Do you play The Grocery Game? The point of The Grocery Game is to purchase your non perishable items in bulk when they are on sale and stockpile them. I have never done this before. In fact, until recently, Lazy Dad Philip did most of the grocery shopping in our home. As you know, he is a great cook! It made perfect sense to me that the cook would do the grocery shopping. And he loved liked it!

Recently, thanks to our economy, I started to really try to clip coupons and use them. Like most men LDP could not be bothered with coupons. And who was I to complain? I had a husband happy and willing to do the grocery shopping. I could not bring myself to nag him about coupons as well!

So I started clipping the coupons. I started making our grocery list (that wasn’t new). I started planning our meals (which means I thought about what we would be eating for dinner before 5p.m. rolled around) and I started cooking more than I had in the past. Guess what? I noticed that I was saving $10-$15 a trip just in coupons. Wow! That was worth noticing!

I then remembered a post our friend Stephanie had done about The Grocery Game. Could I do it? If you knew me personally you would question that! I started saving my Sunday coupon circulars and keeping them in date order. After about two weeks I signed up on The Grocery Game site. Two weeks weeks after that I started looking at the list for my store and trying to play the game.

I think that this week was my first really successful week. I went to Kroger and came home with eight boxes of cereal. You read that right, eight! Kroger had most of their cereals on sale for 2 for $4. The Grocery Game told me where I could find my cereal coupons. $1 off 2 General Mills, $1 off 3 General Mills, $1 off one Raisin Bran, $1 off one Rice Krispies. After the sale and my coupons I ended up paying about $1 a box for cereal that usually goes for $3.60 or more a box. I only bought the kind I knew my family would eat. What’s the point of buying stuff your kids don’t like?

I also bought some steaks at a deep discount. I knew that the strawberries were a good deal. I got some great asparagus for dinner and a free package of cinnamon rolls. It was great!

Now some of you have probably heard of the The Grocery Game and have friends that play it. I say play because it really does feel like a game. Your friends may take things a little further than you think you would. They may go to several grocery stores each week and drive all over town all in the name of saving money. I am not that friend.

I am only willing to go to my Kroger that I normally shop at. I am only willing to go to the store the amount of times a week that I normally would (1-3). I am not willing to buy items just because they are cheap. I will only buy my normal brands and items that I know my family will eat.

After my cereal bonanza trip to Kroger this week I came home and realized that I did not have the space to store eight extra boxes of cereal, as well as the few extra items I have picked up along the way. So that led to me reorganizing my family room built ins so they could hold most of the items in my broom closet. My broom closet is extra deep with some built in shelves. It has now become my overflow pantry. I am planning on storing my extra non perishables. I’ll let you know how it all works out.

My big tip is to save at least a month’s worth of coupon inserts before you sign up. You can’t really use the shopping list The Grocery Game provides until you have several weeks of coupons saved.

So, do you clip coupons? Do you play The Grocery Game? What is your weekly/monthly grocery bill? What tips do you have to share with us? We’d love to hear from you! If you are interested in playing The Grocery Game I highly suggest you read Stephanie’s post about getting started. This girl knows what she’s talking about.