Monday, March 05, 2007

It's Game Time!

I finally did it. Long, long ago I talked about joining the Grocery Game, and tonight I did. I've been buying the Sunday paper for a few weeks now in order to stockpile coupons, and Saturday we went to the commissary and BX again, so I was able to grab coupon packs from the commissary as well.

If you don't feel like clicking the link, what it boils down to is that you check out "Teri's List" for your area grocery store/s, and sale stuff will be listed as either black, blue or green. Black means "buy it only if you need it." It's on sale, but it's not at rock bottom. Blue means "stockpile this stuff!" Stock up bigtime, it's rock bottom and usually this is due to a coupon being used in conjunction with the lowest sale price. Green stuff is stuff that you buy that will be free by the time all's said and done. Woo hoo! I like free things. (unless we're talking virus or something)

The best part is that my first month is only $1 and I can access the lists for all 4 stores in my area. (mine are Kroger, CVS, Walgreens and Meijer) After the free trial, the membership is $10 for 8 weeks for the first store, $5 for additional stores. I figure I will end up with Kroger and CVS for $15 every 2 mos (or $7.50 a month.) The savings look like they are going to be incredible. Of course, I need to watch the prices whether blue or not. Some stuff is still cheaper at the commissary, and yes, they take coupons, too. This week it looks like (among other things) I can get a tube of Kids' Aquafresh for 25 cents and a stick of Degree Women's deodorant for 18 cents. This is good.

If you like free stuff, you might like the free language lessons here, or perhaps you would prefer to take free classes in all kinds of subjects from MIT. (thanks to Real Simple magazine for the heads up)

11 comments:

egan said...

This is a game fit for hippies. Or is it yuppies? I mean click on that Grocery Game link and tell me that family doesn't own an SUV.

Jacob said...

Sure wish we had that here. I mean, don't get me wrong. We have something similar in that, once we shell out all that green, we walk out black and blue. Different concept, to be sure.

I am green with envy.

This just blue me away.

I'll be black!

armalicious said...

Yeah - free viruses are pretty much not cool.

Thanks for that languange link! That's sweet!

ldbug said...

Free stuff is fun:-)

Anonymous said...

C, I must admit to having a pathological dislike of shopping of any kind. Even the online game variety.

This is why everything I own used to belong to my father or my brother, or was bought for me by benevolent friends. Of whom I have fewer and fewer. :)

Though I agree, getting free stuff is fun! Especially when it's worth loads of money. :)

tshsmom said...

Thanks for the links!! We can NEVER have too many homeschool links. ;)

C said...

Egan - If they do, I'm sure they use their savings to buy carbon offsets so that OTHER people can make do without electricity. ^_^

Gawpo - It's in all 50 states! But maybe not your town. Aw, is my face red. Too bad you can't at least get a purple heart for all those wounds sustained in the field of shopping combat. Well, you know what they say, when life hands you lemons, make yellow juice. (eeeew!)

Amanda - enjoy! :)

Ldbug - so fun that I have to make sure not to take something just because it's free. ^_^

Barnes - I'm finding that treating it like a challenge takes some of the drudgery out of grocery shopping. How low, can you go? ^_^

Tshsmom - can you believe that MIT one? Yoikes! I'm thinking of having Mollusc take some and then CLEP out of the classes. ^_^

Jay said...

Oh, I see. :)

Anonymous said...

Ooh, free stuff is good! I was just about to write a post about Real Simple, except Blogger is being anything but. I just picked the magazine up, and I love it! I think I'll go study at MIT for a bit :)

C said...

Jay - pretty wild, huh? So far it's been $1 well spent. ^_^

Kitkat - isn't that a fun mag? I like the clean look. The kitchen command center thing was cool. I need to do something like that.

What are you going to take? ^_^ I haven't lookd at the catalog yet - just went to the site to make sure it worked. But I think I'll take something cuz - why not?

Anonymous said...

I haven't looked at it either :) But it sure sounds cool.