The Grocery Game - Week One Results

I have a lot of math to do. Supposedly, I was going to spend $100 at CVS and Publix combined, using my "Teri's List" from The Grocery Game.com, and get $250 worth of stuff. That's what? Like a 60% savings on food and household items? Well I said yesterday if it works out even half that well, I'd be happy. Let's see if I saved 30% on this inaugural week of the Game.

CVS: Spent $50.67, Saved: $23.58 (off of regular prices)
Got $74.25 worth of products for $50.67, so saved 32%.

Publix: Spent $109.74, Saved $75.16 (again, off of regular prices)
Got $184.90 worth of products for $109.74, so saved 41%.

Week One Totals:
Spent: $ 160.41
Got: $ 259.15
Saved: $ 98.74, or about 38%.

So yeah, I guess I did slightly better than "half that!". I haven't gone over my lists in detail yet to see where I fell off the wagon, but I did notice a few differences even while shopping.

First, I had a hard time finding just the right size or package of certain things. The manager at CVS even noticed I had the wrong package of paper towels and fixed it for me, completely unsolicited, I might add, which was very kind of him, but I had more issues than one nice guy could fix. I have preggo-brain, and my 4-year-old was "helping", and I've been in that store about twice - ever. I also have this thing about asking for help, which is STUPID, but there you go. I'm just shy that way. Finally, I didn't have enough boxes of Kleenex on the first trip to earn the $10 of ExtraCare Cash. I went right back in and bought the rest, but it didn't show up on my card balance. I'm sure I'm going to have to visit the nice manager and fix that (ugh!) but I also suspect that $10 was part of the the savings percentage I was supposed to see today. Personally, I wouldn't count that cash as savings until I used it at a later time, but it does help explain the difference in savings.

In addition to being clueless and potential register errors, I also noticed that some sales weren't actually on sale like the site said. The VAST majority were, I should point out, but for example, at Publix the pork loin was $ 2.49/lb, not $ 1.99/lb, and things like that. I opted not to get one or two things that didn't seem like such a good deal once I saw them, and I splurged on $1.98 worth of my favorite pasta. I bought a few staples, like milk, which is almost never on sale anywhere. I couldn't find a couple of coupons when I was preparing last night, but I found others that weren't mentioned, so the fliers must change locally to some extent. Speaking of last night, I spent about 3 hours learning the site and preparing for this trip, and about 2.5 hours this morning shopping. That's a lot of time, but again, I'm sure I'll get more proficient with time, and well, I already told you my issues. AND it was pouring rain - did I mention that in my list of excuses?

As I said, I have some math to do to figure out exactly where I "went wrong" but honestly, for a first try, clueless, pregnant, with a preschooler, in the rain, and using a free trial of the site, I have to say it worked pretty well, not "wrong" at all. The list enabled me to pick and choose which deals I wanted to get, so I didn't buy anything just because it was on sale, and I ended up with a good selection of stuff I'll actually use. The junk food I bought was because darnit, I like Tostitos, not because that's all the coupon or deal offered. Actually I have a freezer full of fish and turkey right now - which is pretty healthy, in my book! When the free trial is over, it will cost me $2 a week to keep using this site, and so far, the first week's savings have just about paid for the year. Now, if only I can work my way up to those 60% savings...