Let the fun begin: The Grocery Game

Edited to say: I sprinkled the website address throughout this blog entry, so that no matter where you were in the blog, it would be easy to click and go to the Grocery Game website. Jennifer was kind enough to tell me in the comments that I didn't put the link in anywhere, so I have remedied that. Okay, editing comment over.



Tonight, I paid $0.25 for a tube of toothpaste. I debated for a while whether or not to actually pay that much, but I decided in the end that I could spend that much on toothpaste. Afterall, I'm used to getting toothpaste for free.

No, I'm not robbing the grocery stores. :-P Instead, I'm playing something called The Grocery Game, which I will here on out refer to as the GG. And as part of playing the GG, I have been getting amazing deals, without even needing to pack a hand gun to the grocery store! Yes, I live in Idaho, but would you believe me if I said I don't own a gun? Wild but true. My sister, brother-in-law, and father all do, but I do not. Hey, look, worthless information! My blog is packed full of that, although would you believe it, this blog is actually going to be one of the helpful entries. I do try to put one up like that every once in a while, just to throw everyone off balance. ;-)

So I am going to explain how the GG works, but just as a warning, this is about to get real long. I am a woman of MANY words, and unfortunately, this isn't an exception.

The Grocery Game was started by the Teri Gault. She used to use coupons and go shopping every week like everyone else, but then she realized that stores seemed to be in a cycle in terms of sales. So she started tracking the sales at each store each week in her area (southern California) so she would know what the best price truly was for any given item. And she not only tracked the sales, she also tracked the coupons, and matched the sales to the coupons. After a while, everyone was begging her for her list every week, and she decided she ought to start a company. And thus The Grocery Game was born.

One of the wildest concepts of the GG: The most expensive grocery store is the cheapest place to buy your groceries. No, I'm not smoking something. Stick with me here; this will all make sense by the end of this blog entry, promise.

There are two types of grocery stores: Traditional grocery stores, and new-style grocery stores. The traditional grocery stores mark their prices way up, and then mark a few items each week WAY down (usually at or below their cost) which they call "loss leaders." They are hoping to have you look at those prices in the flyers, say, "Wow, what a good deal!" come into the store to buy those items, and then stay to round out the shopping for the week.

New-style grocery stores are places like Sams Club, Costco, and Wal-Mart. Their strategy is to mark all of their items fairly low, but never super low, and they rely on their customers to do all of their shopping each week at their stores, because the customers perceive them as the cheapest place in town. Well, that's actually true, except for the few items that the traditional stores have marked down to rock bottom. In those cases, the traditional grocery stores beat new-style grocery stores all to pieces. But what can you do? You can't just shop the sales at each store each week, because what if a store doesn't have any meat on sale, and your freezer is empty? You will either eat salads all week, or buy items that are not on rock bottom pricing.

In comes The Grocery Game. Teri figured out the traditional grocery stores are on a 12-week cycle in terms of their sales. They put an item on sale, and then three months later, they put it back on sale again. So to really take advantage of the good prices, you need to buy not one or two weeks worth of items when you shop, but instead buy 12 weeks worth of items. If toilet paper goes on a great sale, then you need to buy extra rolls, so you don't have to buy any more for another twelve weeks. Make sense?

This doesn't mean that you have to buy 3 months worth of groceries this week. What you do is you make up a list of needs each week--what you're completely out of and cannot wait to go on sale before buying. Also, any items like produce, milk, eggs, cheese, yogurt, etc, would be on the needs list. Then look at the GG List for the week, and see how many of your "need" items are at your list store. Buy the rest of the need items at Wal-Mart, Costco, etc. Figure out how much you'll have left in your budget for the rest of your groceries, and then head to the list store. Buy the need items first, then buy items on sale that you don't necessarily need this week but that you will need/use in the future. If you do this every week, eventually your needs list will shrink to almost nothing, and even further in the future, even your stockpile list will be small. That's when you've hit the "cherry-picking" stage--you only buy it if it's free or almost free.

