Denis has agreed to let me do the grocery shopping for the next month, to see if I really CAN save money effectively by using the grocery coupon lists available at The Grocery Game.
Here’s what I got today:
Food Lion:
Bought: 15 items
Original total price: $43.05
Coupons (Doubled) totalled: $16.82
Total spent with tax: 26.51
My Food Lion shop included ten frozen entrees for lunch the next two weeks. My best purchase? Keebler’s Chips Deluxe cookies were 50% off – $1.70, and I had a $1.00 coupon so I got a big thing of cookies for 70 cents. On the down side, I PAID for my mozzerella cheese but it didn’t end up in my bags. So I’ll be returning to Food Lion tomorrow to either get a refund or get the cheese. UPDATE: I found the mozz cheese – I accidently put it in the freezer along with my frozen entrees when I got home yesterday.
Harris Teeter
Bought: 9 items
Original total price: $22.02
Coupons/discounts totalled: $14.32
Total spent with tax: $8.34
Here I bought Windex, Seltzer, and a couple other things that I had coupons for. The biggest value purchase: A bag of dog treats – for free with coupon up to $3.69. Second best bargain: Each bottle of Windex cost $1.10 after discount and coupon. Normal price? Almost $4. UPDATE: I was wrong about the Windex. The Windex was a BOGO free offer. I got two, for the BOGO price of $3.69. So they were $1.85 each. I used two 75 cent coupons which were DOUBLED, making EACH BOTTLE 35 cents, not $1.10. I forgot the coupons were doubled.
Lowe’s Food
Bought: 20 items
Original total price: $28.22
Coupons/discounts totalled: $10.11
Total spent with tax: $18.26
My best deal was on yogurt – I got 10 Dannon yogurts for 30 cents each after discounts and coupons. The kids love yogurt, so I’m happy that I got them so cheaply.
Total items today: 44 items
Total original price: $93.29
Coupons/Discounts: $41.25
Total out of pocket: $52.04
Total percentage saved: 41%
Not bad for my first time doing it! And, if I had stuck with ONLY buying things that were on the grocery game lists for the week, I would have probably saved a bigger percentage overall.
The only store I didn’t hit was BiLo. I have the most coupons for BiLo and will be going tomorrow after work. That’s the one I’m most excited about because I know the savings will be significant there. I also need to hit up Harris Teeter and Food Lion one more time because I didn’t get the free jar of Peanut Butter (free after discounts and coupon), and the 2 boxes of Life cereal for $1.50 each. The shelves were EMPTY when I got there.
I love it! Good going! Once to get into a routine of buying that way, you’ll get to the point where you rarely pay full price for anything ~ you only buy what is on sale, with bonus savings if you have a coupon, and you always have what you need in your pantry. I have been shopping that way for years.
Yeah, but how much did you spend in gas by going to three stores?
Jen – not much. Two stores were basically right next to each other, about a mile from our house. The other one was about 3 miles from our house. So all told, 5 miles is what – 1/3rd of a gallon? So $1.
That’s great. For me, the stores I would use are not near each other and I’d waste a lot of time driving around trying to save a few bucks. At this point, my time is precious.
Jen – I visited all three stores yesterday in just over an hour. It helped to shop ONLY for what was on my list. I was in and out much quicker than if I just went in and browsed the aisles picking up stuff.
I have to figure out how much I usually save in my trips. I agree with Jen that it does take more time to run to different stores. A little more in gas money too. Not much.
I like browsing. I’m a browser. I’ll also be curious to see how much stuff is wasted showing your way versus my way. Do we really need 12 of this or something else that we never use? We’ll see. Maybe that’s how we get a stocked pantry. We stock it with everything we can get cheap and never use it since we don’t need it. LOL
BTW, is anybody going to alert me when Meschach Taylor dies and I win the Death Pool game? I’m not sure his death will make the news. Thanks.
Um…don’t say “we” stock it with stuff we don’t need. I’m not the one that has done the grocery shopping in the past 10 years. 😉
The things I bought yesterday ARE things we use/eat and won’t get wasted.
But I agree that we should concentrate on EATING the stuff in our pantry before buying more. I’ve said that before, but apparently to deaf ears.
Buying only what you know you will use in the next 6 months or so is key to making this system work. I am an in-and-out-quick shopper, not a browser, so that I buy only what is on my list. That also allows me more time to stop at another store, but only if I have made a list. It takes discipline.
This seems almost too good to be true. Does it really work? Is it a lot of work??
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Nevis – it took me just over an hour to go through the four lists I “ordered” at the website (http://grocerygame.com) – and this means picking out the items from the list I wanted to buy and then finding the coupons associated with those items. The list comes out every Sunday.
The website says that the longer you use the list the more you’ll save (for instance, I won’t have to buy Windex for a long time because I bought two bottles yesterday). The idea is that you stockpile things you can get at rock-bottom prices so that your weekly budget shrinks because you are only buying necessities (like bread, milk, butter, eggs).
Very interesting…! 🙂 I’ll definatly have to check this out…
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