I fancy myself a hell of a dealfinder when it comes to groceries. I scour sales, carry a load of coupons with me everywhere I go and try to mix and match offers in order to maximize savings.

So when a reader of the blog mentioned the Grocery Game, which claims to help you save insane sums of money on your groceries, I joined. It’s a $1 per week trial period. After that it’s $10 per 8 week period for one store and $20 for three stores (only Walgreens, CVS and Cub in our area participate).

In my two weeks of using the game for Cub Foods, I must admit I’ve not been impressed. Part of the issue is that I realized I’m picky. I don’t want to buy a bunch of processed crud just because it’s on sale. I’m also already fairly organized and haven’t found a deal I couldn’t find myself with a quick run through the circulars and paying attention to signs in stores.

My other issue is that in order to get good deals you sometimes need to cherry pick, not stick with one store. For instance, I received free bacon and eggs yesterday from Lunds after spending $25 on other stuff (one might argue the prices were higher on the other items so I paid for my free stuff in elevated prices, but I carefully chose my groceries). Then today, I ran to Rainbow and purchased 6 boxes of cereal for $11.75 ($22.50-$10.00-$0.75 coupon)and then received two $3.75 off a gallon of milk coupons.

Add that to my free dog treats coupon and my buy one get one free candy bar that turned into two free candy bars because the store also had a bogo deal and I am feeling pretty darn smug (although I forgot the hummus).

So has my grocery game subscription saved me $2? Not yet, but I’ll give it another couple of weeks before I pull the plug.

How do you reduce spending at the grocery store? I’d also be curious to learn how much you spend per month on food and on eating out and your family size. For us, it’s about $100 per week plus about $25 per week for our meat CSA (we pick up meat from a farmer once a month) and no more than $75 per month on eating out (it’s been less as of late).

So…the last post about financial goals prompted some questions about what cars my family drives. I can see the unasked question lurking in the background– which is, are we saving for the inevitable death of our vehicles? or are we going to have the dreaded car payment?

So here are the answers to all of the above:

We are saving for our car deaths, although not as much as we should.

My husband drives the smelliest (yes, I found a rotten banana under a kid carseat last year), rusty old

I’m sent a gazillion pitches a week about a financial services company launching a campaign to get people to think about retirement or estate planning or what have you.

But this pitch from the insurance company Nationwide announcing the launch of their Have the Talk web site is pretty good. The site urges people to talk about financial matters, no matter how painful.

There are so many tools on that site– from a quiz that helps pinpoint your money talk style and provides individualized advice to silly skits performed by comedian Frank Caliendo (you might have seen him in spots during the baseball playoffs)–that I can’t begin to check them all out for all of you.

Talking to family members about money is a big issue for many of us. Even my family. The only way I found out that my parents haven’t updated their will since my sister and I were kids was when I mentioned my recent column on estate planning while gabbing with them on the phone.

Local money and kids entrepreneur Nathan Dungan just piloted a money show Money N’ Sanity. It runs for the final time at 8pm Saturday on TPT.

The show is sponsored by Ameriprise, which recently came out with a study that found baby boomers are likely to talk with their parents about aging issues that are staring them in the face more than other issues. Respondents also said that we may be gradually opening up more about money from generation to generation.

Are you seeing that in your family? Are you more willing to address money issues with your family members than they are with you? Is the way you talk about money with your partner different than what you saw from your elders growing up?

Today’s column is about my experience trying to decide whether my simple computer software will was sufficient or whether I should fork over big money for a will from an estate planner.

I decided the simple will is OK for now and when we have $1,000 lying around we can go see an attorney.

This, of course, made a number of estate planning attorneys cranky. They shared stories of people who whited-out sections of their will or forgot key words, causing more trouble with their will than if they’d gone without.

I also received a handful of emails from folks peddling prepaid legal services.

Then there were others who asked how to go about finding an attorney in the first place. I’d say to first ask your friends, family, and co-workers to see where they went for a will. If you work with a financial adviser or accountant, it’s possible that they also have referral ideas. But make sure you ask about price range because the cost can vary widely.

Another avenue would be to use the Minnesota Bar Association’s lawyer referral tool.

I’d love to hear tips from people who have created their own wills as well as people who are strongly against the idea. Do some of you not have a will and figure you don’t need one because what the state has in place is good enough for you?

Evidence that the savings scenario in this world is turning around? The personal savings rate announced by the Commerce Department today was positive: 0.7 percent in June.

This comes shortly after the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the Investment Company Institute revealed the results of their annual 401(k) trends study which found that the average 401(k) balance for an investor in the market from 1999 through 2006 increased an annual rate of 8.7 percent. The median balance grew by 15.1 percent during the same period. For workers in their 20s, accounts grew the fastest, since they’re most likely to start with smaller balances. Average account balances for consistent participants within this age group grew 40.9 percent in the past seven years.
Think it’s a long term trend?

Perhaps we can all retire richer if we can only convince David and DJ to share their secret for saving 39 percent and 22.5 percent of their gross incomes, respectively, with two kids. I am impressed.

I like to think my family is frugal, but we only manage to put 12 percent of our combined salaries towards retirement. That doesn’t count my pension or cash balance plan. Neither of us get company matches because of our pension benefits.

My guess is that David and DJ earn more than we do and keep expenses about as low, perhaps lower depending on when they bought their house and if day care is in home or center, and full or part time. I’ve also seen friends who own a duplex and live in the other half saving exponentially more than we do. If I had to do it over again I’d most definitely consider duplex life.

Am I right guys? Or am I way off base? Help your fellow Ka-Bloggers!