There are people who have such a well-rounded stockpile, they take an entire month off from grocery shopping, other than the perishables. One gal was talking about how her hubby lost his job after she had been stockpiling for a while, and they ate off only their stockpile for two months--they didn't go grocery shopping at all except for the perishables. She talked about what a huge blessing that stockpile turned out to be in their time of need. How many of us can say that we could eat out of just our pantry for two months? I know I can't right now, but my goal is to be able to eat out of just my pantry for a YEAR. My church counsels to have a years food storage at all times, and I have finally found a way to do that. For most people, that is going overboard, and it certainly isn't necessary to play the GG. That's just what I want to do. The GG says to stock up for three months, so you don't have to shop again until the next sales cycle. That takes some time to build up to that point, but it is very, very possible.

Now, onto why the list is so gosh darn amazing. Teri color codes the items on the lists each week. I became a subscriber at Albertsons a couple of weeks ago. I went in and looked at the GG list that first week. She had every item on sale in the store on that list. There were even unadvertised sales on the list, because lots of items go on sale each week, and there isn't enough room in the sales flyer to list them all. So Teri has not only the advertised sales listed, she also has the unadvertised sales listed. She also lists all coupons that match up with those items--the amount of the coupon, the week it came out in the newspaper, which flyer it was in the newspaper, everything. She also puts in there if the item is on sale at another store nearby (like Fred Meyers, which there is a FM in the next town over for me.) FM is not a list store, but they do put out coupons each week in their sales flyers. Albertsons takes other grocery store coupons, so you can use FM coupons at Albies. I have done it several times, and the cashiers never blink an eyelash.

Teri will also put on the list when there will be a coupon dispenser right next to the item in the store. I have no idea how she knows all of this stuff, but I imagine she has made some sort of deal with the grocery stores where they tell her what they're going to be doing, in return for her sending so much business their way. This is a lady who has been on national TV and I believe she's also been on Oprah. But anyway, I haven't had her be wrong yet: If she says there will be a coupon dispenser next to the product with a buy two, get $0.75 off coupon in it, it has always been there. Absolutely amazing I tell you...

So if you combine the store coupons, the manufacturer coupons, and the sale prices, you can end up with some really good prices on items. Heck, last week, Rite Aid paid me to take some toothpaste home (hence the "should I actually pay for toothpaste" dilemma. It's hard to go from making money off toothpaste to actually paying for it. Y'all have lots of pity for me, I'm sure of it. :-P) So anyway, back to the list. Once Teri combines the sales prices and the coupons, she totals how much the item will cost you, and she also looks through her database to see how this price compares to sales in the past. She will mark an item as black if it is a so-so sale but nothing to write home about (probably a bit cheaper than Wal-Mart would be on the same item, but not by a ton.) She will mark an item as blue if it is a great sale--this means to stock up because this is a rock bottom sale! And she will mark an item as green if it's free. Yes, you read that right. There are items at the grocery store each week that are free. This week, there were four of them at Albies; last week there were three. This is free after coupons and sales combined together, of course.

Just as FYI here: There is an alternative to the GG, and it's called the Coupon Mom. I just looked at that website, and although it is similar in some ways, there are some definite benefits to the GG list. The Coupon Mom site doesn't compare current sale prices to past sale prices to make sure these sales really are a good deal. It also doesn't list any other store coupons (like using Fred Meyer coupons at Albertsons.) It also has a MUCH smaller selection of stores--Albertsons wasn't on there at all, for one thing. There are also other smaller bells and whistles that the GG site has that the couponmom site doesn't have, but nothing that will make ya or break ya. I just figured I ought to throw all that info out there to help you make a decision, if this is something you want to do. :-)

So anyway, if you do join and use the GG, you'll be shocked to realize that you are shopping at all of the stores that you previously thought were too expensive. I know I rarely shopped at Albies before I started this game, and now I'm there every week (I've been there three times in the last two weeks.) But as a general rule, the higher the prices at the store normally, the lower they mark their prices during a sale.

