It’s a ridiculous show. But I watch it. And I like it.
Now that we have that out of the way…
In last Friday’s episode of Wife Swap, one of the moms was an avid coupon clipper. She often purchased cartfuls of groceries for $10. The other mom…not so much. She was a spender. And when she discovered the coupon hobby of her new family, she said, “What is this? A coupon disorder?”
I had to laugh at that comment, but the truth is, when I hear or read about coupon moms, I am amazed and overwhelmed and a little bit jealous. I am all for using coupons. I occasionally clip them myself, and my parents and our babysitter are always giving me coupons for diapers and wipes and all things baby.
But…I always forget to use the darn things!
Last weekend, my cousin told me she’s gotten really big into couponing. She has four young kids, so it makes a lot of sense to be more frugal. It sounds like she’s being more practical than some ladies I’ve read about – just buying things she will actually use and not driving around town to every single store each Saturday (hard to do with 6-month-old twins at home!). But she was still able to give each of us a parting gift before we left her house on Saturday night – tubes of toothpaste that she had gotten virtually free (in bulk!).
I have not been good at using coupons, even though I constantly struggle to stay within my grocery budget. What about you? Do you use coupons?
i clip coupons (though not faithfully), but end up using only 2 or 3 each shopping trip. i honestly don’t know how those super shoppers do it. they must go to stores that double the coupon value. there aren’t any stores that do that around here.
coupons are always for name brands, and usually the store brand is cheaper (even with the coupon savings). they also often say “save 50 cents on 4 boxes…”, which comes to less than 13 cents per box, and i usually don’t have the money to buy 4 boxes at once for savings that are that minimal. and no matter what you say, you can’t use 4 of those coupons if you’re buying 4 boxes.
all that being said, i do consider myself a fairly smart shopper. i rarely get hung up on brands and tend to buy what’s on sale.
I completely agree with hobbitsister. Almost exactly!
A while back I did the “food stamp challenge” where I found out how much I would get on food stamps: http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/FoodPlans/2008/CostofFoodAug08.pdf
and then tried to live on that amount. Without using coupons or anything I came in $300 less that month than what I was alloted on food stamps. (Which tells me that people on food stamps are getting too much money, but whatever…) The point is, I think I’m doing pretty good already. That being said, I look online and in our shoppers for coupons for things I already use, but I think it is ridiculous to buy 10 boxes of a product that will go bad before I use it.
My husband has a friend who is on some sort of program that I want to try though. They pay a yearly fee for it, but basically she tells them what it is she normally buys and they send her an e-mail with coupons and tell her what day to use them and at what store. It cuts her bills by more than half and it is all stuff that she uses. The yearly fee is maybe $30, but she saved over that her first shopping trip. They do all the “legwork” for you which is something I could get behind! :-D
Well, I know you read my last blog, so you know where I stand here…
But I will say this – My coupon habits, like almost all other disciplines in my life (exercise, diet, reading…), are binge activities. I will compulsively cut, organize and save for a month or two, until I go to the store once without my folder…and then a second time… until I feel too behind for it to matter.
It sure is satisfying when I’m making it work though. :)
I wish I were organized to have that coupon disorder! ;) Definitely not though. :( And even if I were organized enough to get all the coupons I needed to actually make a difference (ok, really, any difference helps!:), I would also forget them when I got to the store. Just like I always forget to bring an environmentally friendly bag and end up using the store’s plastic ones instead. :( And having to make a trip again mid-week b/c I forgot something (never fails!). Sigh…
We live in an odd coupon world. Stores around here stopped doing coupons years ago and went with cards that they swipe at the register. Much easier! But now we can also get some email coupons for air miles so it’s the best of both worlds! But I don’t think we ever got as many coupons as you guys seem to get.
couponsense.com…that’s the program. I guess it is $14 a month and I’d have to buy several copies of the Sunday paper to get the best savings, but they say you save 50-75% of your grocery bill. They help you double and triple the coupons so you often get stuff for free. Definitely worth looking into since I spend around $12,000/year in groceries…just think what I could do with the extra $6000! :-D
Hobsis – I agree about the brand names. We do a lot of store brand, so coupons don’t help with that.
HM – interesting experiment! $3 a day per person…I have to admit, I don’t think we could make it on that. :(
Kimberly – we have the discount cards at grocery stores, too, but I find those grocery stores to be more expensive than Walmart!
Do your Walmarts have a full grocery store? Ours don’t have produce so we would have to make two stops and drive much farther. On groceries, I don’t think our Walmart is much cheaper than the sales we get at the regular grocery store.
Yes, I go to a Super Walmart, which has full grocery. With store brands and Walmart’s regular low prices, it’s definitely cheaper than other grocery stores around here.
Although, there are some days I’m just not up to Going To Walmart, which is quite the undertaking – so I just go to the slightly more expensive but definitely more convenient store near my house!
I make a lot of my food from scratch and buy most of my food in bulk which I think cuts down the costs quite a bit. Our kids eat exactly what we eat and almost the same amount so boxed foods usually don’t work for us–not big enough. On food alone we spend about $550/month without really trying to cut back–we are alloted $800 on the thrifty plan. Now if I add in diapers, dog food, clothes, cleaners and toiletries and everything else I get each month at Wal-Mart, then it gets around $800/month. Besides our mortgage, this is our biggest bill each month and it would definitely be worth seeing if we could cut it down…
Wow, this was a lot of response…I agree with almost everyone! I clip and save and forget…by the time I remember to bring my coupons to the store–they are expired! I’m going to look into this other idea.
We spend 600-700 (family of five) on groceries a month, I do by some store brands. I can do a bit better if I really plan.
I actually was on Food stamps for a time, and I swear we ate better on FS, which and I can understand how it keeps people “in the system”–cuz if you make 1 dime over the cut off–you are cut off. I appreciate everyone’s comments and ideas. Thanks for the post photoqueen
HipMama, my uncle’s family was on food stamps years ago and my mom would get so irritated that they ate better than we did! I’m not sure how to fix the system…after all, I can’t even fix my OWN system! :)