This morning I watched the Today show as "Coupon Mom" went grocery shopping. Working her magic, she bought $100 worth of groceries for $. 25. I must hand it to her, that is impressive. However, if they had put a camera on the conveyor belt of her groceries, I suspect that we would have seen a bunch of processed, boxed foods, and other odds and ends that at the end of the day, wouldn't be all the ingredients needed to actually cook a meal. Healthy eating segments on shows always encourage shopping the perimeter of the stores and say try not to even go into those aisles. You should fill your cart with fresh fruits, veggies, dairy, and lean meats. Since when do you find coupons for those?
I haven't read her book and she is super skinny herself so I assume her point is that when you only spend 25 cents for all the processed foods in the store, you can spend a lot on the stuff that is actually good for you.
This year I've subscribed to the newspaper and I've saved enough using coupons to justify the cost of the newspaper subscription and I enjoy the thrill of watching the total go down as they scan the coupons. However, I do a good amount of shopping at Aldi and Trader Joes, where it's all private label food (no coupons apply).
So where do you come down on the coupon spectrum? Take my poll in the sidebar.
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4 comments:
I love clipping coupons. But I completely agree, that most of the coupons are for things I never buy. So I don't even bother cutting them out. It's mostly cereal, granola bars, baking items, dairy products and toiletry items I use coupons for. My favorite coupon story is when I used some double coupons and a $5 off coupon , with the store discounts it came to about $10 and with the coupons I left paying nothing!
Amen. Anytime I hear about how little people spend on food when they use coupons, I think about how little they get as well. Sure, you save money buying stuff you wouldn't normally buy, but that also means you spend money on stuff you wouldn't normally buy. Buying something just because it's on sale is still spending money that you wouldn't otherwise spend.
I don't "get" coupons myself. I mean, I will gladly use one for something I usually buy anyway, but there is a girl in our ward who pretty much makes it her full-time career to clip coupons, and she is always coming to stuff with piles of things like....travel sized toothpaste. She doesn't even want them, so she gives them away. WHY BOTHER?! It seems like a gigantic time-sucker to me. Fresh produce isn't that much more, and it is SO MUCH BETTER FOR YOU! Just cough up the dough!
I have a friend that gets 40-60% off her groceries every week. I know she does a lot of coupons, but still does lots from scratch...
http://threetimesthegiggles.blogspot.com/2010/01/saturday-savings-testing-organic-waters.html
See for yourself. I think I'm going to try the paper too. But w/ food allergies it won't help as much!
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