So in order to play the Grocery Game, you have get the Sunday newspaper each week. You have to be willing to cut out the coupons and organize them each week. You have to have some way of holding and organizing the coupons (I bought a binder, which I really like.) The price of the list is $1 for the first four weeks as a trial period, and then it's $10 for eight weeks for the first list, and $5 for eight weeks for each additional list after that (meaning, $8+$5+$5 for three lists, etc.) If you sign up, tell them that havndoug "at" cableone . net sent you (sorry about the spacing, I just don't want to get slammed with spam.) If three people referred by me stay past the trial phase and into the normal billing phase, I get 12 weeks free, or something like that?? I can't remember now. Anyway, I don't get cash or anything, but free weeks never hurt anyone. ;-) Of course, if I wasn't doing really well with it, I would never tell anyone else to do it too. :-)

I know everyone is just dying to hear about specific deals that I got, to see if the GG really is all that it is cracked up to be. I cannot get too specific (I cannot say the brand name of the item, for example) because this is all proprietery info and I could get into big doo-doo with the GG. So I am going to talk about deals, but without mentioning brand names. Just FYI: With the GG, almost everything you buy will be brand name, but you will buy it cheaper than you could buy store brand. Gotta love that. So all items listed below are a brand name item:

Cereal for a $1 a box. Also, the flavored packets of oatmeal for $1 a box. Granola bars for $1.25 a box.

A different brand of cereal for a $1.60 per box, plus a $5 coupon off my next shopping trip at this store (no matter what I buy or how much I buy) plus a $2 coupon off some more cereal. (Doug and I eat A LOT of cereal, and all of this cereal is something we normally pay $2.50 to $3.50 a box for, so this is a huge savings for us. We bought 12 boxes of cereal in one day.)

Frozen pot pies: $0.50 each.

Flavored water: On sale for $1 for a 20 oz bottle, and then I had a coupon for $0.75, making the grand total a quarter. I have regularly paid $1.50 or more at the gas stations for this exact same drink. I was pretty proud of that one. ;-)

Snack mix: $0.75 a bag (normally $2-3 at the grocery store and gas station.)

Canned dog food: 0.33 a can, normally about $0.75 at Wal-Mart.

Mousse: $0.69 a bottle, normally $1.25 at Wal-Mart (I use this stuff by the bag--gotta love the naturally curly hair!--so I was REALLY excited to see such good prices on this item.)

So that was my list store this week. I am guessing on the Wal-Mart prices, because although the List does have the normal Albertsons price listed, I don't consider that to be a "real" price because I would never buy something at that inflated price. So I have to compare to what I would buy it at, which is Wal-Mart prices.

But if you did decide to compare shelf price at Albies to what I actually paid, I have saved 51% thus far, or $143. That % would have been higher, except last week, I let my DH throw things in the cart willy-nilly (I wasn't paying attention to him, and like a five-year-old, he was throwing all of the junk food in the cart that he thought looked good) and so we only saved 30-something percent last week. We had a long talk about buying what was on the list, and nothing else, and this week we saved just at 50% at Albertsons.

We also shop Rite Aid. RA is not actually a list store, although many people have begged for it to be added, yours truly being one of them. :-P Hopefully it will be added soon. RA and Albies are the only "traditional" grocery stores in town, and I think they're a pretty good pair for me, because we buy our groceries at Albies, and our health and beauty supplies at RA. In terms of items, you can actually get some REALLY good deals at RA each week (that's who paid me to take toothpaste home last week, and gave me a free toothbrush this week) so my percentages of savings are higher at RA than Albies. The odds are stacked in RA's favor though, because H&B products A) Have a very high mark-up, so you can get super-duper prices when they go on sale, B) Have lots and lots of coupons each week in the newspaper, and C) Have really good rebates from the manufacturer to boot.

I had made the decision not to pay for toothbrushes or toothpaste again, although I obviously folded and actually bought toothpaste today, although a quarter is obviously not a big deal. But truly, why should I pay for something that I can get for free? There are people on the GG boards who refuse to pay anything at all for the following items: makeup, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, razors, toothbrushes, toothpaste, laundry detergent, or cold medicine. These items go on sale so often that you can always get enough free ones to never have to buy any. Can you even imagine? I used to dread having to buy shampoo and conditioner because it was so expensive at Wally World. Now, I am reading where people have 20 bottles of the stuff that they got for free, and they are giving the stuff away to homeless shelters and women's shelters because it's coming out of their ears. I haven't been GGing long enough for that to be true of me, but I can't wait for the day!!! :-D

I have a receipt for RiteAid this week, and since it is not a list store, I don't have to wipe out any brand names. This is what I got at RA:

AirWick room freshner thingies (that you plug in): I had a coupon for buy two refills and get the plug in holder for free. I also had a coupon for $1 off a refill. There was also a rebate on $1 off one refill. So after all the dust settled, I paid $2.98 (after rebate) for $8.97 worth of product (one holder and two refills--I'll explain the rebates in a second, promise.)

