The Grocery Game

So I recently started using The Grocery Game (free trial) to do my grocery shopping.  My mom and I discovered shortly after she got me hooked on following some freebies and money-saving blogs, that shopping at Aldi or Woodman's may not always be the cheapest way to get our groceries.  Something I more recently learned too is the value of "stockpiling" (something my mother has been in on for a while).  Using the stockpiling philosophy and some of these deals and savings blogs, we have been able to get some very good deals at stores like Target, Walgreens and Pick N' Save.

Now that I have started using The Grocery Game (and I think I will continue using this after my trial period is up), I have been able to get even better deals than I had before.  Prior to following these blogs, I used to budget out about $300 a month for groceries.  I never used coupons but did shop sales and more inexpensive stores like Aldi or Woodmans.  When I started using coupons we cut down a little bit on our grocery spending.  However, when we started to stockpile, I also started to just buy things because I could get a really good deal on them, not because I needed them.  (This is one of the reasons that I have about a million bottles of shampoo/conditioner/body wash in our linen closet right now...)  In the past month or so, I have significantly scaled back our spending on groceries and household items.  I now spend only about $150-$200 a month on food, and in the last month I have only spent $100.  I'm really happy with how this is working out so far!!

The Grocery Game makes it super simple and easy to find the items you want, find the coupons that go with that deal, print out your personalized list, and then find the items you want in the store.  Even hubby is happy with it because I'm not walking around with fistfuls of coupons trying to sort through them or find one for an item that I didn't know was on sale.  He is happy because it has made grocery shopping quick and painless!

We almost always go shopping on Double Daze at Pick N' save, so we can double up to 5 (and sometimes 10) coupons.  On our last trip, we got $140 worth of groceries for only $60!!  Here are just a few of the awesome deals we were able to get.

I did 2 transactions so I could double 10 coupons.

They had a deal going on where you buy 6 boxes of General Mills cereal and get $10 off instantly at checkout and a coupon for a FREE gallon of milk and a FREE dozen eggs on your next purchase.  Sometimes this is just a marketing technique to get people to buy more because they think it is a good deal, but you can really make this sale work for you!

2 Cinnamon Toast Crunch @ $3.39 each
1 Cheerios @ $2.89
1 Chocolate Cheerios (my new love!) @ $3.89
1 Lucky Charms @ $3.19
1 Fiber One Rasin Cereal @ 3.69
Total = $20.44 for 6 boxes
- $10 at checkout
= $10.44 for 6 boxes

This is still $1.74 per box...which is an okay deal, but I now aim for under $1 a box.

So...I used these coupons to make it an even better deal:
$10.44
- $0.55 off 1 Lucky Charms
- $0.55 off 1 Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- $0.55 off 1 Cinnamon Toast Crunch
- $1.00 off 2 Cheerios
- $1.00 Fiber One
- 2 $1.00 doubled coupons
Total = $4.79 for 6 boxes of cereal

That is $0.79 a box and about a 77% savings from their original price!!!

On top of that I got a coupon for a FREE gallon of milk (up to $3.50) and a FREE dozen eggs (up to $1.75).  The cashier who took these coupons just a few days ago just let them ring up for the full price...soooo....if you wanted to deduct the $5.25 savings from those coupons off of my cereal deal I actually MADE $0.46 doing this deal!

Pretty sweet, huh?  I think so.

I also had an awesome deal on Excedrin (which I occasionally take since I've had a few migraines in the past few months and is always good to have just in case).

Normally $3.79 for 20 count
On sale for $2.49
Additional in-ad coupon brought the price to $1.99
I used a $1/1 coupon which doubled at checkout
Final price = FREE

We also got some Ritz Crackerfuls at 50% off with coupons, Yoplait yogurt at $0.38 per individual cup (normally $0.60), and stocked up on some Huggies Diapers, spaghetti sauce and some pasta all at better than 50% off. 

This is what our "stockpile" looks like so far...but we're still working on it!

It's funny because now when I don't even try hard, I can still save a lot of money grocery shopping.  Gabe and I did a quick shopping (not a deals shopping) just for a few things that we really needed after we got back from the family reunion.  We got $70 worth of groceries for only $45...which is not awesome, but still way better than I expected.  My hubby made this comment: "It's just not good enough for something to be 'on sale' is it?  It has to be on sale AND have a coupon."