Week two of the grocery game, and not much to report.
The Quick Version: The Grocery Game saved me 2.15 (including postage) this week.
The Longer Version:
The items I saved money on were on the Walgreens list, which is always free. I also get ads in the paper. Now I am aware of these rebate sales, I will not need to check the game for them. I can check the Walgreens Easy Saver website, or pick up an Easy Saver book at the nearby store. One of the yucky things about Walgreens rebates is that you have to mail them in, so you must take into account the cost of stamps and the cost of the envelope in your savings. In this case, it was worth it. If you can afford to put down the money in advance, and are organized enough to actually mail in the rebate, it can be an excellent deal.
The Goods:
I got two free items, through rebates.
I got a bottle of shampoo. This saved us 1.48
I also got a stick my husband's favorite anti-persprent. This saved us 1.07
I will have to deduct the .39 cent stamp from my savings, and the 1 cent envelope that I mailed them in. In this case, the cost of the items I got for free outweigh the cost of stamps and envelopes. (with these things taken into consideration, I saved 2.15)
Things I would have done without the list:
The only other item I today was a three pound bag of onions, which were .33 cents a pound. I saw this sale in the flyer on Wednesday (the "List" does not appear until Sunday) so I would have gotten them anyway. I don't pay more than .33 cents a pound for onions, as this is the cheapest I have seen them here so far.
Things I have seen cheaper elsewhere:
There was a cereal bargin, where combining coupons and the store sale would make it .99 cents for a 28 oz bag. I beat that price a few weeks ago, paying .75 cents for a 28 oz bag by combining another store's sale and double coupons.. (Bought 6! My husband loves cold cereal!) Since I have .75 cents for 28 oz on my "highest price I'll pay for cold cereal" list, I know I can get it cheaper.
I beat the advertised pork chop sale last week at a different store, saving .18 cents a pound over the advertised list price this week. I will currently not pay over 1.40 a lb for pork chops, and often beat that price.
We have started making our own cleaning supplies, so the cleaning stuff would not have saved me any money, though I will say that they are a great price if you still use commercial products.
They had vinegar on the list this week, but I buy it by the gallon for a fraction of the price at Wal-Mart.
Note to those who think they might want to sign up for the game:
We don't buy slice and bake cookies, hamburger helper, canned chili, or frozen cakes, so those deals did not do us any good, but if you buy these items, there were significant savings from the coupons.
Current Impressions?
Still yawning so far.
On the message boards (free, anybody can sign up, and very helpful with storage questions and general coupon and sale questions) the moderators keep promising newbies that their bills will go down and they will be amazed, as long as they keep up with it and shop using the game for at least 12 weeks, which is the typical grocery sale cycle. I have two more weeks on my trial subscription, so we'll see if my list related savings improve between now and then.
2 comments:
Hi there,
I found out about the Grocery Game through your blog and this was the first week I've "played" it. I'm still waffling on whether it's actually going to be worth the money to sign up for it after the trial subscription, too.
First of all, there are of course a LOT of products that we simply don't use. This is part of my problem with coupon clipping in general. We don't rely heavily on convenience foods, which tend to be the foods most often featured in coupons. And I also noticed, even just playing for a week, that several of the items in the blue section (which she identifies as items you should stock up heavily on, because they are at their rock-bottom price) I've actually bought at cheaper prices previously. She listed Heinz ketchup in the blue section for Kroger this week. It was $1 for the size listed. Meijer had the same exact ketchup for $.85 this week, not even counting coupon usage. So you really have to be aware of which stores are running sales in a particular week.
There were also a couple of errors; for example, she listed a brand of organic chicken breasts as "FREE" -- the price per pound was $.99, plus you could use a $.59 coupon and get it doubled, so you could get the item for nothing. Two problems here: 1) the coupon actually had "NO DOUBLING" marked on it, and 2) you can't buy just one pound of chicken breasts, you have to buy a package. All the packages I checked ranged from 2-4 pounds. Still a good deal, but hardly free.
I don't know, I just have the sneaking feeling that if I maintained my own database, I might occasionally miss out on a super-hot deal, but that overall I could do almost as well, and I wouldn't have to pay someone else for hte privilege either. But as you said, we'll see how I feel at the end of the 4-week trial.
Wow, how can any list maker make that chicken mistake! That's unreal!
We're stocking up on canned stuff. I could probably do better to make my own refried beans, true, but I'm getting them free this week, and I'm lazy, which is why this works for me.
As to rock-bottom; I think that's rock bottom for each store, not the all-time rock-bottom price ever. My K store will almost always beat my H store because K doubles and triples and H doesn't. But on items that NEVER get coupons, H will sometimes have really good loss leaders.
Post a Comment