This week I followed a tip of Tasha's and visited TheGroceryGame.com. Unfortunately, this site ISN'T free like couponmom.com, but offers a 4 week free trial for $1. The plus to this site is that it's lists include unadvertised sales, and it has a list for HEB - my all time favorite place to shop.
Because I still don't have the stockpile of coupons necessary to make awesome deals at stores that double and tripple them, I decided to shop only for produce and items on sale (or with instore coupon). The Grocery Game made it easy for me to sort and see which items were at their lowest prices, so, after 15 minutes going through the list, off to HEB I went!
This week I paid $73, after $19 in instore coupons, for 35 items. I left feeling MUCH BETTER than I did about my take from Kroger last week. While I spent the same, I had 11 more items in my basket AND produce for the week.
So far, both avenues I've taken for saving money have made a difference. If you consider I was spending just over $100 a week on groceries - I should have around $120 extra, after-tax dollars in my pocket at the end of the month. Not bad.
Now to aim for an overall savings of $50 a week...
6 comments:
Ok, I have spent WEEKS trying to find out the best ways to use coupons. I am no pro by any means, but I go shopping with one. I'm not kidding, this girl is amazing...she's like a coupon god! She can go to CVS and get more free crap than you could ever imagine. Last weekend, she ended up making 8 dollars because there is a lot of stuff CVS will give you "care bucks" back.
Enough of that though. My tip is this...once you figure out the coupons you use most...look on ebay. People sell 20 coupons of the same thing for like a dollar. My friend's daughter loves those Easy Mac single things so she looked on e-bay and got 20 coupons for $1 off of two. Well Homeland doubles their coupons and those things are only a dollar a piece. There fore she got 40 individual ones for only the dollar she paid on e-bay.
This was another really long comment but it just goes to show you're doing the right thing. Once you get the hang of it you'll feel sick when you have to purchase something at full price! :)
impressive sis!
CVS and Walgreens seem like stores with real freebie potential - if only I understood the "extra bucks" or whatever they are...its like another language.
Thanks for the tip about EBAY! Krogers only doubles up to $.50 though :-( so sad.
Can I just say that I'm a bit disappointed in the Grocery Game? I signed up after your post, but saw that the deals for HEB were good only Sun - Tues. What happens if you don't shop Sun-Tues??? I emailed them about it and they wrote back like I was asking something really high-maintenance...
Seriously, I always shop on Thurs or Friday when I'm getting ready for the wknd when Paul and Maddie are in town.
Have you figured this part out?
The thing is that HEB changes pricing on Wednesdays (I get a mailer every Tuesday showing the new deals for area grocery stores - most available online too) and coupons come out with the earliest edition of the Sunday paper, available Saturday afternoon. The Grocery game tries to maximize coupon use, but HEB doesn't work well with Sunday coupons (bc they only take them at face value).
That said, I've found that HEB in store coupon deals generally last longer than one week - though usually still ending on a Tuesday. If you take advantage of the in store coupons(on the grocery game list) from week to week, you will spot the new deals as they come out and know that you probably have until the following Tuesday to make good on any new deal. You might have to check the current flyer though, for meats on special if you shop after Tuesday.
Does that make sense?
But I agree with you about Sunday - Tues being crappy parameters!
Yea, I'm so glad you liked the Grocery Game - I'll be all about this later when it matters more, but so cool... and I always grocery shop on Sunday as it usually ends up being our least busy day, just thought I'd throw that in there for my 2 cents - haha!
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