Grocery Savings

I'm experimenting with saving money on groceries again since food is our single biggest expense and probably the easiest to cut if I work hard.

I've used the Grocery Game website before.  Now keep in mind that I know I could peruse specials and such myself, but I get terribly addled and it's easier to have a list of what to get straight from someone who's done the homework. 

I also tried a coupon clipping service.  I chose Coupons and Things by Dede.  I make some money doing some online freelance writing, so I always have ten bucks or so in my PayPal account.  I ordered the coupons I needed and PayPal'd the money from that little fund.  We don't currently get any newspapers and I'm horribly disorganized about gathering coupons, clupping them, and organizing them.  It was a total treat to go through an online checklist and pick what I needed, then PayPal over and get the nicely clipped ready-to-go coupons in the mail a few days later.

The trick is going to be getting on The Grocery Game site the first day of the new specials posted for my store, then ordering the coupons and getting them prior to the specials expiring. 

My store's specials run Thurs-Weds, so I went through last Thurs and picked everything I wanted to buy.  Furthermore, I use an online shopping service -- my grocery store (Harris Teeter) has a thing where you shop online and then go pick the groceries up from the store.  You just have to give them four hours to do the shopping, and the service costs $5.  I figure I save this much by not impulse-buying with the kids in tow.  Also, I save a ton of time.  And I shop much better online than wandering around, even with a good list.

So I picked my items on Thursday night, then ordered the coupons on Friday.  Usually they would arrive before now but it was a holiday weekend per the coupon site, so I was hoping to get them by today.  Today it was.  I zipped in the order online, and will pick it up this evening.

I figure that in the future, I can pick the items on Weds/Thurs and get the coupons then, and then key in my order online and save the cart, not submitting it until I get the coupons in the mail.

At any rate, I'm going to see how much I saved using specials and coupons this week, less the price for the coupon, grocery list, and online shopping services.  Ha.