One of the great concerns of any large family is the grocery bill. Feeding all those mouths is priority number-one, after which comes the mortgage payment, the car payment, and all those ancillary expenses.
Earlier this year I discovered a website called "The Grocery Game" (www.thegrocerygame.com), which claims to help you save "as much as 60% or more on groceries." Further reading makes the premise seem sound: for a small fee ($10 every six weeks), you sign up for "The List," which tells you when products are at their rock bottom prices, and, preferably, when you can use a coupon to get an even better price.
I've never been a fan of coupon clipping but this seemed too good to pass up. Our grocery bill was approaching $200 a week, and cutting 60% would mean spending just $80. Wow! I signed up and prepared myself to spend my Sunday evenings clipping coupons.
I've now been using The Grocery Game now for about eight months, and I can say with certainty that I'm definitely not saving 60% a week. Is it still worth doing? I guess that depends on your perspective.
"The List" is basically a large database of grocery store prices. If your local grocery store is included in the database, you can sign up to get access to it. The database tracks each store's sales on specific products, and when an item is believed to be at its rock-bottom price (usually every 12 weeks or so) it appears on the list, along with a notation of any corresponding coupon, what publication that coupon appeared in and the date of the publication. The idea is that you buy your groceries on a "stocking-up" principle: you wait until they reach that rock-bottom price and then you buy enough to last for 12 weeks, until the product goes on sale again. Combined with coupons, individual items can sometimes have huge savings of up to 80 or 90%--sometimes (though rarely) they are even "free" after coupon.
This all sounded great to me, so when I started out I was religiously clipping coupons and filing them in a categorized coupon wallet every single week. This was sucking up almost all of my Sunday evenings (which I really should have been spending watching True Blood on HBO, but nevermind) and I discovered within three months that most of the coupons I so religiously clipped just ended up expiring unused because they never "made the list." By that time I was also discovering that my weekly savings were nowhere near the 60% touted on the Grocery Game homepage--in fact they were barely half of that, usually 30% or less.
Why? Well, there is one fundamental problem with the Grocery Game system. The list only ever includes items that you can save at least 50% on. Now that may not seem like a problem on the surface, but because of that threshold there are certain items that don't appear on the list often enough, or don't appear there at all. Also, the "stocking up" principle only works on non-perishable items such as canned and frozen goods. Produce and dairy products can't be purchased this way because their shelf life is far less than 12 weeks, and meats can only be purchased this way if you don't mind freezing them. Another problem is that that "rock bottom price" is often only achieved when a coupon is used, which is also no good for stocking up since most grocery stores will only allow you to use a coupon with one item.
So unless you are very strict about only buying items that make the list (which means you may go without your usual staples, sometimes for weeks at a time), there's no way you will ever save 60% on your groceries. And no, it's not the quality stuff that makes the list. Quality stuff never gets discounted to 50%, because people who want quality are willing to pay for it.
Let me give you some examples. Below is a list of products that are regularly on the list:
Here are some items that show up on the list occasionally, but because they are either fresh items (like produce, dairy or bread) or because they have to be combined with a coupon in order to hit that 50% off threshold, there's no way you can buy enough of them to get you through the 12 week pricing cycle.
If I was completely faithful to the list I would be feeding my family very little in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables and quality cuts of meat, and they'd be eating a lot of processed, canned and frozen foods instead. That's not how I want to feed my family, even if it does cost me a lot less to do it that way. I might as well just take them to McDonalds for dinner every night.
Now I do still think The Grocery Game is worth doing, and ultimately I give the service a thumbs-up (though my wrist may be a little stiff in doing so) but now I don't even bother to clip a coupon until I see it on the list. I just date my coupon books and put them in a file folder, then I can pull them out when I need to clip something. And I buy fresh produce every week, along with the occasional cut of prime rib or fillet of salmon. My grocery discount still comes to about 30%, which isn't bad, it's just not what was promised. If the Grocery Game loosened their 50% threshold and started telling me about 20% discounts on items that otherwise would never make the list, I'd be even better off, but there's no indication that they plan to do this (and when I emailed them about it I got a curt, defensive response telling me that I should just go to club stores for that stuff, which isn't practical for us since the nearest club store is 45 minutes away).
So after eight months I still haven't been able to achieve that coveted $80 grocery bill, but I'm still paying my 60 cents a week for access to the list, and $2 for my Sunday paper and its coupon inserts. With a family of five (soon to be six) spending $2.60 a week to save $60 is a no-brainer. But I would caution other families out there not to get too excited about what The Grocery Game has to offer. Feed your family the healthy variety of foods they are used to, save where you can, and don't make any big compromises in the name of a few bucks. And if you want The Grocery Game to start including some of the more quality items, email them. If enough people ask, maybe they will listen.
Earlier this year I discovered a website called "The Grocery Game" (www.thegrocerygame.com), which claims to help you save "as much as 60% or more on groceries." Further reading makes the premise seem sound: for a small fee ($10 every six weeks), you sign up for "The List," which tells you when products are at their rock bottom prices, and, preferably, when you can use a coupon to get an even better price.
I've never been a fan of coupon clipping but this seemed too good to pass up. Our grocery bill was approaching $200 a week, and cutting 60% would mean spending just $80. Wow! I signed up and prepared myself to spend my Sunday evenings clipping coupons.
