I la-la-la-love finding ways to save money on grocery shopping. Like obsessively. I haven't always been this weird. (OK. That's a lie, I have always been weird, just not about saving money.) I even have a little victory dance that I do in the privacy of my car whenever I have scored a really great deal! (Um, that's not weird... right?)
The first thing I decided to do was set up a monthly cash budget. Did she just use the B word??? Aren't those confining? Tedious? Restricting? Stifling? All around not desirable? A pain in the booty? No. Not if you make it realistic. As in, what do I really spend!
Now the fun begins! I tracked my grocery spending for one month. Since I am a total geek, I did this in an Excel spreadsheet. It was beautiful. (Still saying, not weird) After every shopping trip I entered what I bought, by category. At the end of the month I added up the categories. It looked something like this:
Monthly Totals:
Bread: 3.98
Soda: 6.50
Cheese: 4.00
Lunch meat: 26.29
Eggs: 11.36
Milk: 12.59
When I saw how much I was spending in categories like beer, wine, cookies, chips... I knew there was some money to be saved.
My next step was to fail miserably at using coupons. I had trouble remembering to bring them to the store. I usually couldn't find one for whatever I was buying. Or I'd find one, but by the time I was ready to use it, you guessed it... expired.
Grocery shopping became an "adventure" in math. Since I am a competitive, obsessive, perfectionist who happens to hate math, this was pretty much the equivalent of, say, repeatedly smashing yourself in the face with a rock . But I am also stubborn and determined. I brought my calculator to the grocery store and calculated what things cost by the ounce, pound, liter, whatever. I discovered that when you use a calculator at the grocery store people look at you funny. I also discovered that even with the coupon, it was usually cheaper to buy the store generic brand. Unless the name brand was buy one get one free.
Then... can you hear the angels singing?... I was introduced to TheGroceryGame.com. I finally understood...
1. Keep the whole coupon booklet.
2. Buy on sale, with a coupon, and stock up.
TheGroceryGame.com is a great service that let's you know what is on sale, when it is at rock bottom prices, and where you can find the coupon. When I signed up the cost was $10 every 8 weeks for one store, $5 each additional store. It does all the research for you.
And I saved money BIG TIME!
Today I am at the next phase of this money saving adventure. I worked up the courage to cancel my Grocery Game membership (oh dear!) and I am doing the research... myself. I'm not going this alone, mind you. As you know I read a lot of blogs. But, I am now returning to geek-dome and my unnatural affection for spreadsheets. I am tracking what I buy, where I bought it, and how much I paid. My goal is to come up with a list of my "buy prices", the price something has to be at or under for me to buy it.
I plan to post all about this so that you, my friends, can benefit from my research. I hope we all enjoy the ride!
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