Testing The Grocery Game: Week One
POSTED BY Amy at 6:22 PM
This is my first week
trying out the Grocery Game and really working towards
building our stockpile through coupons and sale prices. I promised to chronicle my efforts here and I really appreciated all of your ideas and feedback on your coupon usage and what has been working for you.
Here we are in week one of my Grocery Game membership. Frankly, week one with this membership really stinks. I feel like I do when I go on other websites that offer a "free basic membership," but then they only extend certain offers and the premium members get all of the good stuff. The reason is, of course, because I have none of the coupons that are listed for these good deals, not because I don't have access to seeing the deal.
This week I diligently cut my coupons and then explored the official list of deals. The CVS listings were nothing new and were things that I could find elsewhere on the web. The deals for Kroger
& Meijer did offer some insight into great deals that I could take advantage of...if I had coupons from January. I took note of some of the sale items that I had overlooked when I had flipped through my flier though, and decided to stock up on the items that were the best deals for the week.
A local supermarket (Martin's Supermarket for the local folk!) had a 12 for $10 sale advertised this past week so I took advantage of that as well since I am trying to build my stockpile.
In the interim, I cleaned out my purse and gathered up all of the receipts from past grocery visits and put them into
my price book (
Side Note: We offer a
free printable one here!) It had been awhile since this had been updated and I happened to have a few receipts from
Aldi to input. I put these in, since ultimately this is about whether or not I do better with coupons or
with Aldi.For this week, I stocked up on:
Martin's Supermarket:(6) Aunt Millie's 100% Whole Wheat Bread
(6) Store Brand Frozen Vegetables (baby peas, broccoli, corn)
Total Cost: $10
Meijer Supermarket:10 pounds of apples- $4 (Side Note- This should have been six pounds, but I thought the bag I picked was the smaller bag and told them that the price was wrong. Oops! I ended up with an extra four pounds of apples for the advertised price. I was a little overzealous in my flier efforts, not attempting to be dishonest.)
13 pounds split chicken breasts bone on- $.99 per pound
Total Cost: $17
This first week I did not use coupons, but did take advantage of listed sales that I might not have seen as an amazing deal without the assistance of the list. The coupons that I could have used for this week were for items I would not typically buy (convenience foods, frozen foods, crap foods) and I plan to stick with what I feel is in the best interest of our family's diet and what we would normally buy.
I am looking forward to week two on the program, and feel very good about updating my price book and starting our stockpile. I also am looking forward to making some great dishes with the chicken breasts. I have to also sheepishly admit that the apples look much better than my past couple of bags I have gotten from Aldi (which have went bad in just a couple of days). The kids kept saying, "They are so pretty and shiny!"
If you would like to join me in exploring the program, my referral id is amy@momadvice.com!Labels: Grocery Shopping, Reviews
27Comments:
Andria and Co.
"Shucks, I don't have any of those supermarkets here! We have HEB. That's our major chain."
Nico
"What great buys! I would have stocked up on the pretty apples too."
Mimi
"Amy, does Kroger's and Meijer's double coupons ther? Most kroger owned stores do. Also, Kroger's here accepts printable coupons. My favorite is coupon bar web edition because it is the easiest to use. It looks like you're off to a good start! Those apples look so yummy they're making me hungry.Isn't it funny the way kids notice everything?"
Amy
"Mimi- I believe the Kroger does double the coupons, but I will need to look at my fliers again. What is the coupon bar? I am clueless when it comes to coupons :) Talk me through it :)
And you are right, it is hilarious what kids notice!"
amy
"You got some great deals. I laughed out loud at the kiddos comments...they are getting spoiled with apples from Meijer! I will say that I'm trying to get back to shopping at Aldi again and I was bummed to hear their apples suck, but not totally surprised. I just wish I could get everything there, ya know??"
Amy
"Amy- You are sooo right. They are spoiled. Spoiled rotten :) The Aldi apples are excellent in the fall, but it has been downhill from there. If you get them, the Granny Smith seem to hold up the longest, followed by the Red Delicious. The Golden Delicious & Gala don't seem to last more than a few days (at least at our local Aldi)
We know our apples ;)"
Erin
"If you add on what will be the "cost" of the Grocery Game, would you have saved anything?
