For a couple of months now I’ve been using The Coupon Mom – a free website designed to help shoppers save money on groceries. Originally I had been a paying member of The Grocery Game – another website designed to save shoppers money on groceries. The Grocery Game saved us lots of money on our groceries when we were using it, but since it cost a monthly fee of around $15 (at least at the time it did), we were glad to find out about the free program, essentially the same thing, called The Coupon Mom.
Saving money on groceries was really fun at first, but then after realizing how much work it took to use either system, I, the main grocery shopper in our family, got lazy and quit using The Coupon Mom system also.
A year or so later, my husband and I needed to cut any unnecessary spending for our new budget, and I looked into The Coupon Mom again. That was just a few months ago, and I have been very faithful at doing the work required each week in order to save at the grocery store.
The Coupon Mom lists a good number of states on its site. For instance, I live in Colorado, and The Coupon Mom has two Colorado grocery stores on its list – Safeway and King Soopers. Some states are not listed at all, others have only one grocery store listed, while a few states have multiple grocery stores on the list.
Once a week (on Wednesdays here in CO) The Coupon Mom adds the new week’s grocery stores deals and corresponding coupons onto each list. Usually on that first day, I try to find time to look at the updated deals lists for both Safeway and King Soopers. Each item on the list has the sale price listed, as well as the price with any coupons available. And not only are prices displayed but percentages to be saved are displayed, also. I can quickly glance through the list, mostly looking at percentages to see the best deals for the week. Some weeks free items are even listed.
The purpose of The Coupon Mom, as it states on its site is to provide this service “free in the hopes you will buy at least one item a week for charity with a little bit of your coupon savings.” On the grocery store deals lists, every once in a while you will see the word charity next to an item. That means that item is an appropriate item to donate to charity. Sometimes there are even items for free (via store sales + a coupon) that I don’t want. Instead of just not buying that certain item, I can just buy it anyway and donate it to charity; doing so is giving a little back to the purpose of The Coupon Mom. But of course donating is not a requirement for using the site.
The Coupon Mom is a free site, and probably because of that, sometimes the deals and sales on the lists are not accurate. I have gone to the grocery store many times and one or more of the deals I was expecting to get were not legit. The Coupon Mom mentions this happening, “The lists’ prices are to be considered a guideline, as some stores within the same chain or city may have slightly different prices.” It is a little disappointing not to find the great deal I was anticipating, but I can’t complain too much since The Coupon Mom is a free service. Someone else does most of the work for me!
But using The Coupon Mom is work for me, too, and my 2 1/2-year-old daughter would agree. I spend a while looking through the week’s deals for both grocery stores, selecting the deals I want to take advantage of, printing out the lists, then flipping through stacks of coupon ads, cutting out appropriate coupons, checking and rechecking the deals with the coupons, searching for misplaced coupons, and more. By the time I am ready for the grocery store, some days it is time for my daughter’s nap already.
I look at using this service as work. I do the work and get paid by saving at the grocery store. Since the system is free to me and my state is listed, it can’t be beat.
