Saving Money: The Grocery Game

A few years back, when our small group was reading “that dang book”, I was struck by the fact that I could not tell you how much Jeff and were spending monthly on groceries. I was the primary shopper, and I was embarrassed to say not only was I not managing it, but I did not have a clue.  I started paying attention, and working on better grocery habits.  This dramatically changed two things: 

1. We were spending half of what we were spending before on groceries  and
2. We had more food and groceries in our house.

It might seem counter intuitive, but with the simple steps I list below, we were able to dramatically save money, and ended up with more.  Win Win.  Here is what I do:

1.    I try to grocery shop only one time a week, often skipping weeks.
2.    I shop with a list, spending a little bit of time to plan before I shop
3.    I use the Grocery Game site to help me make purchases at the lowest price, and I stock up when things are on sale. 

The first two are pretty self explanatory, but the the site I use often requires a little bit of explanation.

The Grocery Game is a service I pay for (I pay $15/12 weeks) that provides weekly lists for the stores in my area (its zip code based) telling me what is on sale, and where to find the coupons needed to get the best price. 

The Main Screen I See Each Week

       Grocery stores gennerally follow a 12 week cycle. The GG site tracks all this, and identifies when an item is at its lowest price incorporating coupons and store sales.  It does all the math for you and creates a weekly list.  I just sign in on Sundays, click the items that we would want to purchase, click over to the “gather coupons” tab, print the coupons to clip from my weekly paper, then go to print my list.  This generally takes me about 20 minuts total. The site does all the work for me.  I subscribe to two store's lists: Jewel & Super Target, but it also tracks the Drug Stores, Meijer and stores like Whole Foods so the options are varied depending on your area.  It only adds $5/12 weeks to add a store.

The Coupon Screen - Shows exactly what you need

     

    Lets talk about coupons too.  95% of grocery coupons come in one of two places, either the Sunday paper or the internet.  So, to have the GG be effective one would need to get the weekly paper.  For us, the Sunday only delivery of the Chicago Tribune ends up to about $1/week.  Each week I pull the coupon inserts (the GG will tell you what to look for) and file them away in my folder (see the pic).  Then when I pick up my list for the week, and it tells me to pull a coupon from the paper 10 weeks ago, it is right there.  The other coupons are directly linked in the list and also quite easy to procure. I've noticed there are also a bunch more internet coupons for the health food stores and organic items found on product web sites.  So this is a great tool to navigate through all that save a little money on what is generally expensive products. 

I uploaded a screen shot of a portion of my final list for this week (there is a printed version too, not shown).  You can see how each item is calculated out, with the percentage saved listed and the coupons required.  Its also organized in order of how the store is physically laid out saving confusion and increasing the chance I can send Jeff to the store for me, and he will return in a reasonable amount of time.  You can also see the box on the left totaling the price of my shopping trip and what I have saved, this useful tool keeps me within budget for the week.

My Final List This Week

So that is what I do to save money on groceries.  I am sure I forgot something, so feel free to send me questions if you are interested. And let me know if any of this helps you save money!

Note: If you do try the Grocery Game, there is a (very small) referral bonus.  That is in no way the reason I did this post. In the interest of saving money in all ways, don't let it go to waste and be sure to list someone (I don't  care who) in the referral box.