I've now been using The Grocery Game now for about eight months, and I can say with certainty that I'm definitely not saving 60% a week. Is it still worth doing? I guess that depends on your perspective.
"The List" is basically a large database of grocery store prices. If your local grocery store is included in the database, you can sign up to get access to it. The database tracks each store's sales on specific products, and when an item is believed to be at its rock-bottom price (usually every 12 weeks or so) it appears on the list, along with a notation of any corresponding coupon, what publication that coupon appeared in and the date of the publication. The idea is that you buy your groceries on a "stocking-up" principle: you wait until they reach that rock-bottom price and then you buy enough to last for 12 weeks, until the product goes on sale again. Combined with coupons, individual items can sometimes have huge savings of up to 80 or 90%--sometimes (though rarely) they are even "free" after coupon.
This all sounded great to me, so when I started out I was religiously clipping coupons and filing them in a categorized coupon wallet every single week. This was sucking up almost all of my Sunday evenings (which I really should have been spending watching True Blood on HBO, but nevermind) and I discovered within three months that most of the coupons I so religiously clipped just ended up expiring unused because they never "made the list." By that time I was also discovering that my weekly savings were nowhere near the 60% touted on the Grocery Game homepage--in fact they were barely half of that, usually 30% or less.
Why? Well, there is one fundamental problem with the Grocery Game system. The list only ever includes items that you can save at least 50% on. Now that may not seem like a problem on the surface, but because of that threshold there are certain items that don't appear on the list often enough, or don't appear there at all. Also, the "stocking up" principle only works on non-perishable items such as canned and frozen goods. Produce and dairy products can't be purchased this way because their shelf life is far less than 12 weeks, and meats can only be purchased this way if you don't mind freezing them. Another problem is that that "rock bottom price" is often only achieved when a coupon is used, which is also no good for stocking up since most grocery stores will only allow you to use a coupon with one item.
So unless you are very strict about only buying items that make the list (which means you may go without your usual staples, sometimes for weeks at a time), there's no way you will ever save 60% on your groceries. And no, it's not the quality stuff that makes the list. Quality stuff never gets discounted to 50%, because people who want quality are willing to pay for it.
Let me give you some examples. Below is a list of products that are regularly on the list:
- Liquid hand soap
- Salad dressing, mayo and BBQ sauce
- Canned vegetables
- Frozen meals, pizzas and desserts
- Toothpaste
- Deoderant
- Lesser quality shampoos
- Popcorn, chips and crackers
- Soda
- Hotdogs and lunchmeat
- Bacon
- Cheaper cuts of meat, like cross rib roast and chicken thighs
- American cheese
- Cereal and granola bars
- Bottled and refrigerated juice
- Boxed sides like Rice-A-Roni
Here are some items that show up on the list occasionally, but because they are either fresh items (like produce, dairy or bread) or because they have to be combined with a coupon in order to hit that 50% off threshold, there's no way you can buy enough of them to get you through the 12 week pricing cycle.
- Fresh fruit (usually one or two varieties appear on the list each week, which is really not enough if you like your family to have a lot of different fruits to choose from)
- Fresh vegetables (again, you'll see one or two varieties a week, sometimes none at all. I personally like to buy seven different varieties each week so my family doesn't get tired of eating the same vegetable night after night)
- Household medication like Advil or Nyquil
- Better cuts of meat, like New York strip or chicken breasts
- Packaged nuts and dried fruit such as raisins
- Yogurt
- Packaged breads
- Potatoes
- Laundry and dish detergent
- Nicer cuts of meat, like prime rib, fillet and lamb
- Fresh fish (of any kind)
- Higher priced medications like Claritin and Zantac
- Diapers
- Toilet paper, tampons, paper towels and other high-consumption paper goods
- Quality cheeses
- Milk, sour cream and other dairy products
- Bar soap, lotion and other personal care products
- Bakery items like fresh baked bread
If I was completely faithful to the list I would be feeding my family very little in the way of fresh fruits and vegetables and quality cuts of meat, and they'd be eating a lot of processed, canned and frozen foods instead. That's not how I want to feed my family, even if it does cost me a lot less to do it that way. I might as well just take them to McDonalds for dinner every night.
Now I do still think The Grocery Game is worth doing, and ultimately I give the service a thumbs-up (though my wrist may be a little stiff in doing so) but now I don't even bother to clip a coupon until I see it on the list. I just date my coupon books and put them in a file folder, then I can pull them out when I need to clip something. And I buy fresh produce every week, along with the occasional cut of prime rib or fillet of salmon. My grocery discount still comes to about 30%, which isn't bad, it's just not what was promised. If the Grocery Game loosened their 50% threshold and started telling me about 20% discounts on items that otherwise would never make the list, I'd be even better off, but there's no indication that they plan to do this (and when I emailed them about it I got a curt, defensive response telling me that I should just go to club stores for that stuff, which isn't practical for us since the nearest club store is 45 minutes away).
So after eight months I still haven't been able to achieve that coveted $80 grocery bill, but I'm still paying my 60 cents a week for access to the list, and $2 for my Sunday paper and its coupon inserts. With a family of five (soon to be six) spending $2.60 a week to save $60 is a no-brainer. But I would caution other families out there not to get too excited about what The Grocery Game has to offer. Feed your family the healthy variety of foods they are used to, save where you can, and don't make any big compromises in the name of a few bucks. And if you want The Grocery Game to start including some of the more quality items, email them. If enough people ask, maybe they will listen.
