I read about this in Money Magazine and am very curious. There is a trial period for $1 and after than it is a subscription fee based on how many stores are on your list. The fee is minimal and would pay off quickly.
Thoughts and reviews are appreciated.
Also, does anyone have any links or sources for coupons that they like?
Thanks.
Pretty interesting. I only have 2 grocery stores within a distance that would make sense but I am on such a tight grocery budget (about $75/month) it might be worth it. I think I’m going to hit the trial, see how it goes.
Thanks for the tip.
Looks both interesting and useful. I’d be worried about a few things, for example there was a coupon program through allrecipes.com that looked like it was also spyware (I don’t know, though), and so I’d want to know about that. However, I’m going to watch this thread, in case there are dopers who know!
I used it for a few months last year and did save some money. Spyware wasn’t a problem then.
Basically, the site suggests that you buy the Sunday paper and clip out manufacturer’s coupons and file them. Once a week you go and check out their lists from your local stores and they’ll tell you which sales are worth it and which aren’t. They’ll also tell you how to optimize your coupons so that you get even more off of the sale price. Then you stock up on the cheap items and buy a couple of months worth, until they go on sale again.
It works really well if you have about an hour of free time a week for the coupons and lists and if you don’t mind going to a couple of stores to get the good deals. For the few months I used it I saved about $20 a week off of my $100 grocery bill and got quite a few things free. I could have saved more if I was more organized.
Is it worth it? Definitely, if you have the time. I only cancelled because I got lazy and was in a better place financially.
Just so you know, it’s based on the concept of having a price book (google has some good sites for them) and tracking sales, so it’s possible to do the same thing yourself for free. I think it’s worth the small monthly fee not to have to, but like I said, lazy and unorganized 
So it sounds like if I go through my Sunday paper for coupons, and read the weekly sales guide mailed out by all my local stores, I wouldn’t need this site?
The Grocery Game is awesome.
I have been a member for quite some time. The amount of money you save is scandalous, how easy they make it is wonderful. The support and message boards are fantastic.
I am a tad fanatical.
Example:
My mother and I went grocery shopping just prior to Thanksgiving. Winn Dixie was having a sale that said if you spent $75 they would give you a free turkey. The store manager came over to us, with a basket FILLED, top, bottom, overflowing, and asked if we were going to get a free turkey. He looked at our basket and said “the way you shop, you may not have $75 worth of stuff in there.”
I have to go to sleep, but I will give more details later. But read the boards for a few days, gather up some papers (it takes about 12 weeks for your coupons to match theirs). A price book can be nice, but mostly it was too big of a pain for me, it takes a while to actually “trust the list” but in all my time, I only found one error. I buy 2 Sunday papers so when an item comes up, I can stock up, and if there is a particularly useful coupon, it’s usually worth it for me to go buy multiple papers ($1.00 off diapers/formula/toilet paper/laundry etc).
Not only does it save you money every week, it saves it over the long run. I am now on my last bottle of Dawn that I stocked up on over a year ago when they were .25. I never pay for toothbrushes, never more than a dollar for toothpaste, got my husbands gillette deodorant for .03 (bought 12 of those!) etc. The stories on the boards are true.
btw, many grocerygamers will use there stockpiles/deals to send stuff to GI’s, homeless shelters, holiday food drives, etc.
They offer a $1 trial for 4 weeks, I saved $60 my first week using the list. In florida, the land of no double coupons, I typically saved 40%.
It really is awesome.
btw, if you do sign up, I get a free week if you tell them I referred you. Check my profile 
The lists are done locally, they typically use the more expensive stores because they can offer bigger loss leaders. Usually the list is more correct than the store shelves, I can’t tell you the number of times the sale price wasn’t on the shelf, but did ring up on sale.
Alot of people ask if it is better than Walmart and the fact is, overall it is, walmart does not advertise there specials so you have no way to plan your shopping. Also the list does encourage competition and support for grocers that are competing with Walmart. They also encourage you to do your non-list shopping at your list store, as a token thank you for allowing you to get such great deals.
I felt like I was robbing the store blind the first few times I went in. I went from spending $200 for two weeks of groceries, and never having any food, to spending $160 for two weeks and having a full 22 cu ft. freezer, full pantry, full fridge, another huge shelf of food and bathrooms stocked to the hilt.
You spend about an hour on Sunday clipping your coupons, and then about 30 min in the store because you know exactly what to buy. Not only was it a great time saver and money saver, it really is fun.
It sounds like if I don’t get a Sunday paper, the site is useless…
Yeah, it does sound like it’s not going to work without a Sunday paper, but that makes a certain amount of sense. I remember going through the Christmas Sunday paper in December and being reminded of how much stuff they cram into it. It was coupon insanity. I figure that it’s got to be a retailer’s dream to have Christmas fall on a Sunday. Everyone’s happy, everyone’s anticipating the after Christmas sales and you can do all sorts of cool advertising.
