Review: Grocery Game or CouponMom

I first heard about The Grocery Game a few years back when watching the news. It sounded like a great idea, but when I looked up and saw it was a paid service, I hesitated. In the past when I tried to coupon, it just didn’t seem like a good fit for me. It encouraged us to eat too much junk food, and trust me when I say that is not a good thing.

So I passed on it.

The Grocery Game

When I first got the urge to start couponing, I swag searched (I don’t google, I search with Swagbucks so I get results AND money) every key word I could think of to get helpful links. When I found The Grocery Game, it was very familiar to me and I recalled the news report I had seen. There was a free trial going on where I could subscribe to every store around me for free for 4 weeks. After that the price would be for 1 store membership $10 every 8 weeks. That works out to about $1.25 per week. A 2 store membership is $15 every 8 weeks, a 3 store membership is $20 every 8 weeks and so on.

I decided it was worth giving it a shot for 4 weeks. The Grocery Game lists are called “Teri’s Lists” and they come out every Sunday. This ended up being the downfall of The Grocery Game for me. Stores in my area are on a Wednesday to Tuesday sales schedule. Which means with The Grocery Game, I would get my list only 2 days before the sale would be over.

If you know me, I’m impatient. I don’t like to wait for things. Especially when I can just do it myself! I did enjoy the fact that The Grocery Game color coded their lists with differentiating between “buy it only if you really need it” and “stock up” prices. It was nice to have that visual.

The Coupon Mom

So I was on a hunt for something LIKE The Grocery Game but that was more in line with my areas weekly sales cycles. That is how I found The Coupon Mom. I had also heard about her years ago, but I didn’t know she also provided grocery lists. Her lists are totally free and while they aren’t as fancy looking as The Grocery Game, I actually like them better.

Here’s why:

I hate to state the obvious…but free is better than not free

no color means less ink used up by my printer (and I know I could choose not to print in color, but the colors were so pretty!)

the lists are up THE DAY the sale starts. They promise they’ll have them up by 10am, but I’ve never seen it take that long.

the very last column of their list shows you what percentage of normal price you will be saving when you use your coupon combined with the sale

I also enjoy the Coupon Mom forum better. The Grocery Game forum was a bit too heavily moderated for my tastes. Only the positive was allowed and the negative immediately shunned. As a forum veteran, that bugged me because I’m very good at policing myself thankyouverymuch.

There aren’t many drawbacks to the Coupon Mom site, but there are a few. Because the site is free, they rely heavily on advertising. It can be a bit overwhelming and honestly look a bit like a scam when you first see it. I was hesitant giving my info because I didn’t want to be inundated with spam. Luckily, it’s all for a good cause. The Coupon Mom is incredibly passionate about helping you maximize your dollar so you can give to others.

On her lists she even points out what items would be great for charity. I don’t know about you but anyone who provides a free service to me and encourages me to give to others is pretty awesome in my book.
The Grocery Game is a great service for someone who is just starting out, or who doesn’t have the time or inclination to research the best prices and search coupon databases. Because it is a paid for service, as a frugal blogger I am hesitant to recommend it. Coupon Mom provides pretty much the exact same service, but for free. The forum support is better and more honest, and I love that not only are there brags about what great deals they have found, there are also great brags about how much they have donated.

Now Coupon Mom and The Grocery Game are hardly the only game in town. They have lists for every state and pretty much every large store in each area.

Other Sites

There are many places on the web to find coupon match ups.
Some other great sites/forums/blogs are:

• Hot Coupon World
• Southern Savers (also has lists that you can print, but only for the south)
• Budget Savvy Diva
• A Full Cup
• Money Saving Mom

That is nowhere near an all encompassing list. If you know of some other great coupon match up sites, list them in the comments!

The links to the 2 coupon match up sites in this review are:
Coupon Mom
The Grocery Game

Eventually, you will have no need for assistance with coupon match ups. It will be second nature to you and you might even find yourself, like me, starting a blog and doing coupon match ups of your own!

As usual, Happy Shopping!

This post is 100% my opinion only. I wrote it of my own desire and no one affiliated with any of these sites has even contacted me. My desire it to help you find resources that will help you, not hurt your pocketbook. Thanks!