Friday, October 06, 2006

The Grocery Game or another reason why I love the internet

I am not sure why but the first time my wife told me about “The Grocery Game” I thought it was phony.

But let me tell you this: it works like a charm. We have saved hundreds, possibly thousands of dollars with this thing.

The concept is really simple. They search for coupons and sales among all grocery stores and let you know which one is cheaper. That’s it! The reason it works so well is because usually these coupons are buried inside a newspaper or a magazine. The information is so dispersed that no one is able to find out what stores have the best deals for what products.

Of course there’s still some work left. You have to organize your trips to each supermarket based on whatever you need and where the best prices for such products are. You usually need to buy brands you are not very familiar with.

This kind of saving is one of the aspects that I doubt is taken into consideration when people analyze the benefits of the internet. Can you imagine the economic implications of saving, let’s say, one thousand dollars a year in groceries per family? This is huge.