Living on Less – Week 2 – Part 1
Grocery ad
Last week I talked about saving money on groceries and specifically knowing when a sale is a sale and buying groceries in bulk. This week I am going to continue our discussion of buying groceries on sale and I will add to the discussion the use of coupons. First I need to add one small caveat. In my discussion, I will not recommend one store over another. It is up to each consumer to decide where they choose to shop and I will leave that up to each individual. I will on occasion tell about a great deal that I received at a certain store as an example.
Now let’s move on to the nuts and bolts of the Grocery Game and couponing.
The Grocery Game
I have used coupons off and on over the years, but never consistently. That changed 18 months ago when I saw an interview on a news program with Teri Gault, founder of the Grocery Game. I decided to give it a try and I enrolled for a trial subscription.
If you go to Teri’s website here she does an excellent job of explaining the Grocery Game. Basically it comes down to this, you sign up for one or more stores in your area and she will post the sales for each week at those stores per her data base. In Oskaloosa the only store that she has a list for is Hy-Vee. Okay, big deal, another list. But here is where the Grocery Game begins.
The list is color coded to show what items are free with a coupon, what items are on sale but not at a great sale price yet, and third, what items are at a rock bottom price. The key is to spend the bulk of your grocery money on the rock bottom sales price items and stock up. Teri talks about sales rotating every 12 weeks so you buy at the rock bottom price for what you will need until the next sale. She runs everything through her data base to predict when items will go on sale and her site also tracks sales trends. Teri takes the guessing out of whether a sale is a sale or not.
The list in and of itself would be great at that point but what really makes it wonderful is that next to each item she teams it up with any coupon available and tells you where you can find that coupon (example – Smart source flyer found in the August 29th newspaper). I simply place a check mark next to what I want to buy and print it off. If you are looking for a coupon for a specific product, you can enter the product name into her coupon data base and you can find out if there is a coupon available at this time for that product.
Since using this program I have saved money and my pantry is piled high with lots of items that I purchased at rock bottom prices. All of these items are items we will use.
The trial subscription cost $1.00 for 4 weeks. The regular subscription cost is $10.00 for eight weeks to track one store, and I more than recoup my $1.25 per week outlay for this service. Over time I have found that I could cancel this service as I know the sales, but Teri’s list saves me time and there is no guessing as to when to use a coupon.
If you do sign up for a trial subscription and don’t cancel it prior to the end of the 4 weeks, your credit card will be charged $10.00 every 8 weeks until you cancel the service.
Why is this helpful to me? I like the power of knowing that this is the time to buy, this is the time to use this coupon now, and this is the time to stock up. Teri always says to trust the list. One time I went ahead and purchased something with a coupon because I thought it was a good price. Then the following week this item went on sale at a lower price and it was on Teri’s list to buy. I could have saved more money if I would have waited. Lesson learned.
Couponing
In trying to save money on my grocery bill I started to save the coupon flyers from the Sunday newspaper. I noticed something 18 months ago. A lot of the coupons have really increased in value. Most of my coupons are 50 cents, $1.00 and more. I have had several for $2.00 off and BOGO (buy one get one free) coupons are quite popular now. It was then that I knew that using coupons made sense, especially when I was using them along with the Grocery Game.
Examples of Recent Savings
Not only do I save money by combining a coupon with a sale item, I also use in store coupons with a manufacturer’s coupon for a sale item. For example, if there is an in store coupon on a name brand peanut butter and you have a manufacturer coupon for that same brand, you can use both the in store coupon and the manufacturer coupon together on the peanut butter to save even more. This is called “stacking”.
This weekend I saved a lot of money on cereal at Hy-Vee. There was an in store coupon for buying 6 boxes of General Mills cereal and you received $10.00 off your purchase AND you would also receive a $6.00 “Catalina” coupon at the register good towards your next shopping trip at Hy-Vee. Here is what I did. Fareway had certain General Mills cereals on sale for $2.50. Hy-Vee honors Fareway’s sales and Fareway honors Hy-Vee’s sales. I went to Hy-Vee with the Fareway ad and I picked out 6 boxes of General Mills cereal. When I got to the check out I showed the ad to the clerk and I was given the 6 boxes of cereal for $2.50 each for a total of $15.00. I handed her the $10.00 in store coupon which brought the cost of the cereal to $5.00. Then I handed her some manufacturer’s coupons for the cereal, three coupons for $1.00 off two boxes, which then brought the purchase price down to $2.00 for six boxes of cereal. After I paid for the cereal and she handed me my receipt, I also received a $6.00 “Catalina” coupon good towards my next shopping trip at Hy-Vee.
I regularly get Ziploc bags and containers for 50 cents and sometimes 25 cents when I match a coupon with a sale.
This is why I coupon.
Tomorrow I will discuss sources for coupons and organizing your coupons. I will also post my average sales per week and talk about how I use coupons with sales to buy items for the local food pantry.
If you have questions, please e-mail us at info@oskynews.org.
