When checkers at the grocery store started complimenting Sarah Chappelle on her food-shopping savvy — "Good save!" one said approvingly — she figured she was on to something.

The proof was in her receipt. Almost overnight, Chappelle had slashed her grocery bill by half.

Chappelle's secret: coupons, grocery-store sales fliers — and the Internet.

The Seattle mother of two signed up this spring for The Grocery Game, one of a handful of online services now available in the Seattle area helping shoppers save money at the grocery store.

The Grocery Game pairs coupons with weekly advertised and unadvertised sales, helping consumers stockpile items when they're at their rock-bottom price.

Other services let shoppers browse weekly grocery-store ads online, compare prices between local stores and even receive e-mail alerts when the price on diapers or detergent dips below a selected level.

Like many food shoppers, Chappelle said she had no special grocery-shopping strategy before a friend told her about The Grocery Game. She felt coupons weren't worth the bother, and she made several stops at the store each week to pick up things as she needed them.

Chappelle started looking for ways to trim household costs when she left her full-time job to stay home with her young children. Now, for about an hour a week in planning and coupon-clipping time, she said she saves as much as $150 a week.

"I know the value of time," said Chappelle, a former Microsoft employee now working from home as a consultant. "If I spend one hour and I save $144, that's not a bad hourly rate."

This is primarily for the value-minded, she notes. People who buy mostly whole or organic foods, or who shop at specialty grocery stores exclusively, will find it harder to save this way. And people who shop primarily at Costco or other club stores won't find those stores listed on these Web sites.

But for shoppers who are flexible about where they shop and are willing to devote a little time to planning each week, the savings could amount to hundreds of dollars a month.

The Grocery Game
www.thegrocerygame.com

Cost: Four-week trial for $1, then $10 every eight weeks.

History: Founder/CEO Teri Gault is a former singer/actress who used coupon-clipping and grocery-store sales to get her family through a financial rough patch. She launched The Grocery Game as a small, home-based business in Santa Clarita, Calif., in 2000. It's now franchised and available in 43 states with about 30,000 subscribers, including nearly 1,000 in Washington.

Shopping pros know using a coupon at the wrong time can be a waste. To get the most dollar-stretching power, they hold it until the item is on sale, too. That's the secret to The Grocery Game, which matches coupons to sales for maximum savings.

Grocery-store items typically follow a 12-week cycle — everything dips to its lowest price at some point during that time. The trick is to catch it at that low point, use a coupon to drop the price even lower, and then stock up.

"After 12 weeks ... your need-shopping decreases, so you end up 'shopping' from your own store at home," Gault said.

Stockpiling requires lots of storage space — Gault said many members use their first savings to purchase a freezer. Subscribers log on to Gault's Web site to see a list of dozens of items on sale each week. Items are color-coded: black (a good deal if you need it); blue (rock-bottom priced for stockpiling); or green (free).

The list states the regular price, the sale price and — where available — the date of the glossy advertising booklet from the Sunday newspaper that holds a matching coupon.

In Washington, the list covers only Albertsons stores and is sorted roughly by the order in which shoppers find the items in the store aisles. It also notes sale items at Fred Meyer stores, because Albertsons accepts competitor coupons.

Average savings among list subscribers is $482 a month for a family of four, Gault said. (She said she spends about one-third of what she used to spend feeding her family of four.)

Gault clips coupons she knows she'll use and files them in a canceled-check file from an office-supply store. Others simply write the date on the front of the booklet and file it, clipping the coupons when they're needed.

Two features set this Web site apart. First, information about unadvertised as well as advertised specials is included in the sale list (Gault won't reveal how The Grocery Game collects that information).

And second, her staff uses a proprietary process to check price history on about 10,000 items every week to sort out real sales from "phantom sales" — advertised specials that really aren't as good as they appear. About half the items in a typical weekly flier are actually on phantom sale, Gault said.

She said her system beats the prices at Costco and other club stores, except for butter, cheese and eggs. She recommends stocking up on those items every four to six weeks at a club store.

The Web site also offers a message board that lets "listaholics" boast about their savings and swap tips.

A sample: "I am so excited!! This is my second week using the list, and I saved 68 percent today!! Whoo-hoo!! The best part: I had my husband go with me today so I could see the look on his face when they hit the total for us to pay!! Priceless. Needless to say, he totally supports my new addiction."

