Thiking of trying the Grocery Game

[HipGal]

Has anyone tried it? What did you think?

We don't get the paper, so we would be investing the grocery game cost and the cost of getting the Sunday paper. Is it worth it?

[lalaland42]

It is worth it if you buy the kind of stuff there are coupons for. I don't buy prepackaged food so it wasn't helpful to me.

[amis2girls]

Yes, if they have your stores and if your stores double coupons. I've heard people save tons using Grocery Game.

[lalaland42]

Oh and they do have deals on meat which I also don't buy. For meat-eaters I think it could be a good savings. Give the $1 trial a whirl if you think it will work for you.

[1growingsprout]

I live by the GG. Its not just the prepacked food, its the non food items, cleaners, paper items (if you use them) and heath/beauty items, baby items... there is SO MUCH MORE then just traditional groceries.

Go for it.

[BetsyS]

I did the $1 trial and really liked it. I liked that it tracked all sales prices for you, not just the stuff that there are coupons for. So, you know if the chicken breast sale price is at the one year low, for example. Also, like the pp said, while it does include things we do not and will not eat, it also includes many things which we do use (shampoo, razors, sour cream, dog food, yogurt, a specific kind of mayo right off the top of my head).

I stopped subscribing because our house is on the market, and I don't want to build up a huge stockpile.

[heatherweh]

I did the $1 trial for a month and cancelled it at week 3. To me it was a PITA. Half of the stuff that was supposed to be on sale wasn't even at the store, like closeout items, which can "vary by location". It was hard finding some of the items and I would scour the store looking for X brand nuts only to discover them hanging on an endcap under the apple display or something random. I felt dizzy, stressed out, and confused trying to follow their shopping list. Oh and many of the coupons are supposed to be ones that you've stockpiled already, so again I would scour the newspaper only to discover that said coupon wasn't there and was actually one they expected me to have stockpiled from 3 weeks ago. Many of the online coupons that you were supposed to use weren't accessible or were on pay websites. The only place I felt it was very helpful was RiteAid, but then I noticed that for RiteAid they tell you what stuff is free and cheap in their sales flyer and rebate flyer anyway, so it was sort of a moot point. I save tons more money by just shopping at cheaper grocery stores in the first place, like Aldi or even WalMart- I think with dollar/cost averaging even though you are saving on those brand name items it ends up costing you more in the long run, at least that was my experience. I would be delighted to have saved 30% off my grocery bill, but the problem is stored like Safeway and foodLion often have the prices marked up so much higher that even with the sale you are only meeting what the price might have been regularly at Wal-mart. I wanted to try it and find out for myself though, so by all means give it a try and let us know if it works well for ya.

[AsYouWish]

What is the Grocery Game?

[texaspeach]

Originally Posted by lalaland42

It is worth it if you buy the kind of stuff there are coupons for. I don't buy prepackaged food so it wasn't helpful to me.

same here. we also don't really have the room to stock pile. We don't use cleaners like soft scrub or 409 type things (vinegar and baking soda work well for most things), so that didn't work for us. I do clip coupons for certain things like razors, but DH only really likes one kind.

I think it's just not a good fit for some people. I don't want to pay for a bunch of different stores when I'm only going to buy a couple of things, I would have ended up spending much more money than I saved.

[Fuamami]

Originally Posted by lalaland42

It is worth it if you buy the kind of stuff there are coupons for. I don't buy prepackaged food so it wasn't helpful to me.

that

And if you want to buy name brands. If you're willing to buy generic, there's not much for you.

[BetsyS]

I think it worked in my case for a couple of reasons.

I live in a big town. We have 3 huge chain grocery stores that compete pretty heavily, with great weekly sales, and they all double coupons.

I get the big town newspaper. We also get the local county paper, and there is no comparison for coupons. The big town newspaper wins hands down, every time. More coupons, better values. Oh, and we get the newspaper regardless of whether I'm using coupons. The Sunday paper is one of my big treats every week. I love to read the paper. Even when I had a newborn, and it took until Wednesday to get it read.

It's a game to me. It takes about an hour a week when I'm really into coupons (which is not right now). My dh travels, so I have several hours to myself every single night, and I consider this a fun use of my time. It saves me money without having to use a babysitter, put on work clothes, etc.

We eat/use some of the stuff. Yeah, some of that stuff, never in a million years. But, I find coupons for pet food, yogurt, sour cream, cereal, canned tomatoes, frozen vegetables, toiletries, mayo, bread, all the time. Most of this stuff (with the exception of mayo), I'm not brand specific, and combined with sales, I can usually get the name brand item cheaper with a coupon than the generic would be.

But, I can totally see how it wouldn't work for everyone. Each person is different. That's why I like the $1 trial.

[aeramom]

I've found it really useful too, but I think how much it helps probably depends on what kinds of things you buy, how much time you have to keep track of the sales on your own, and maybe how brand loyal you are too. I was the type of person that bought all generic products, etc., went to the store with the lowest prices on meat, foods, etc., and I am spending much less doing it this way, so it is working for me.

It's a big timesaver and money saver-- it helps me keep track of when the things that I keep on hand (meat, baking products, yogurt etc.) are at their lowest price, for example, and I stock up. So, I'm spending less and ending up with the same or more food. We don't buy a whole lot of prepackaged foods (although I will get a few for the kids and have a weakness for ice cream myself, so will stock up on that when it comes around ). However, I won't buy anything with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated fats, so I just don't buy a lot of the stuff that comes up on the list. But, overall I find the list saves me $ and time. With 4 kids and working part-time,etc., I had a hard time keeping track of the sales and which ones match coupons I have on my own, but it's not necessarily anything I couldn't do on my own if I had more time.

The other thing that it is really helpful for is saving $ on health and beauty products -- 2 of my kids are teenage girls, so it helps to save $ on the makeup, hair stuff they want, etc., so they get what they like and with the combination of coupons and buying on sale I'm still saving $ over a generic brand, etc. Also, for some reason, I'm saving tons of $ on toothpaste, getting most tubes close to free. Again, it would be possible to do this on my own with more time and effort, but for me its much more cost effective to let the grocery game do it. Plus, it's fun for me!