Florida Chick Plays the Game

My friend Maxine swears by the Grocery Game. It's this website that lists all of the grocery store deals and matches them with various Sunday paper coupons in order to maximize savings. I'm not sure why Maxine is all about the grocery game - she's the only friend I have that has a fountain in her driveway and a bathroom the size of my living room, then again, maybe it's because she clips coupons...food for thought.

I must say that I am not a coupon girl. At all. I have clipped very few coupons in my life, and I don't think I've ever actually used one, I typically find them about a year later shoved in the back of a random kitchen drawer long expired, but I promised Maxine I would try it, so today the Grocery Game was my goal.

I picked up a paper and rifled through the three pounds of ads that were shoved in the middle of the 8 pound paper. The problem that I found was that most of the coupons were for items that I never buy. My favorite was for $1.00 off of 12 cans of Delmonte vegetable products - 12 cans? What the heck am I going to do with 12 cans of Delmonte vegetables? I did find a few that looked promising - toothpaste, dishsoap, cereal - things that I use on a daily basis, and according to the Grocery Game I'm supposed to clip them even if I'm not going to use them right away because if it goes on sale next week, I can still use the coupon then and get an even better deal. So I clipped and filed and took a handful with me on the way to the grocery store - the ones that the Grocery Game listed that would save me more than 60%...

Ok, here's my problem - I mostly buy Publix brand, which when I figure the prices, end up costing me less than the coupon price of name brand labels. Also, I have an awesome dollar store right next to the grocery, and today, even though I was going to use my Crest toothpaste coupon, I found Crest at the dollar store for, well...a dollar. I also found Reynold's Wrap, Dial for men, and Softsoap...each one for a dollar - no coupon required.

Anyway, Maxine swears that the savings add up the more you use The Grocery Game, so even though I only saved $2.00 today, I'll keep clipping, and filing, and checking the website deals. Maybe one of these days I'll find a coupon to get me an even better deal than the Publix brand, and by then, maybe I'll have saved enough to be able to afford a fountain in my driveway too.