ShannonAlbert.com - June 2009

A few months ago, I wrote about using thegrocerygame.com to get the best prices on groceries. I just wanted to post an update after using it for a few months now to say that it's the single best thing we've ever done to save money. I spend less than $100/week on groceries and I cook most of our meals and they are usually very good meals with high quality meats and ingredients. I've had a few people ask me how hard it is, if we get to buy the things we like, etc. Here's my system....

-Subscribe to Sunday newspaper and grab the 2 or 3 coupon sections out and file into a folder by the date of the newspaper.
-Go to thegrocerygame.com and see what they have marked as being on a very good sale which means it's time to stockpile that item. Print out only the items that I want to purchase.
-Add items to the list that we need but aren't necessarily on sale.
-If items on the list are marked as having coupons, go find them and cut them out (the list shows you what date to look for the coupon).

That's it! The website also gives you the option to print out some coupons which could be helpful for many people but my main grocery store won't allow printable coupons so I can't make use of those.

I think you can try it out for 2 weeks for free and if you do, please use the email address paytonsmom@hotmail.com as the one that referred you.

This system really is so great so I hope others can use it. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be glad to answer!

In an effort to reduce some expenses at our house, I decided to tackle the food bill. We have been eating out about 90% of the time the last few months as I just haven't been wanting to cook. That is very expensive and not very healthy so I'm working on doing better on that. I'm not a coupon cutter typically but learned about this site called TheGroceryGame.com. The concept is that you get a list of items that are on sale at your grocery store and items that are especially cheap are marked on the list as "stockpile now" which means you should buy in bulk while the price is low. This way, you are treating your pantry like a grocery store that has to be restocked but you are only restocking when the prices are very low. So far, this has been my experience.

Shopping trip at Kroger
Total bill: $132
Amount I spent: $76
Amount saved: $56

Shopping trip at Albertsons
Total bill: $63
Amount I spent: $27
Amount saved: $36

The website also has a message board that you can read for more stores that aren't necessarily part of the list. I got a tip from the board about current coupons at Target. I went last night and got 10 snack sized Oreos free and 10 of those individual sized cereals for free. Give it a try - it's pretty easy!

Survivorman is the best thing I've seen in a long time - guy gets dropped off in the middle of somewhere (desert, swamp, ocean, etc.) and has to survive for a week. He carries his own camera equipment which is very heavy plus has to survive. This guy is a real life MacGyver and knows so much. We have a season pass on our Tivo and there's one airing every Friday night on The Science Channel. Payton loves it just as much as we do - try to catch it if you can!