Toothbrush: Free after rebate.

Bayer Aspirin: On sale for $1.99, minus $1.00 in store coupon, minus $0.75 manufacturer coupon = $0.25 for a 24 ct Bayer Aspirin bottle.

Just too cool, eh? Okay, RA rebates. Incredibly easy. You take your receipt, go to RiteAid.com and click on "Single Check Rebates" on the left hand side. Set up a RA account (takes about 30 seconds.) Enter in your store number, register number, transaction number, and date (which is all at the top of your RA receipt--very easy to find.) It returns with a screen with all of the rebates available for that receipt--there isn't anything else you need to do. At the beginning of the next month, you go back to RA online and request a check, or if you forget to, they will usually send one to you anyway. No UPCs to cut out, no receipts to mail, nothing to track or circle or worry about. It's done, and it comes in one check to deposit. I hate getting a bunch of small checks, so I was really thrilled to hear that. The checks come 2-3 weeks later. How easy can that be??!

Okay, so I think I probably completely overwhelmed everyone, and I'm sorry about that. Hopefully y'all don't think I've completely lost it. I know there are a lot of people who think coupons are only junk food, and to a point, that's definitely true. Junk food is probably the number one thing that you'll see coupons for, other than H&B. But there are lots of things that are on the list that are not junk food: This week there was oatmeal (regular, quick, flavored, etc,) eggs, cheese, bananas, tuna fish, pancake mix, pancake syrup, lunch meat, evaporated milk, salad dressing, tortillas, etc etc. Sure, there were lots of frozen pizzas and ice cream on the list, but there was lots of other stuff too. During the summer, fresh fruit makes it on the list. Chicken breasts are on there constantly (from what I have read.) So you don't have to suddenly eat only highly processed foods just to take advantage of the bargains, although I did buy a couple of those items (like frozen pizzas and pot pies) in case I was too tired to really cook one night, or to eat for lunch.

Anyway, that's the GG, in more detail than you probably wanted. :-P I know that most people aren't going to be as excited about this as I am, but there are people on the GG boards who have saved over $10,000 in the last year or two doing the GG. Can you even imagine what a difference that will make in your bottom line?! We have a really strict budget: $90 for all extras each week (gas, clothing, food, eating out, anything else) and even with that limited budget, I am already starting to see how big of a difference the GG is making. Doug loves to eat frozen pizzas for lunch, so we bought them at Albies for cheaper than they were at Wal-Mart, and we also got a $5 coupon for our next trip to Albies. Yes, we bought 8 of them in one fell swoop, but quite honestly, we would have bought more if we could have afforded to. That is exactly what the GG is about: Stocking up when the price is low, and eating off of it when the price has gone back up.

Once our stockpile is well-rounded, I plan on cutting our weekly budget for groceries down, and using the extra money to pay off our debt. Ladies on the GG boards have talked about how this has helped them either stay home with their kids, or save for their retirements, or whatever. I'm all over both of those things, and am very excited about what this is going to do for the DH and I money-wise. We are currently pretty far in debt, and I can't WAIT to become debt-free! :-D This "game" is all part of the game plan (oh yes, that pun WAS intended. I guess I am my father's daughter! *grin*)

So I am officially addicted. Doug says it's the one hobby that I've picked up, that we can actually afford. ;-)

Hava
Who would love to be crowned GG Queen of the World... ;-)

Radio

I know I'm a little slow to the game here (ALL puns intended!) but I finally watched Radio tonight. That was a great, amazing film. I have watched quite a few sports films, and they always come down to the last game where the team comes from behind and wins, and the main character is carried around on everyone's shoulders--you all know what I'm talking about. The last shot of the film is always the person with their fist in the air, usually with the setting sun behind 'em.

