Move over Grocery Game! I’ve found a new love!
You’ve all heard me sing the praises of the Grocery Game. Recently I was featured in my local newspaper for my stellar Grocery Game shopping trip, where I saved over $80. The Grocery Game will always have a piece of my frugal heart. But I’ve found a new site to love.
A Full Cup – Savings By The Cup Full
A Full Cup is a free…yes, you read right, free…site that features an easy to navigate message board, coupon database, a list of online printable coupons, online deals, and my favorite feature: grocery lists, featuring items at super great prices, matched with coupons to make an even better deal.
I haven’t actually gone shopping with a list yet, since my son was sick, and I didn’t make my regular shopping trip this week. But the list is similar to that of the Grocery Game, but it INCLUDES ONLINE COUPONS!!!! Can you tell I’m excited?
About the Money Saving Grocery Lists
A Full Cup has lists for every store I’ve ever heard of, except Winco and Fred Meyer. But Winco doesn’t run ads, so I can forgive them for that omission. I’ll have to hang out on the site for a while before I request a Fred Meyer list.
I wanted to check out the Albertsons list, because that’s my favorite coupon-shopping store. They have 8 different Albertsons lists, separated by different geographic areas, so the lists should be pretty accurate. That scored points with me.
So I clicked on the NW Albertson’s list. It was separated into the following columns:
- Options – I’m really not sure what this column is for, as there was nothing there in my list.
- Product
- Ends – What day the sale ends.
- Price – Sale price.
- Coupon – Shows the coupon amount and where to find it. Also links to a page where you can find more information about the coupon, including where to print printable coupons.
- Store Coupon
- Source – Where to find the coupon
- Must Buy – How many items you need to buy to get the deal.
- Final Price – How much you pay.
- Double to $.50 – I’m not sure how this column is supposed to work. Some of the prices were $.50 lower than the “final price”, but others weren’t.
- Notes – This includes information like “Save $2 instantly wyb $10 in Dannon products.” and “Not a bad price for non-coupon deal.”
I’ll probably understand the lists a little bit better, once I watch the intro video tutorials.
The Full Cup Forums
I haven’t even had time to begin exploring the forums yet. All I can say is there is money saving information on everything under the sun. Forums for each grocery store, including Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, for you health food addicts. (Sorry, no Trader Joe’s grocery list, but there is a Whole Foods list!).
A sampling (and just a small sampling) of the forums includes Coupon Chatter (with a sub-forum for healthy couponing – yay!), Canadian Couponing, Freebies, Mystery Shopping, Frugal Living, and much, much more.
I Think I’ve Found My Deal Finding Home
I’m a busy woman, and I don’t have time to match my ads with my coupons on my own. That’s why I joined the Grocery Game. I prefer a free service, of course, but the only free service that competed didn’t have stores in my area and was hard to navigate.
I’ve found that A Full Cup is very well organized. So far I’ve been able to find everything I need with few problems. And that’s without reading any intro directions or watching the introductory videos.
A Full Cup gets an A++ from me! It seems to have everything I need to find the best grocery deals, all wrapped up in one neat little big package.
Are you a member of A Full Cup? What do you think of it? Do you love it as much as I do?
Photo by Gunjan Karun.
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By Lynnae McCoy, on Feb 12, 2009
I'm Lynnae, wife of one and stay-at-home mom of two. I'm committed to getting out of debt by being frugal with my choices in life.
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Great tip! I am on my way to check it out.
I just signed up but they do not have my grocery store listed. I may drop CVS and Walgreens from my GG subscription though since I can now get the lists at A Full Cup. Thanks for the heads up.
Thank you for the honest review on A Full Cup. :) I always enjoy reading what members think and do my best to use your feedback to improve our site even more! Get ready for very exciting upgrades in March! We have listened to your ideas and have awesome additions to the Coupon Database and to the Shopping Lists!
And FYI – we are always open to adding a new store to our list – just come make a thread about your store and rally up some interest so that we know there will be participants. :)
If you do find yourself overwhelmed – be sure to ask for a Coupon Buddy to be assigned to you – they will help you navigate the site in no time!
Happy Saving!
Wow. Great to know. I will check it out. I didn’t join the Grocery Game because of the fee and felt I could do it myself. IF you don’t mind I would like to share this with my readers (not a lot unfortunately) for my Frugal Friday post. I will link over to you.