The Coupon Mom
www.couponmom.com

Cost: Free

History: This 5-year-old Web site grew out of Stephanie Nelson's visit to an Atlanta-area food bank to drop off a donation. "I saw empty shelves and a full waiting room," she said. By taking the hassle out of coupons and helping people save money, Nelson hopes more people will use some savings to donate food to charity.

This Web site offers a sortable database of coupons — the Virtual Coupon Organizer, or what Nelson calls "the Dewey Decimal system of couponing."

Scan the coupon list, or search for all the cereal coupons. The organizer tells you which glossy advertising booklet it appeared in. Then match the coupon items with advertised specials from a local grocery store.

A new feature will make this site more useful. Next month, Nelson plans to add weekly sale information from local Safeway stores in Washington. Shoppers then can create a customized shopping list that pairs sales with coupons. On her list, Nelson designates certain items with a "charity!" label — products that are particularly in demand by food banks. "If every American shopper donated one item a week to charity, we'd flood our food pantries," Nelson said.

Puget Sound Grocery Guide
www.pugetsoundgroceryguide.com

Cost: Free four-week trial, then $12 for each 12-week subscription.

History: Theresa Stockton is a single mom from Bothell who started the guide in 2002 based on her own techniques for saving money at the grocery store. She now has about 100 local subscribers.

This home-grown alternative is similar to The Grocery Game. It covers more stores, but doesn't cover unadvertised sales or consider historic pricing patterns.

Each week, Stockton e-mails a sale list that includes advertised specials at Albertsons, Fred Meyer and Rite Aid. The list also provides a date and page number for coupons that match sale items, making it easier to find the coupon.

Stockpiling is key. "There are times of the year when I have 10 bottles of barbecue sauce in my cupboard. I'll use it eventually, so why not buy it at 33 cents a bottle?" said Stockton, an operations manager for a company providing enhanced 911 systems.

On one of her best shopping days, Stockton got $100 in groceries for $34. "People behind me in line will ask, 'Wow! How much did she save?' It makes you feel great."

Cairo.com
Cairo.com

Cost: Free

History: Launched in 2004, Cairo is a San Ramon, Calif.-based company that lets consumers find and track local sales published in store circulars. The company started with retail stores — Target, Wal-Mart, Staples — and in May added Seattle's major grocery-store chains, including QFC, Whole Foods and Safeway.

Plug in an item — a gallon of milk, Pampers diapers — and Cairo searches stores in or near your zip code for the best deal. It pulls information from published sales and circulars each week, but does not offer coupon information.

Most shoppers visit three to five stores per month for grocery and household items, said spokeswoman Barbara Gibson. This offers a quick way to search for key items at those stores, letting shoppers create and print separate shopping lists so they can stock up on sale items at each. "What it eliminates is the need to collect all the circulars and do the comparisons. This takes all the information and puts it into a format that's easy to read," Gibson said.

This service probably would be too cumbersome to search every item on a weekly shopping list. The best approach is to search for sales on the 10 or 20 items shoppers use most, or for those on which they are most price-sensitive, Gibson said.

Typical shoppers using Cairo save 30 percent to 40 percent off their grocery bills, she said.

People who register also can sign up for e-mail alerts whenever there's a sale on selected items that brings the price below a designated level.

The site features only items currently on sale, so if Diet Dr Pepper isn't on sale that week, it doesn't appear. And some searches can produce results that aren't relevant. A recent search for a 2-pound block of cheese returned numerous listings for video games as well as a deal on Tillamook cheese at Albertsons.

ShopLocal
www.shoplocal.com

Cost: Free

History: A partnership of three media companies — Knight Ridder, Gannett and Tribune — purchased parent company CrossMedia Services in 2004.

This service is similar to Cairo.com, allowing shoppers to search published sales circulars for the best prices on grocery items. Like Cairo, the site also offers the same information from a number of other retailers, including electronics, clothing and home-furnishings stores.

For now, there are just two grocery stores on the list, Albertsons and Whole Foods. Again, no coupon information.

Users can see sales by item, by store or by category, create a shopping list with selected items and sign up for e-mail sales alerts.

Jolayne Houtz: jhoutz@seattletimes.com or 206-464-3122