Eh?
Post 13. 
Read my post in the context of your preceding one. Think about it. I tried to get a completely blank quote, but it doesn’t show up at all, so I had to leave in a single period.
Oh, whoosh!
Well, Auntbeast did make her link clickable, so gets points there. I looked at that cite, and unfortunately, she doesn’t cover any of the stores in my town, except Rite Aid. It’s a great concept, though.
I scanned the posts for hyperlinks, not text, sorry, Zsofia. I can see you!
FYI, they also offer a field guide for folks not in list areas. You must live in the boonies for them not to have any of your stores. Heck, I just moved to a mountain top from a big city and was terrified they wouldn’t have anything here, and they did.
I’m not a couponer, but frugal shoppers…
Get out their grocery circulars and all their coupons at home.
Match coupons they have to specials.
Plan their menu based off the combination of circulars and specials - and only buy other good coupon items if they have the special + coupon together going on - AND they will use or donate the product.
Fill in the rest of the grocery list based off their menu - and write it by store (they’ll go to several stores to get the best coupon+special match).
Shop with the coupons that match the list pulled. They may or may not take the rest of their coupon folder in with them to take advantage of unadvertised specials - it depends on how much of an impulse shopper you are (good deal, must have - even though we will never eat it!) or aren’t.
They try as much as possible to only buy what they need for the next shopping period or pantry good deals. Apparently, you start to learn the difference between “enough” spaghetti sauce in your pantry and “too much.”
If you’re on a mountain top, you’re farther out than I am, Auntbeast. We’re rural, but not so rural that we don’t have a Super Walmart - which isn’t listed. Weird.
Your ideas about coupons intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Seriously, though, **Zsofia **and Auntbeast, here’s a question for you about thegrocerygame.com: we’re kind of a weird grocery household. We buy very few brand-name items but those few are often obscure and non-negotiable, like a specific brand of Thai instant noodle dishes, or our favorite local beer; and our list on any given week is likely to include something hyperspecific like pomegranate molasses or bigger-than-nonpareil capers. Do you think The Grocery Game would do anything for us?
Well, like I said before, coupon shopping is BEST for people who eat a lot of processed foods, have quintuplets, and change shampoo every week to whatever’s cheapest. I am none of those things - we’re very picky gourmet types, and I still feel I save a good bit by shopping that way. For one thing, it helps me “develop a pantry” so we did start eating more “almost free dinner with stuff we already had”. Also, when things are crazy cheap I’ve tried some new things, also.
Frankly, you don’t even need to clip coupons, at least for Publix, to get something out of the grocery game - the best deals are with coupons, of course, but half the time I find myself mostly using it to alert me to worthwhile store sales. As you know, I’m sure, not all store sales are worth it - the lists tell you which ones are. And of course everybody has things they’ll compromise on and things they won’t - we will not buy none of that trashy-ass Skippy or Peter Pan peanut butter. Choosy moms choose Jif. I’ll buy whatever dry pasta is on sale, though (but not just any pasta sauce!) Also, there are often deals like “Buy one box of the national brand of cereal and get a Publix box for free!” that I just don’t want to be bothered with reading through the circulars for.
You can try it for free, why not give it a whirl?
Ok, in my years of experience with The Grocery Game have taught me this. Even if you only use it for NON-food items, it is very much worth it. The fact is, most coupons are for processed foods, if you tend towards a more natural diet, there will be a lot of coupons that are useless to you. However, most people, no matter how fruity their diet, tend to use soaps, toothpaste, laundry detergent, cleaning products and air fresheners.
Pre-GG, I found that if I had to buy those sort of items, it could eat up my entire grocery budget. Now? Heck, those are the easiest things to get deals on. I don’t think I’ve paid more than .50 for toothpaste in years.
The entire Idea is to match up coupons to the best sale and stock up when you can. I just bought 6 jars of mustard for about .08. I won’t have to buy it full price for a long time.
As far as Coupon Etiquette: I arrange and sort all my coupons BEFORE I get in line. I make sure I have the right number of coupons for the items. I get my store card and debit card out. THEN, I get in line. I had about 30 coupons last week, they checked me out faster than most people. You may cringe when you see a coupon rookie, but me going through the line is art baby. When I’m done, if there are any discrepancies, I go to the customer service desk to get it handled, I do NOT slow down the line.
Most importantly, I am nice. I appreciate the extra effort it takes for the cashier to process the coupons. I am thankful for the savings the store has afforded me and I am gracious when getting mistakes corrected.
