It was my third week using The Grocery Game and I’m still very pleased with the way the shopping list I get each week and the money I’m saving.  In preparing for this blog post I realized that I’ve been reporting the amount of money I saved each week, but I haven’t been providing you all with the full data on my Grocery Game Trial. Because I have kids, I may spend more per week than some people, while others (who have more kids than my two) might spend more. So, it’s better to quantify the grocery savings by percentage of grocery bill and not just amount of money saved. It’s kind of like on The Biggest Loser when they report percentage of body fat lost in addition to the actual pounds lost when determining who the winner is each week.

Considering it’s Tuesday, I’m a day late for “Money Saving Mondays” - my apologies! I’m in grad school and I had a huge paper due yesterday that I got buried under. But I am super excited about this week’s Grocery Game results. Check out the digital pic to the left to see how much I saved this week: $153.50 - Wow! I increased my savings from last week by 50% - amazing, right? I had a different cashier at Ralphs this time, but this lady was very impressed as well.

Last week, I introduced you to a money saving, grocery coupon website called The Grocery Game. I told you all that I’d just joined the $1 first month trial and that I’d test the site’s money saving plan out and report my results here.  So, here I am… bursting at the seems to tell you all about it!

I’ve made a list of the pros and cons of  The Grocery Game based on my first impressions of using it the first week.  I’ve included my saving results and I’m going to share some other saving opportunities that you should check out. Here goes..

A couple of days ago, I shared some ways to have frugal fun with family and friends. Since it’s springtime and summer is just around the corner, I thought I’d provide even more ways that you can save money without sacrificing a good time with the ones you love.

* Go to the petting zoo - These smaller zoos don’t have the large, exotic animals that you’ll find at the bigger zoos, but the little kids will enjoy feeding and petting these animals.

Everyone enjoys spending time with family and friends. In fact, many people’s most cherished memories are of the times spent with loved ones. Unfortunately, many of the popular places for having fun with family and friends have gotten quite expensive. Even something simple like a night out to catch a movie has gotten a little ridiculous if you add up the total for movie tickets, popcorn and drinks for everyone.