I’m one of those guys. You know the kind. Someone tells them about a great idea or a seemingly wonderful approach to something and they start thinking about why it couldn’t possibly work. I’m not negative, really. I just like to test other people’s notions before taking them for granted.
Anyway, when I heard about The Grocery Game I instantly started coming up with reasons why this “coupon and sales tracking” system for saving money on groceries couldn’t really work. I came up with a series of objections to “the Game”, thinking it was probably one of those “more effort than it’s worth” propositions.
Something interesting happened, though. As I continued researching The Grocery Game, many of my objections melted away in the face of new information. By the time I sat down to write this post, I was ready to give this thing a shot.
Here’s how it works, in a nutshell. You pay The Grocery Game, which is a for-profit website, a nominal monthly fee. In return, they supply you with what basically amounts to a database to help you go grocery shopping. It tells you what coupons you need and where to get them. It also tells you what stuff is on sale at a great price. Best of all, it merges that information so that you know what to buy to get really rock-bottom deals.
The folks who run The Grocery Game, namely a woman by the name of Teri Gault, apparently have the right connections to get all of the necessary data and the way they organize the information makes it appear to be very easy to put the plan into effect.
Now, I’m not a big coupon clipper, generally speaking. I’ve always felt that it would encourage me to buy expensive stuff at a marginal discount when cheaper alternatives were available. I also felt like I would spend more time sorting through cereal coupons than the savings could ever be worth.
The Grocery Game, however, only advises using coupons when their net effect produces a truly hellacious bargain. Additionally, it gives you a good idea of what coupons you actually need to bother with. Yes, one could come up with this information by himself or herself, but for the price it makes more sense to me to have someone else do the dirty work. Quite frankly, I don’t have the time, energy or interest to do that kind of homework and I doubt most other people do, either.
It appears to me that “the Game” rests on a few fairly solid premises. It advocates stockpiling essential items when they’re dirt cheap so that you have them when you need them at a fraction of the price you’d otherwise pay. It encourages coupon use only at optimal moments.
But the proof is in the pudding, as they say. So, I started looking for some anecdotal evidence from real-life folk who have tried this system. Some of the report some pretty amazing results. Most everyone seems to think they come out ahead after paying for the data. Even more critical assessments stop way short of considering the Grocery Game a non-starter. After all, you’re looking at a few bucks per month–it doesn’t take much to justify the expense.
The more I read, the more I liked it. Although some of my objections to the idea are still valid for those with certain consumption habits, etc., most of them just vanished as I learned more.
So, after years of eschewing coupons and believing in my own well-honed abilities to spot a good bargain, I have decided to give this thing a shot. We just finished a heavy-duty round of grocery shopping, so it will be a few weeks before I can enter the store in full Grocery Game mode, but when I do, I’ll be sure to report back to you on the results. I doubt I’ll experience 90% savings or anything, but I have a strong feeling that I’ll end up considering the nominal investment extremely worthwhile.