What gets me is AuntBeast’s comment that it takes 12 weeks to sync coupons up. How does that work? It seems like I should be able to sign up today, and buy the paper tomorrow and savesavesave! At least from the website. So, AuntBeast, can you tell me what’s going on there?
That doesn’t sound like it would make any sense, what with their 4 week trial…just a guess, maybe she meant 1**-**2 weeks?
Maybe, but an off-line friend had a good explanation if it does actually mean 12 weeks, though she also doesn’t use this site.
She says she figures that you’ll be able to use some coupons, but that they’ll still be referencing older coupons for awhile, so you won’t be able to get all of the savings they think you should get. You’ll still get some for the first three months, just not the best.
Hopefully AuntBeast will come along and let us know what she meant.
Thanks!
I have had problems accessing the site since my initial encounter and I’m not sure exactly why.
My average grocery bill for two weeks is $200.
I really started noticing that I was buying the same stuff over and over and found myself wandering in the store and buying impulsivly things that I thought I needed but really didn’t ( clothes or other kinds of foods that never get touched.)
So, we started a new budget of taking $200 from savings ( instead of a Debit card) and maximizing coupons or store brand ( whichever is cheaper) and so far, 12 days into the new year, we’ve saved $40 alone. So with that money, I bought myself a new much needed pair of walking shoes ( on sale, got them for $21, so we are still a few bucks ahead of the game.)
The previous poster was correct, it takes about 12 weeks for your coupons to match the list exactly, however, the savings begin your first trip. With stores with shopping cards, it isn’t uncommon for me to use just a few coupons each week.
Doing it without the coupons is possible, however, you are not maximizing your savings, but even so, the savings are significant. FWIW, a .50 or $1 paper has probably $30-40 worth of coupons every week, so it’s nothing to sneeze at.
One of the things they point out is that your grocery bill is one of the few places you can make a significant cut in the amount you spend, with very little effort. Mortgages dont’ change much, power bills don’t change much, etc. Truly, when you find out how much you can save, it is mind boggling. I can walk out of the grocery store weekly, with $200 worth of groceries for about $100.
The list works kind of like this, black items are good deals, buy some if you need to, blue items are buy it now, stock up, green items are free, get all you can. At first, your bill will be higher because your “need” items will mostly be purchased at full price, and you are stocking up on blue items, you will however, still see a significant quantity difference in the amount of items you buy.
Example: Mayo is on sale for $.99, you have 2 coupons, you buy two. You now put one in the stockpile, so when you buy it, you don’t have to spend $2.50 because it probably won’t be on sale when you run out of the first bottle. Meanwhile, you need Shampoo which isn’t a “list item” so you pay full price, say $3.99. You have now spent $6.00 worth of stuff, but you technically have $10.00 worth. It isn’t just what you save today, it’s stockpiling so that your savings continue to the future, that is why it is advantagous to buy multiple papers.
One week they had my husbands razors with an $8.00 off coupon. I knew the chance of him never needing razors again, were slim, so I went up and bought 4 more papers, just for that item, all the other coupons I got were a bonus.
Really where the game shines is in non-perishables like laundry detergent, toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo, because it is just insane how much less you can get that stuff. Seriously, I don’t pay for toothbrushes, rarely pay more than $.50 for toothpaste. And it isn’t generic, offbrand stuff either, it’s the good stuff, because those companies put out coupons. You can save more buying brand name items than you can buying just store brands. Oh, also, cereal is another big money saver, there is always coupons for cereals $1 or so a box usually.
There is also a Walgreens list available for free.
Little antedote, when I first found out about the grocery game, my cupboards were bare and my bank account was overdrawn, it took me several weeks to get the dollar in my bank account to sign up for the free trial. It made the difference between me eating a lot of peanut butter & jelly, and eating real meals. I feel so passionately about this program because it made a huge difference in my life. Now that we are back on our feet, I am even more thankful, because it helped me get back on my feet faster.
The companies want you to buy their products, the stores want to be able to survive the walmartization, and we get to benefit from that.
FWIW, what I save ever week in the grocerygame, pays for my daughters pre-paid college program. I think of it as paying her way through college, for $10 every 8 weeks. It is a hell of a return on your investment.
Another point, they track the sales so they know when the best time to use a coupon is. It’s rarely the week the coupon comes out, and they are also aware of “phantom sales” sale prices that aren’t rock bottom. Even if you use coupons now, you may not be maximizing them to your benefit.
As stated previously, they are usually more accurate than the store, they even know the unadvertised sales, which you wouldn’t know about unless you went down every aisle.
It really limits impulse shopping too, you are in and out so fast, you also save money that way.
It really does feel like highway robbery, without the cops caring