The Grocery Game

I had heard about Teri's grocery game lists through magazines and other avenues and thought it was a fantastic idea. I had almost no experience with couponing and didn't know where to start. In that sense, it was a very good tool. I did the free 4 week trial for 4 local stores (Giant Eagle, CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid) and even renewed the membership for 8 weeks for Giant Eagle.

Here's how it works: You pick the stores you want lists for. The first store is 8 weeks for $10 and then you get a discount for each store after that. Each week, usually on Saturday afternoon or Sunday, a new list would be posted for the upcoming shopping week. The list would list any sales and coupon matchups and would highlight in a certain color the "rock bottom" prices for certain items.

The whole idea behind the list is to do stockpile shopping. Sales typically run through a cycle and reach their lowest price at a certain time (about every 6 weeks, I think it was). It is at this time you want to use your coupons and buy enough to get you through to the next rock bottom price time. Teri's list supposedly kept track of these times and listed them along with the coupon match ups.

Now, this service could be useful to you if you are new to couponing (it explains how to get started very well, but you can find that online too) or don't have much time for couponing and searching sales fliers and such. However, after my trial period was up and I had started to get the hang of getting free or very cheap items, I realized that basically all the information in the list could be found somewhere online if I just took the time to look and make my own list. I soon realized it wasn't worth it for me to pay for the lists anymore and I discontinued my membership.

The grocery game recently listed a new store: Walmart. At first, I was very excited about this because I have a hard time keeping track of Walmart prices. I paid for the 8 week membership and looked at my new list. I was sorely disappointed. It was just a list of the Giant Eagle and Marc's sales that Walmart would do "price matches" on with coupon match ups. I don't do price matches typically, because Giant Eagle will double coupons up to $0.99 and Walmart doesn't, therefore making it worth my while to actually go to Giant Eagle. Perhaps, if you want one stop shopping in a quick and easy format, this list could work for you. I, however, quickly requested my membership be canceled which they did, thankfully. I would not recommend The Grocery Game, but you are free to check it out if you think it would be helpful for your situation.