My Grocery Game (Part 2)

In my last post, I talked about coupons. Now, what to do with all those coupons?

Alright, here’s my confession: I’ve been a big slacker lately when it comes to saving money on groceries.

I hope that this blog will help inspire me to do better. Again, it’s a time and desire issue. I just haven’t had the desire to spend time looking through weekly sale ads and matching coupons.

So…I’ve decided to extend my subscription to The Grocery Game. I did the $1 trial. Now the subscription price for 3 months goes up to $10 for 1 store, and $5 for additional stores. I’ve signed up for Albertsons. (Update: After 3 months, I decided to stop using The Grocery Game.)

Before I get to my routine, there are 2 things to keep in mind when looking for deals:

• Try new brands. Especially when the item is free. You may find that you like another brand just as much as your old favorite.
• Think ahead, stock up. Don’t pass up a free or very cheap item just because you have enough for now. Especially if it’s non-perishable, grab it while the grabbing’s good.

With that, here’s a rundown of my weekly deal-hunting routine:

Looking for Deals

At a minimum, I aim to do the following each week:

Go to Pinching Your Pennies Screaming Deals Around Town Forum. Store sales change each week, starting on Sunday; sometimes people know about the sales and post earlier than Sunday. I usually check toward the end of each week to see if there’s information for the following week or I check on Sunday.

Look for the Rite Aid and Walgreens threads for that week. 

Check for free after rebate (FAR) or cheap items I’d like to pursue. I like Rite Aid’s rebate program better than Walgreens’ because it’s all online. But I do both, depending on the free items offered.

See whether anyone has been kind enough to post coupons for the FAR or cheap items that I want. If so, you may see a notation like “SS-10/1″ or “V-10/1.” SS stands for SmartSource and V stands for Valassis. The date is publication date. If I find a deal I want to pursue, and the coupon notation says SS-10/1, I go to the October folder in my filing cabinet and find the SmartSource insert that I dated 10/1.

If there are no coupons listed, check Coupon Mom’s Virtual Coupon Organizer for Oregon to see if there are SS or V coupons for the products I want. I may go one step further and see if coupon websites or manufacturers’ websites have printable coupons.

Similar to Pinching Pennies are Bargainshare’s Grocery Coupons and Deals Forum or the Rite Aid and Walgreens boards on deals.families.com. If I have time, I may check out 2 of the sites to see if there are any differences; usually the information on sales is the same, but the information on combining specific sales to specific coupons or rebates may differ. If you’re not familiar with these sites, you may want to check all 3 over a couple of weeks, and see which you like the best.

Both Rite Aid and Walgreens are a 10-minute drive from my office, so I typically go during a lunch break sometime during the week. Sometimes I’ll go on Sunday if I have time and if the item is something really good, which may mean it could sell out quickly.

On Sunday, I also check The Grocery Game. If I find any deals I want, I track down the coupons in my files. I also get the Safeway and Thriftway doubles coupons from the Oregonian FOODday insert (delivered on Tuesdays/Wednesdays). These coupons add 50 cents to any manufacturer’s coupon. Albertsons allows you to use 8 (4 from Safeway, 4 from Thriftway) per shopping trip. Albertsons accepts all coupons from any grocery store in the Portland area. If I need extra FOODday newspapers, I grab a couple for free from the FOODday box at a nearby apartment complex. Does anyone have a list of the apartment complexes that have FOODday boxes?

I shop Albertsons only for good deals. When things are not on sale, the prices are very high. When I need something immediately, I typically go to Trader Joe’s, Fred Meyer or the local farmer’s market.