This film is amazing because it so different! Radio doesn't become a member of the football team and lead the team to victory. Heck, Radio can't even write his own name! He's still in 11th grade (at age 50-something) but that's just the point of the movie. He is loved by many, and for good reason, even if that reason isn't the usual one that causes people to heap adoration on others. I was watching some of the extras afterwards, and the director was talking about how nice it was to produce a film about someone where he didn't have to deal with agents and egos and everything else. He said here was a guy who was there because he lived in the moment and with passion (I'm paraphrasing there, but that was the general drift.)

If you want a true feel-good movie where you don't have to wade through cheap sentimentality tricks and gimmicks, this is the movie for you. I give it two very enthusiastic thumbs up.

I know my blog isn't a movie rating service, but I just finished watching this, and I couldn't help myself. ;-)

'Til next time...

Hava

Crazy Curves Character...

Did you like the alliteration there? I was going to name this, "Curves, How I Hate Thee, Let Me Count The Ways" but "Crazy Curves Character" is just so much more fun.

So in January, my friend Jackie decided to join Curves. When she signed up, they pressured her (hard) to give them three names of three other ladies they could call to tell them the GREAT news about how WONDERFUL Curves is. Also, they told her if she did supply the three names, she would get a free book. She folded, and gave them my name. They called and told me that Jackie had told them to call me (okay, fine, I guess in a way she did) and then proceeded to put the screws on me about joining Curves. I told them I might come in. They wanted a date. I gave them one. They wanted a time. My gosh, just leave me alone already! I gave them one.

HINT: I hate confrontation. Like most people hate the flu and massive traffic jams, I hate confrontation. I will be in one if I absolutely have to, but I'll do a whole lot before I get to the "absolutely have to" stage. Up to and including telling people that I'll go to a gym on a certain day and a certain time. After the Curves lady let me off the phone, I called Jackie. "JACKIE!!!! How could you give them my name??!" After profuse apologies and explanation, she said, "But you don't actually need to go to Curves, which is one of the reasons that I gave them your name. What if I had given them the name of a really heavy-set person, and that really hurt their feelings? I could never do that. So I gave them yours."

"Well, I'm going to go on Friday with you."

"Are you serious?? Why?! You were supposed to tell them no!!" Thus says the woman who is (if possible) even worse with confrontation than I am.

So long story short, I actually signed up for Curves with the intention to exercise with Jackie X amount of times per week (I think we were going for three at the beginning, although that number changed multiple times.) We never did very well with our goal because either I was sick or she was sick, and I'm REALLY not a morning person--7:00, 7:30 is okay, 5:45 is not. I tried going once by myself because Jackie was sick, and that was just about the worst experience ever. Nothing like going around the same machines twice, staring across the room at other people that you don't know, have no breath to talk to anyway, but feel the social obligation to at least chat about the superficial things in life. I left, came home, called Jackie, and told her never again. A vow I actually managed to keep, imagine that. ;-)

But then Jackie got the brilliant idea that she ought to move across the country (BAD Jackie!!) and leave me all alone. Yes, in case you were wondering, it IS all about me. ;-) There wasn't anyway I was going to do the Curves by myself, so I called at the beginning of July to cancel my membership.

"There's a $50 fee for cancelling, and it takes 30 days to put the cancellation into place. You have to come in to sign the paperwork."

I was a bit twerked about the $50 fee, but whatever. I went in to sign the paperwork.

"Oh no, we don't have anything to sign. You have to send us a letter."

Now you're just getting ridiculous. I smiled, held my tongue, went home, and sent them a polite cancellation notice. My membership was charged on the 10th of the month, and because of their shenanigans, I didn't send it out the cancellation letter until the 12th of the month. Technically, I should have been charged another month ($30) AND the cancellation fee ($50) but I figured it was so close, and it was their fault I sent it when I did, that they surely wouldn't do it.

August 10th rolls around. $30 fee taken out. No cancellation fee though. September 10th rolls around. $30 out, $50 stayed. I usually don't complain about not having money taken out, but this was obviously a problem. I called Curves and explained to the lady who answered what happened. She pulled out my chart.

