupons, I would stockpile just the sale items. 

You and I don’t like to pay full price for things, do we? 

I could have talked to Teri all day long.  She was very easy to talk to and I could tell that we both shared a passion for saving money. I hope you enjoyed this interview.  I was very impressed at how she started out with so little, but took something that she was good at and worked hard to develop it.  That should give us all hope.