Thanks
Coco
wow, they must be a new sponser of yours because I swear we told you about AFC and Hot coupon world when you asked us how we saved on groceries a few weeks back.
Plus, I saw money saving mom post about it recently, too :o). So glad you’ve moved to the “free” side of grocery planning.
I LOVE A Full Cup…. I don’t go shopping without checking it. I’ve never understood why people pay for The Grocery Game, when you can get the same information and more for FREE!
My favorite feature is the searchable coupon database. You can find coupons for just about every product under the sun. I also like the Target coupon generator and the shopping lists.
The forums are great for working out how to get the deals. Members are super friendly and always willing to help.
Thanks for the heads up on A Full Cup. I go there to print Target coupons, but have never looked around to see what else the site has to offer. I will definitely check it out!
Thank you, thank you! The site sounds like just what I need. Going to check it out, for sure.
@Amiyrah – Maybe I missed A Full Cup a couple of weeks ago. I did go check out Hot Coupon World, though. There’s a lot of good information there, too. But they don’t have the exact coupons you need listed on their grocery lists, and whenever I click “find coupons” none come up, so I still didn’t like it as much as the Grocery Game.
@LaDawn – Albertson’s is dropping competitor coupons? That would have a huge effect on whether or not The Grocery Game is worth it…it wouldn’t be worth it. Bummer. I’m behind on my grocery shopping. I’ve been so busy I’ve been living off pantry staples, and I haven’t looked at the list in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the head’s up!
I am also a grocery gamer that visits A Full Cup.. I love it and have dropped my GG list to Albersons only, but now since albersons is not going to be taking competitors coupons… I may be dropping them altogether… I was using the list to see what good deals I could get with the fred meyers coupons.. I really can’t find any good blogs or anything for Fred Meyers and I want to shop there, they have a free playroom that my son LOVES going to ..so if you find any Freddy stuff please fill us in …
I’m sharing this info with The Fiery One. She’ll love it. Thanks!
I never had heard of full cup before. thanks for writing about it. I do use Grocery Game though. It has done the best for me, but yah, would be nice to have a comparable free service. Coupon Mom is close-ish.
Wow, I checked this out. I have been wanting to join something like the Grocery Game that was free. So glad you posted this. I’ve been following your blog for a while and am just now getting around to commenting you. I checked out the mystery shopping forum on A Full Cup and was very pleased. Thank you so much.
They do have listings for Fred Meyers. That’s only the name of the store in the NW. It’s also known as Kroger, which is listed on A Full Cup. Same store, same company, different name
AFC is my favorite! I use them for everything!
Yep, I’ve been a member of A Full Cup for awhile. Hot Coupon World is another great site IMO. Between the two sites I find it pretty easy to navigate the deals.
I am a member but have not taken the time to figure it all out! Shame on me–I didn’t investigate far enough! Thanks for highlighting it and sharing your experience. I will get on it first thing in the morning and start saving more money!!! :-)
Yes I was told last week that albertsons would not be accepting competitor coupons as of Feb 11th ..Thats why they are doing the double coupons them selves they are also going to be having a pretty good gas discount for it you buy so much in grocery’s I am not sure that you have a Albies gas station in CP But in GP we have two one at each store and that is where we always buy our gas …I don’t think its going to add up to the great deals we got with the competitor coupons though :-/
Dreamer Thank-you I knew that Fred Meyers was krogers, but wasn’t sure if they did the same deals…I will defiantly be checking that list more now, especially with albersons changing their policy
@LaDawn – Thanks for the info. I’m going to call my Albertson’s today, to see what’s up. I’ve seen in various places that they are doing their own double coupon thing, but I haven’t seen it in the flyers. Is there a special coupon you have to use, or do they double automatically? And to how much?
We don’t have an Albertson’s gas station in C.P., which is a bummer. And I’m never near the Albertson’s gas station in Medford. Guess the discount won’t be helping me much.
Also, I don’t believe Freddy’s & Kroger have the same deals. I’m going to look into that today, too, but when I’ve seen blog posts around the internet, it always seems Kroger has better deals than we get. If you find differently, let me know.
Have you visited HotCouponWorld? I’ve been to AFC and I prefer HCW. Pretty much the same concept though … and they do have a Fred Meyer section. :)
Thank you so much for the website. It indeed contains lots of useful information along with the Fred Meyer section. They even have a shopping list set up. I definitely need to start referring to that before I do my weekly shopping.
