I’ll admit that I’m a frugal person who loves to save money. At the same time, I’m a busy person. As a woman with a full-time job, a family, freelance writing, and church involvement, at one point in my life I thought coupon clipping took too much time and yielded too little savings for the trouble. That can be true unless you use coupons the smart way.
Thankfully, there are now services available that help savvy coupon clippers get the most out of their coupon clipping. The two most popular are Coupon Mom (www.couponmom.com) and The Grocery Game (www.thegrocerygame.com). I’ve used both of those services, so I feel qualified to give you the low down on both of them. In the end, you’ll have to decide which option is best for you, but hopefully this article will help you make an informed decision.
Cost
A Grocery Game subscription cost $1.25 per week to be able to access the weekly list. This amount is billed to your credit or debit card in the amount of $10 every eight weeks. The Coupon Mom list can be accessed free of charge. Although the Grocery Game cost money, you can earn free weeks through referring others. You can also earn free weeks other ways such as through writing up a story on how the Grocery Game has saved you money. Even so, it won’t be completely free.
Completeness
One reason the Grocery Game cost money is that in addition to gathering information from sale papers, Grocery Game staff actually walk up and down the aisle of grocery stores, making note of everything that is on sale. There are many items that are on sale that are not in the sale paper, so the free Coupon Mom service misses some of the best sales.
Also, since the Coupon Mom staff don’t actually enter stores to see what is on sale, they often match coupons to ads that are not compatible. I’m sure you’ve seen sale papers that say that the sale is good on “selected varieties” or something similar. Unfortunately, the Coupon Mom site doesn’t know which varieties are selected and therefore the coupon clipped may be useless for the product that is on sale, if the coupon is for a particular flavor, which may not be on sale, for example. That can be a real disappointment!
Convenience
I like the layout of the Grocery Game list better. It is more compact, easier to read, and contains a bit more information which makes it easier for me to match items in the store with the items on the list.
The biggest problem with the Grocery Game in terms of convenience is that you have limited days to shop, in most places, Sunday through Tuesday. This is because after the items go on sale, the Grocery Game staff must go to the store, check all items on sale, enter them into the database, etc. The bottom line is that the Grocery Game does more work and thus spends more time to prepare, making their list available less time. Also, since the new coupons come out in the Sunday paper, the Grocery Game waits to take advantage of the new coupons, since many of the sales for the week fit with the coupons that come out in the Sunday paper that week.
With the Coupon Mom list, you can shop any day of the week, so if the Grocery Game schedule in your area doesn’t work for you, or if you have a personal schedule that changes every week, you’ll probably want to use the Coupon Mom list rather than the Grocery Game list.
Cash Savings
Because of the extra work the Grocery Game puts into the entire process, you’ll actually save a lot more money using the Grocery Game – even after you factor in the $1.25 per week cost of the subscription. The list is more complete and more accurate, which makes the savings higher. Also, the Grocery Game list only includes the best deals, whereas the Coupon Mom list includes sales even as low as 20%. (I seldom see anything on the Grocery Game list that is a savings of less than 50%.)
Conclusion
I personally feel that the Grocery Game is a better system than the Coupon Mom system, but the fact that it does cost money to subscribe to, and has other less convenient factors makes the Coupon Mom worth considering. I personally find it most helpful to subscribe to the Grocery Game, and then check the Coupon Mom list on occasion. For instance, if I didn’t make it to the grocery store between Sunday and Tuesday and thus missed the sales on the Grocery Game list, I’ll check out the Coupon Mom list so I’ll get in on at least some sale and coupon matches.
Whatever option you choose, the Grocery Game or the Coupon Mom, you are guaranteed to save money if you follow the lists.