They don't have my preferred store here. They only have the ones that I don't shop at because they're too expensive. :)"
Scrapmuch
"one of the main resons I haven't done the grocery game is I don't use most of the foods I see in the coupons I get. As you say - "Convenience foods, crap foods". So I'm not convinced the grocery game would work for me, since I don't use alot of frozen and boxed mixes, cereals or soups. I'll be watching your experience closely!"
Amy
"Erin- The trial membership is $1 for four weeks so I definitely am recuperating my dollar. I am going to see how it goes with their 12 week plan and see if you really can save money through it. I am basically testing my theory that Aldi is cheaper than anywhere else :)"
Stephanie
"My gut is that you can come about equal $ wise by shopping Aldi, or by using coupons and stockpiling at other stores. It is the time invested that I think is the big difference. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Aldi's produce is not always the best I'll admit, but I usually do okay there. I've been getting a lot of produce at Sam's lately too."
Marva
"Great buy on the chicken! Since you're updating your price book, could you also update the price list for Aldi on the forum? That would be a great help to many of us. thank you for all your hard work Amy and blessings on the grocery game."
Manders
"I do wish you had posted that you had intended on doing the prior to doing it.
If any on really wants to get the best out of the trial membership, save your coupons for about one month before signing up. I think that Terri needs to advertise this on her site as well."
Jeanne
"Oh, I wish I would have found your blog sooner. I tell everyone I know that if they're interested in the Grocery Game to start clipping coupons NOW and sign up 6 weeks later.
As far as the junk food goes - it's true - there are lots of coupons for junk food out there, but I've also found that I save lots of money using the Grocery Game (including the cost of my membership) on healthy food - yogurts, cheeses, whole wheat pastas, spices, and oatmeal, for example.
It's also been true in my area that most products are cheaper than Aldi's when they hit the Grocery Game list, including apples (like you've mentioned), grapes, tomatoes, fresh veggies (particularly bell peppers), and butter."
"Tip- clip and organize coupons for a couple of weeks BEFORE you sign on to join Grocery Game... then you will have the coupons that correspond to the lists and haven't wasted your $1 trial!"
FishMama
"This is my first week, too. And it's not that great. At least not as "great" as I had been led to believe. I found that I had to do a lot of searching for coupons online to make up for the past weeks' that are represented on the list.
Also, one of our stores went out of business. So glad that trial is only $1."
"I think it is unethical , cheap and wrong you didn't take the apples back .I am sure you won't print this and all your friends will say " oh well" too much trouble to bring back etc."
Rhonda
"I subscribed to the Grocery Game for awhile but you can get the same information from the couponmom.com for free."
Amy
"Manders & Jeanne: That would have been good to know and I guess I get to try it out and report it the world what would have been smarter :) I think it would be nice if Terri did share that info, but then she probably wouldn't get people to stay on for memberships for as long by offering that.
Anonymous- I made an honest mistake. I didn't realize the apples were a different size until I got them home and put them in that basket. I am human."
Pam
"I have plenty of coupons from the last couple of months so I thought I'd give the $1 special a try but when I put in my zip and they list the stores.... NO MARTIN'S. (I'm in Elkhart) So how do you get Martin's on there?? It's true that you do spend hours matching all those coupons to sales so it may be worth it."
Amy
"Pam- Martin's isn't listed, I just took advantage of the sales that they offered last week to build my stockpile. The stores that are offered for list (in our area) were CVS, Walgreens, Kroger, & Meijer. Sorry- I didn't mean to confuse anyone :)"
Heidi @ GGIP
"The grocery game doesn't cover any of the supermarkets in my area. Since I already can do the CVS stuff other places on the web, I'm not sure if it can help me. I wonder how they decide what stores they do and which they don't.
Good luck. I am trying to save more too."
