I have never been a coupon clipping mom. Never! I've always sighed when I got behind one of those obsessive, crazy women who loads up multiple grocery carts, has you waiting in line forever while their items are scanned, only to whip out a stack of coupons equivalent to the thickness of the Holy Bible and punish you further while you wait for each of those to be scanned in.
Clip coupons? Heck no! I mean isn't that why I shop at Wal-mart and buy their “off-brand”? Don't I do that so I don't HAVE to spend my precious time cutting out scads of coupons?
Well, recently my sister got on the coupon clipping band wagon and began to brag about all her savings. I didn't put much stock in it because quite frankly she tends to exaggerate at times lol. Then my mom mentioned that she was going to give it a try. I still thought, “nope, not me - you waste your time cutting out tiny slips of paper for 25 cents here and 30 cents there.” Then my mom mentions a website called TheGroceryGame - a game? Now that could be interesting. I checked out the site and it reminded me of an article I read on the CheapskateMonthly site featuring CutOutHunger. Both sites had a similar tactic - to help people better utilize the coupons from the Sunday paper.
I don't get the Sunday paper but last weekend DH picked me up a two-fer bundle (one early Sunday and one Sunday edition) at the convenience store ($1.99 total). I subscribed to the “4 week trial” ($1 for the first 4wks) at TheGroceryGame and began plotting my next grocery shopping excursion. I then went to the Container Store on Monday and picked up an accordian file organizer (about $5.00 on sale). I thought it sounded good and that I could give it at least 4 weeks to decide if there was something to it or not. So my initial investment in this “game” was about Eight bucks - if I could just break even on this first grocery trip I'd be thrilled.
With my four kids, three grocery lists and stack of coupons, we headed to the first store (Tom Thumb). I picked up the things I had listed for that store and my total bill (before discounts & coupons) was $33.69 but I paid only $18.26! That was a 46% savings! So I had now “recovered” almost twice my initial investment with two stores to go.
On to Kroger....my receipt from this store is about 3 feet long lol! My total bill (before discounts & coupons) was $118.75 but I paid only $49.90! That's a savings of 58%! I saved $27.71 in coupons alone and 4 items were absolutely FREE!
Lastly, on to Wal-mart for the items that weren't on special at the other two stores. Overall, Wal-mart's prices are better so I went there last. I had two coupons in hand to use there and between those and one store promotion I saved $1.57. Not much but Wal-mart prices are already really low. At first, I wasn't too thrilled that my final bill at Wal-mart was still $98.62. but then I took into account that about $30 of that was just Easter Candy - EEEKKK! If I deduct the Easter candy and the discounts and coupons, my total grocery bill for the rest of March came to a grand total of $136.78 (instead of $222.63).
So, if I subtract my initial investment of $8, I still saved $77.85 on this first venture at TheGroceryGame. Do I think this was worth my time over the past few days? YES I DO! So now I'll be that crazy lady with the stack of coupons holding up the check out line - but I could be doing it in a brand new outfit if I chose to spend my savings on that lol.