I have to admit I love playing games and what better game to play than one that affects your real life financial bottom line.  My younger sister told me about The Grocery Game.  The general gist is that you are out to stock your shelves with items you would use for a price less than what the store would normally like you to pay.  For those of you who are raising an eyebrow regarding this, yes it’s 100% legal.

You might ask how I can play this game. The game is based partly on coupons you cut out from your Sunday paper and online coupons you print and clip.  Every Sunday the lists of items that are on sale in your selected stores are posted on The Grocery Game website.  The lists will tell you what items it recommends that you stock up on.  Everything you can buy in the store is subject to be on the list, provided it’s on sale.  Each list is color coded.  Green items = Free Items, Blue Items = Best deal you’ll find on this item, Black Items = On sale but only buy as you need them.  You’ll read through the list and see where you can use your coupons to obtain the best deals.

I’ve learned a few things: 1. if you live in a state that double coupons for you, they only double the first coupon, so if you want all your coupons doubled you need to make more than one trip. 2. If you have a coupon worth more than one dollar, it will be doubled only to an additional dollar off. 3. Clip every coupon in the Sunday paper, things you think you’d never use, when they are ‘free’ you might just want to try them. 4. Its worth the money saved to take the time and shop this way.

I’ve been keeping a spread sheet with running totals showing me just how much money I’m saving on every trip and every month.  I figure, I’ll track my grocery spending for the year and see just how much I save.  So far I’m saving on average 61% off each of my grocery bills.

Hopefully you too will try out the game and see that it’s worth the money saved.  As I have asked my friends, if every time you go to the grocery store and save upwards of 70 dollars out of 100 spent, isn’t that worth the time you spend playing this game? I think its worth every penny!

Happy Shopping!

Kat and the kids.