NeedANap2
"By going to coupons.com there is a picture or something for adding a coupon bar (I think that's what the commenter was referencing). You can find lots of printable coupons on the web. Money Saving Mom has a list on her sidebar. Most will let you print 2 or more coupons, then it will say you've reached your print limit. It's worth it to sign up such as Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, eat better America, etc. (but a lot of it might be for "crap" foods as you phrased it)
Freebies 4 Mom and I have been lamenting having trouble printing Smart Source coupons in IE, she's started using Firefox for that purpose. (I'm still having trouble though!) It helps to have more than 1 computer to use to print coupons. Setting your printer to "draft" mode or some form of ink saving will help with the printing costs. I've had trouble with printable coupons scanning but usually the cashier will push it through for me (our OLD laser printable coupons never scanned but our newer ink jet usually works).
Beware - Meijer here has a limit of 2 identical coupons. I usually will just go in again later in the week if it's really something I want to stock-up on but that can be a hassle if you have a raincheck. :)"
Paula
"You asked about coupon bar that someone mentioned. I had never heard of it, but when I goggled it, basically it is a tool that allows you to easily find coupons. HOWEVER, it continas spyware and by downloading and installing coupon bar on your computer, you are actually installing spy ware on your computer. I saw more links to remove this spy ware from your computer than to actually put it on, which means that more people are searching for and clicking on how to remove it. Here is a link that talks more about it and gives you code on how to remove coupon bar and it's spy ware (won't remove all spy ware) on your computer.
http://www.spywareguide.com/product_show.php?id=2184
HTH! And thanks to all those who mentioned cipping coupons for 6 weeks before signing up for the trial!!!"
Paula
"I also wanted to sasy that I use http://organicgrocerydeals.com (my username is lvg4him, please use it when signing up). I am able to use their coupon database and search for coupons for products I like. So I look and see that my local grocery store is selling Muir Glen Organic Tomatoes 10/$10. So I goto the site (free) and enter in Muir Glen and find $1/1 - FREE ORGANIC TOMATOES! They also share all teh good deals for local stores (ever Super Target and Walmart). There is alsoa coupon generator there where yo ucan print off coupons. I found out that Target had coupons for $2 off Morning Star and that there was a 75 cent coupon from (whatever date, I cannot remember, but it does tell you). So I printed out 6 $2 off coupons (since I had six 75cent off coupons) and went to supper Target and got the crumbles (which I use weekly) for 12 cents each! :)
You can also learn of sale on grass-fed organic beef and ... well if you eat healthier (I saw someone mention in the commentes that they eat too heathy to use the grocery game), this site is so great! And it is free to check it out, so you don't lose anything. :)"
"You might want to try www.mygrocerydeals.com. It's free, but there is no such thing as a premium membership that gets all the best parts of the site."
"You can always tell the store the next time you're there you made a mistake and pay for the apples. I had to do that once. It's good to be honest. Anyway, I really wanted to say a good coupon organizing system works great. I use junk mail return envelopes, label them, and keep them in a box. But whatever way you do it, that will save you serious time. Just remember to pull the expireds :-) Good luck with your savings. You'll probably be surprised. I love Aldi's too. But, we get so much free, the coupons are worth it. As a family of six we save 60-75% off the grocery bill every week. Including 3 dogs & 6 cats. (Other pets too, but they aren't in that budget catagory). And we eat pretty healthy. Anyway, Good Luck!"
Mrs. Darling
"I dont coupon unless the coupon says buy one get one free or something simple like that. My husband on the other hand is a hgue couponer and gets great deals.
Everybody talks about Aldis on the blogs and we dont even have one in our entire stat! humph! I feel cheated! :)"
This is my first week trying out the Grocery Game and really working towards building our stockpile through coupons and sale prices. I promised to chronicle my efforts here and I really appreciated all of your ideas and feedback on your coupon usage and what has been working for you.
& Meijer did offer some insight into great deals that I could take advantage of...if I had coupons from January. I took note of some of the sale items that I had overlooked when I had flipped through my flier though, and decided to stock up on the items that were the best deals for the week.
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