The Grocery Game: It Works, but Not for Everyone

Over the past five weeks I've bought more brand name food, paper goods, diapers and toiletries than we've ever had in our house at one time. Yet I've saved money doing it and have reduced my monthly grocery budget by several hundred dollars. My technique is fairly simple: I signed up to participate in The Grocery Game on www.thegrocerygame.com. Now, don't rush to join the Game just because I said it worked for me. While The Grocery Game has the potential to help people save a lot of money on groceries, it's just not the kind of "game" that everyone would enjoy or be willing to participate in.

The Grocery Game was first established by Teri Gault for members in Southern California. It has since expanded to stores in 48 states. It professes to help people save money on groceries (including food products, baby and pet products, paper products, drug store items, and other toiletries) by using a database to track product prices and coupons and by giving a weekly list of which sales at your local grocery or drug store are truly "rock bottom" prices. It costs $1 for a one-month trial to see any or all of the "List stores" in your area. After the trial period you pay $10 for one List store for every 8 weeks plus an extra $5 for each additional List store during that same time frame.

On the public message board for The Grocery Game (www.terismessageboard.com), you will find many posts by people who really do appear to be saving money. Each week, members can report their savings which might range from, for example, 35% to 90%. Some of the savings members report on the message board may seem unbelievable, but I can confirm what they are saying because I'm experiencing it, too. After these five weeks, I've saved more than 80% at some stores and am averaging about 43% savings overall. I expect my average to go even higher as I get better at the Game.

I attribute my success to being willing to spend more time getting ready to shop and more time organizing my coupons. If you really want to save money on groceries with The Grocery Game, you have to be willing to follow a few unwritten rules. The Grocery Game works if: