The Weight of Money

So, I took the coupon plunge and have my first shopping trip to report on.

CVS:
- 2 boxes of Triscuits, Free with coupon
– Razor for $3.99, less coupon
Out of Pocket: $4.47
ECB Earned: $4.00

The crackers are a snack item for the partner to take to work or hide in his office so our oldest won’t eat them. The razor was for me because I needed a new one and to start the ECB ball rolling. The ECB can be used like cash for my next purchase and there will be a next purchase.

Shoppers Food Warehouse:
- Grocery Items totaling: $89.92
- Manufacturers Coupons: $11.15
- Shoppers Double/Triple Coupon Discount: $13.14
Total Grocery Bill: $65.63 (27% savings)

Now, many people argue that coupons get people to buy things that they don’t really need and I’ll admit that I did buy 6 items that I normally wouldn’t buy: 6 can of Pringles Chips for $0.40/each after sale and coupons ($2.40 spent, $6.49 saved). But that’s the only item I purchased that was out of the ordinary for us. I comparison shop unit prices on name brand and generics and combining sale price with double or triple coupons saved us extra money in the end.

I plan to stop by Shoppers to get a raincheck for the pizza rolls that were out of stock because I forgot to get it while we were there (I’m going by the store anyways). Those are another item I usually don’t buy but with the coupon and sale price, they’re free. Free is a good price for a snack item to fill in on days when dinner is running late or we want a treat.

Some notes for myself as I go forward:
- I need to find a way to track my savings.
- I originally planned to just save coupons inserts intact, but since my local stores aren’t listed in the common databases online, I’ve decided to clip the items that I would normally buy or that I would buy if it were free or close to it. For beauty and paper products, those I’ll continue to file with the inserts and only pull those coupons if there is a for-free sale offer at CVS or another major chain.
- I will cross reference the coupon databases as I scan sale flyers and place the plan-to-use coupons in an envelope that I will write our shopping list on… no forgetting coupons, well as long as I don’t forget the list.

One frugal tip that I always scoffed at was cutting coupons. I had plenty of reason to scoff: it takes too long, I never buy name brand anyways, it’s all for processed foods we don’t eat, I’d never remember to take them to the store. Reality was that I’d never really looked into the art of using coupons and maybe that was a good thing.

Turns out that couponing or Qing is quite an elaborate system thanks to people’s obsessive natures to save a few dimes (or many dimes) and the wonderful community building aspect of the internet. A friend told me how much money she saves and all the free products she gets and I made the mistake of looking into the sport of using coupons, a mistake that cost me about 5 hours of my time so far. I looked it over, read everything over and over again (maybe I’m dense, but this stuff can be confusing), and finally think this is something I could get into on a small scale.

There are a two things going for coupons that has me interested: I already subscribe to the daily paper and I need to save money. That seems like simple enough motivation. I still feel like coupons are often for items that I typically don’t buy and this is where the wonderful world of FREE comes in. Now, I’m not someone that has to get something because it’s free, but I do like taking advantage of opportunities when I find them. While I usually don’t buy items like cereal bars or frozen meals, I would bring them home if they were free or darn close to it. The partner can use them for snacks and meals at work and it’s often nice to have a dinner alternative around for those night when no one feels like cooking — plus any food with a $0.00 cost is a budget bonus right now. Another reason to try it out is that with all the internet sites out there supporting the coupon habit, I don’t think it will take much time in my extremely busy schedule. I don’t have to actually clip any coupons unless I need to. Coupons get filed away by date, intact with the insert they came in, and I wait until a handy dandy coupon database tells me there is an awesome sale that is too good to pass up. When such sales come along, the database tells me where to find the coupons I need, so I clip only when it’s worthwhile.

I admit that there is still a lot for me to scoff at, but I’m going to hold back on my coupon-clipping-criticism for a couple months and give it a try. My first adventure into playing the coupon game will be a trip to CVS to pick up some free items and start the ball rolling. I’ll try to update with how things go, but don’t hold your breath, you might have notice the intense lack of posting over the past two years.