The Grocery Game - Plano,TX

I've been a member for about 2 years. For months, I'll do really well and then get busy and "fall off the wagon" so to speak. It does take time to go through the coupons, etc. Stocking up is the idea and it really does work. It's great when I need to donate items through the church, etc for one of the family shelters...I always have plenty on hand!!
Good Luck

I have been doing it for about a year now and it is daunting at first. One thing that I have changed about how I do the coupons is that I leave them unclipped in a folder in order by the date (which is on the binding of the coupon booklet) and then when I print out my list I go through and pull the dates for the coupons that they have listed then I go through and clip out the ones I need prior to my trip to the store. Seems to save way more time then going through and clipping and organizing then going back through and finding the coupon you just have to look once. Also, you might want to watch getting a lot of junk items by that I mean a lot of fruit snacks, and cereals and stuff that you usually don't purchase loads of, unless like the other post said you plan on donating to a local food shelter. I will say that at first it does seem like that you are still spending quite a bit if you are stockpiling stuff on sale and still having to get other items that you need because you don't have a stock pile set up yet. So be aware of that also you need to know the stores policy that you are doing, like I only do Tom Thumb because they usually have great deals on meats. But their policy is that if you have two coupons for .50 off of Keebler cookies and you get two packages for those two coupons they will double one and take the face value only of the second. Which usually means if I want them both doubled then I have to make a separate transaction for it. So for me it depends on how many items that I have like that and then I get a small hand basket to put in my buggy and place those in there and check those out first with their coupons then I pay for it then put the rest of the items in my cart as another transaction. You really have to think differently about the way you do your menu also for the week, I used to make a menu then get the items, now it is get the items on sale then make a menu. I found that it does save you money in the long run, you really just need to watch that you are not buying a bunch of stuff that you don't use and that you really won't use in the future either. So good luck on it and I would just say one more thing try to not go with the kiddos at least the first couple of times you do it because it is time consuming looking for certain items on your list.

I really like it --actually, it's taught me alot about grocery shopping. It takes work, though....I spend at least an hour every Sunday clipping/organizing my coupons but I've been saving an avg. of $50/week. well worth that extra hour on Sundays. have fun!

I've been doing the grocery game for over a year and it is a lot of work but definitely has saved us some big bucks. I used to do it every Sunday afternoon, but now I'm not able to do it at that time. So I end up doing it on Monday, and sometimes Tuesday. I don't get the best deals but I'm still saving. Also, I don't do it every weekend because the list might only have like 3 things that I'd buy so I just go to Wal-Mart that week and use my $1 coupons there. I've saved up to $23 at Wal-Mart one time!

For cutting coupons, I used to save and file the coupon packs by date and just clip what I needed for that weekend. I did that for awhile but got tired of having to clip everything right before I went shopping. So then I clipped all of the coupons I thought I would use and put them in a file system made of large labeled envelopes. That worked the best. Now I am too busy and sometimes too tired to do all of that so I clip my coupons, only the ones I am sure I will use, and right now have them bunched together...unfiled! I have a 3ring binder with plastic baseball card holder sheets to put them in but haven't taken the time.

This method really works the best because you put one of each coupon in each little pocket. This way you can see every single coupon you have.

For example, you don't have to take all of the, say bread coupons out and look for a particular coupon. You just turn to your bread section of your binder and see all of them in each little pocket. I like this because I can easily pull coupons for each week and I can also take it with me to the store and use coupons that aren't on the list for items I need. Sometimes items that were on the list from previous weeks are list-worthy but not on the list and so if I see a coupon, I'll use it.

Happy shopping!
M.