Afullcup contains all kinds of useful information. I have yet to register, but will later this afternoon. Without a doubt this is going to become my next addiction.
I will have to check this out. It sounds great! Winco doesn’t accept internet coupons (at least mine doesn’t) but I still would love to use this for the other stores.
@Pat – are you sure you didn’t click an ad? You shouldn’t have had to fill out any survey type stuff. In fact, I clicked on the forums and checked them out, before I ever submitted any information.
I’m sorry to hear about your bad experience.
Nope, did not like it. I started all the survey stuff but it kept going on and on. I got one notice that I was not eligible for some gift certificate and finally gave up.
I have checked out AFC but to be honest, I constantly see deals that they have “borrowed” from other sites, and they never give credit where they found this “borrowed” information. Since much of their content comes from Hotcouponworld I just use that site. Even their Mods copy stuff from HCW!
The coupon database at Hotcouponworld is better too, with more coupon entries.
Just my 2 little cents…
I found your site through a google search. I tried to join AFullCup, but they said the username I chose was already taken and popped up the registration form again for another try.. when I try to put in another name, it says the email is already being used. I haven’t been able to find anywhere to contact them… and really don’t know what to do… Since you use this site, I was hoping you might know
Thank you for any help
Linda in Florida
Thanks for the review. I still prefer GG for $5.00 a month. GG list has way more stuff on it for the store I shop at (King Soopers) AND it tells you what date and which coupon insert to look in right off the list. On AFC, you have to click each item to see which insert to cut the coupon out of. I think GG saves a lot more time. My time is worth money to me.
I used to like afullcup but have gone back to my Grocery Game lists because they now have a “no subscription required” coupon database that ROCKS…features internet coupons, printables, Sunday coupons..you name it….and for the two Lists I buy from them – it matches these coupons you load to your shopping card called CELLFIRE coupons, store digital coupons, paper coupons and more…and I just do not have time to do it on my own… So – afullcup is a good resource…if you have time to do it yourself. I don’t have time to track the sales…and I WILL NEVER have time to match digital coupons myself…so – thegrocerygame is the one for me.
I registered with AFC during a registration “flurry,” but haven’t taken the time to really investigate it or the other sites. As a homeschooling Mommy blogger with two new blogs, I just don’t always have (or take) the time needed to get familiar with *every* recommendation I come across. I’m still perfecting my “super couponing” skills and that takes a lot of time too.
Thank you for the review of AFC. I read it – and the follow up comments – with interest. The user insight is great!
@Linda – I’ve encountered the “You’re already registered/You’re not registered” problem with other sites. You have my sympathy. That is one of the MOST frustrating things EVER! I hope you get it straightened out soon. :o)
@Susan – I appreciate your “two cents”. I get a lot of my content from other bloggers, but I don’t “borrow” full articles. I condense to several lines, or even just the hotlinked post title! I also give credit and/or direct my readers right back to the original source. It’s the right thing to do! Still, I do wonder sometimes if there are any bloggers who dislike the practice. I figure they are getting FREE advertising and more traffic. And I do try to establish a relationship too – by following, “fan”ing, making comments, etc. When I “feature” a blogger, I try to make sure their 125 x 125 button is posted on my blog. I choose only family-friendly sites and I’m glad to spread the word. Like so many have said here, I don’t have time to do my own matchups, or write long articles every day. I am always thankful for great content from other bloggers!
And, now, back to my always-cluttered Inbox. LOL!
Nothing compares to The Grocery Game! It pays for itself and saves me much more. I’d rather spend more time with my kids then messing with “free” websites.
I had signed up with AFC some time ago and wasn’t impressed. Checked it out again after reading your review. I am also a member of Grocery Game which I use all the time. If I went by the list on AFC, I wouldn’t have found many deals at my stores but with GG I found much more. I am not ready to switch..
There are a lot of things I find distasteful and wrong about A FULL CUP, more than just NOT finding the coupons that help me in California — I guess the site works better in Midwest, etc. But check out their terms, http://www.afullcup.com/tos — FREEDOM OF SPEECH is NOT PROTECTED and they are adamant about it, also there is no way to delete your account once you open one, but they can remove your account without notice or warning at their sole discretion. It’s got hidden agenda programmed all into it.