Grocery Game and Southern Savers

For a month I've shopped with both and I've come up with a list of pros and cons for each which I'm hoping you will find helpful as you figure out what helps your coupon clip. I know starting couponing can often be so overwhelming and it takes a while to figure out what everything means. But fortunately there are tons of services and people out there who are willing to help you save money.

Using both Southern Savers and the Grocery Game this is what I picked up this week:


(Not pictured: 4 gallons of milk; 2 boxes of Toaster Strudels)

I spent: $51.98
And saved: $51.60

The deals weren't that great this week (except for the yogurt since it was part of the Kraft buy 15 get $5.00 back deal which meant each pack was $0.87 and we go through yogurt like crazy around here!) so I only saved about 50%. I needed "a lot" of items for meals for this week so it was more of a needs run than a sales run.

I'd say for this week both lists led me to pretty much the same deals.

But here are my thoughts on each "service":

Southern Savers:

Pros: FREE; up early; printable list; coupon match-ups including printables to coupons not in the paper; great information about rebates; really good resource for coupons

Cons: it's sometimes hard to tell if items are a good price that's worth stocking up on - yes, if it's free then it's pretty easy but I often need some extra help figuring out the final price and the final price of items isn't always listed; because it's a blog there are lots of different things posted - while it is easy to find the store I'm looking for the site has plenty of distractions; the site isn't local - meaning match-ups aren't based in VA and Harris Teeter is actually the only local grocery store listed (CVS and Target are nationwide - I'm talking about actual grocery stores).

The Grocery Game

Pros: very easy to use; list is very easy to read as is printing; site is specific for its intentions and there are no distractions; stores are local and more specific options locally - more than just Harris Teeter; list makes it easy to know what is free, what to stock up on and what's on sale if you need it but not at the greatest price; lists original price, sale price, coupon match-up, final price after both and percentage saved; very extensive list of sales - more than any other list I have come across thus far including SS

Cons: cost - the fact that you have to pay for each store makes it cost prohibitive to get more than one or two stores; not up until Friday at noon - which is better than it was but still means you miss 2 1/2 days of shopping and may find the store empty of the best deals; doesn't match-up printables for the most part

My simple assessment is use both :) If you must choose and find the cost acceptable I would still go with the Grocery Game for ease of use, extensiveness of the list and the fact that she uses a 12-week stock-up rule making it easy to know when the sales are at their best. However, there's no downside to checking Southern Savers since it's free so you can bet I'll be checking in weekly!

Next month I will use the Coupon Mom and the Grocery Game (I'm sure I'll check Southern Savers tomorrow too but I'm out of shopping money for the month!)