My reputation was so good, if the Catalina machine wasn’t working, and the CS girl knew it, she would find one for me, or issue me a store gift card, often without me asking. One Thanksgiving, I was shopping with my mother and a cart FULL of groceries, and the store manager came up to me and asked if I had gotten my free turkey yet. He looked at my cart and laughed, he said I probably didn’t have $75 worth of stuff but he would get me a turkey anyway. He came back with a HUGE turkey. He also opened up a lane and checked me out himself.
Grocery stores are struggling against Walmart. GG is bringing people back to traditional grocery stores because the vast majority of the time, you CAN get better deals than at Walmart. I know this is true, I have never walked out of Walmart with anything for free and I get free crap all the time. Coupons are reimbursed by the manufacturer to the store plus a processing fee. It brings money IN to their stores.
*There was one cashier who I privately nicknamed “Dummy” She grabbed an entire stack of coupons, scanned the first one and laid the entire stack aside. I about had a heart attack. The other cashiers KNEW if I was coming to the register, Dummy couldn’t handle it and would open up one for me, or guide me to the express lane. When you do coupons, knowing the cashiers is just as important as knowing the coupons.
I use thegrocerygame, and so I only have the coupons for the items that are on my list. I eliminate the “didn’t finds” while awaiting in line. At home, I dump everything into a flex folder. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of coupons, because most of them are for stupid stuff I’d never dream of using, like Hamburger Helper and other prepared crap. So mostly it’s cereal, bread, cheese, yoghurt, and lunchmeat. Not hard to keep track of.
For those who won’t use coupons for extremely cheap or free packaged food because it’s not the kind you prefer, why not get it anyway and donate it? The food bank will welcome your free Skippy peanut butter while you enjoy your Jif. And if you can score 30 boxes of cereal for 10 cents apiece even though you live alone and don’t eat cereal, take it to the food bank.
I’ll have to ask my father if he does this.
You know, that has never occurred to me. I’ll start doing that. Sometimes it’s just ridiculous what you can get with the coupons if it comes in a box and has a million ingredients.
A few things that may not have already been covered:
Have all your coupon sorting done before you get in the checkout line.
I put my hat upside down in the child-seat of the cart. My list and all the coupons go in it, so they don’t spill on the floor. When I pick up a coupon item, the coupon moves from the envelope to the hat.
My coupon sorter is pretty simple. A standard window envelope (address and phone number on the outside, in case I leave it on the checkout lane) with month-marked paper dividers. I tried getting more complicated than that (product categories,) but it got too crazy.
If a coupon says FREE, or brings the price to a certain amount, I put the coupon on the product, to save backtracking to find the price. Otherwise, all coupons are in a bunch, handed to the cashier.
If you have a “loyalty” card, get it scanned early, so you and the cashier won’t forget.
Aaaand, a couple of slow-witted-help things:
At the end of the checking, make sure your coupons are rung up. Yes, you can get that fixed at the customer service desk, but it adds 10 or more minutes to your shopping.
I use canvas shopping bags. I put them on the belt first, and 75% of the time the baggers won’t ignore them. Keep an eye on the baggers. My wife fumes that some of these kids will put delicate products on the bottom of the bag. :smack:
My husband thinks I’m a bit of a pain about this, but I always insist on loading the belt with heavy stuff first, like with like, with bread, chips, and eggs at the end. And, our stuff does not get squished!
Oh, they never screw up the bagging at Publix. They have a bagging competition - I believe the nationals are in Vegas or something. We sent a local boy one year, I remember reading it in the paper.
I do think the grocery stores don’t really have the practice yet with canvas bags - they don’t put heavy on top of light or anything but they overload them like crazy sometimes.
This is a rant for another time, but I put sections of products (cold/dairy/meat, chemicals, dry boxes, etc.) separated by bags so that they can ring them up as they get to them and then voila there’s a bag for the section.
Instead the cashier grabs all the bags and pushes them to the end, and then rings things up in a random manner. I think “Why did I bother?” and have to insist on bagging myself.
Grocery Game people: I assume the answer to this is “yes,” but you are saving significantly more money than you are paying for the site subscription? I have 3 local grocery stores, 2 of which I shop at frequently, so I’d be paying for 2 stores. Worth it? I did sign up for it a while ago but after the trial period decided I could do it on my own. I did it on my own for a while relatively successfully but lately I haven’t had the time so I’m thinking about re-upping.