Don't Hate The Grocery Game

I'm just a player!

I haven't been doing much in the way of shopping lately. Usually, I'm spending hours every 1 - 2 weeks with grocery planning and shopping. Now, I'm spending less time. Since I've started the Grocery Game, I haven't had to keep going out to the store as much as before. I've been able to stock up a little bit on some things.

Today, I spent some time gathering my coupons. It really wouldn't have taken as long as it did if I hadn't let the newspapers pile up over the last month or so. I'm also working on a better filing system. I haven't decided what works best for me yet. I have some coupons sorted, in hanging file folders, by date. When I pull up my shopping list from the grocery game, I can go right to that particular date and insert and find the coupon(s) I need. The other method I'm trying out is clipping the coupons ahead of time that I'm likely to use and sort them in an organizer by type. The latter seems to be the messier way of doing things for me. It seems that at the time I may feel a coupon is useless, then I see that I can get the item for dirt-cheap, I can't find it when I go looking for it! When I just keep the inserts sorted by date, nothing gets pre-cut, so everything stays put, until I need it or it expires and it's time to purge.

I've seen people with rather large 3-ring binders with plastic inserts sorting their coupons. When I go to the store, I usually have a child or set of children with me. I would rather not take something large and bulky with me. So, I keep 2 coupon organizers with me. They fit nicely in my purse and can each hold quite a bit. One keeps my coupons that I have pre-selected for each store's shopping list. The other has the rest of the coupons I've already clipped, in case I find something else I wanted. Those other coupons are sorted by category.

All in all, I'm doing alright with the coupon clipping. I'm thinking about giving a little more time and maybe venturing away from the Grocery Game, to see if I am still able to save. Since I don't have much leftover after bills and other obligations are covered, I could probably use the $10 a month for something else. At the same time, I love the convenience. The grocery game makes it so much easier for me to get the maximum savings and it saves me a lot of time with sales research. I think I will stick it out a bit longer, especially when I'm spending $10 a month, but saving over $100...I really don't think that's a bad trade-off...

I wonder who has some TGG tips to save even more? or how to really stay organized?