"Oh, we tried to call you multiple times, but we never got an answer. I tried lots of times myself. I never wrote it down when I tried to call, but I know I did." Bull crap, plain and simple. I have a cell phone only (no landline) and my phone tells me when I missed a call, what the number is of who called, etc, and there was no way that some mysterious phone number kept showing up as a missed call. I get very few phone calls, and I would have called the number back if this was the case. And since I have voice mail she should have left me a message anyway. I knew she was lying to me, and that made me mad. She kept going.

"When you cancel, you have to come in and sign a cancellation contract. And you have to pay us $50."

I about choked. I explained (nicely, although VERY firmly) that I had TRIED to cancel in person, but they wouldn't let me! And why on earth would I write them a check for $50 to cancel? They took money out of my checking account each month quite regularly, so why not take out the $50 instead of $30?

"Oh, we can only take out the $30 by law. We cannot withdraw anything other than that amount." And this would have been very nice to tell me when I tried to call and cancel originally.

She promised me that she would call her supervisor and then call me right back. She called me back a couple of hours later.

"My boss offered that if you come in and sign the cancellation form in person, then we'll just consider each other even."

I was mad at this point, truly I was. First off, this $50 fee is fine. Whatever. If I wanted to cancel my cell phone contract, I would have to pay $150. I understand fees. I do NOT understand the 30 day part. By putting the cancellation fee with this clause, they are guaranteeing themselves that you'll pay A) this month's fee, B) next month's fee, and C) the cancellation fee. Before you can quit, you have to pay them $140. Nice for them, bad for you.

So when I got mad, I'm quite afraid I got rude. Not screaming, but certainly not on my best behavior.

"As I see it, you guys owe ME money. I cancelled, and yet you still took out TWO months of membership fees. Those fees come to $60. I owe you $50 for cancelling. So although it's nice of your boss to consider us "even" I quite frankly don't. You owe me $10. And I am NOT coming into Curves." The only way I will ever step foot inside of Curves again is if a large pile of gold is sitting in the middle of the building with my name on it, and that is the only way to get to it. Even then, I would probably promise someone a portion of the gold if they would just retrieve it for me. I'm that anti-Curves by this point.

She tried to push me, tried to get me to come in, tried all sorts of things, and I told her not a chance on this green earth. I finally told her, "Forget the $10. I hate Curves and will never come back, but whatever. But I absolutely refuse to step inside of Curves again. End of discussion. I sent you a letter, EXACTLY like I was told to do, and I refuse to redo what I did right in the first place, all because you guys can't get your act together." Yeah, I was a little upset. ;-)

She agreed, and hung up. I lost my $10, I hate Curves with a passion, but at least I won the (tiny) battle of going back there again.

The cherry on the top? The woman called me from her home a few hours later. "Hi, this is Melanie! I'm the one from Curves this morning. I know you were upset, and I'm sorry about that. I was calling because I have a home-based business that I really think you would be interested in! If you have time, I would like to tell you about it!" My jaw hit the floor. This lady was clinically insane. I agreed to let her call me on Friday to give me more info, then hung up. I promptly went into my address book in my cell phone and saved her home phone number as "DO NOT ANSWER!" She has since called me twice and sent me info in the mail on her business. (You sign up, and you only have to sign up 9 other people! Buy $700 worth of product for $350! YUCK!)

I live in a city that the State Mental Hospital is located in (no joke.) So you have to wonder: Am I dealing with a former psych patient here?? ::gulp:: ;-)

Hava, the Curves Hater

I'm feeling so lucky right now

This one has to be a quick post because my to-do list tonight is horrendously long, but I just wanted to say thank you to all people who commented on this blog and on the CS forums. It has really meant a lot to me that y'all care about me enough to take the time to write sweet things to me. :)

I had a boss who told me once: "The only person who never makes a mistake is the person who never gets out of bed. You made a mistake--so what? At least that means you got out of bed to do it." He will most likely remain my all-time favorite boss, just because he was such a great guy. And a millionaire. He let me name his baby colt who will someday turn into a racing champion, I hope! (He raises race horses as a "hobby," I kid you not.)

But that's all off topic. I just wanted to say thanks to everyone, and also to say (yet again) that I am making the goal of writing in this blog more regularly. I'm really stinking it up, in terms of how steady my posts have been. ;) That's gonna change, promise. :)

Havs