Coupon Crazy

With the boys out of school and starting summer vacation, with me out of school and taking an official yet short lived break from my own education, and with my goal and dedication to spend this summer making my children happy and exploring the ultimate classroom, I decided to start couponing on a higher level.

I used to coupon but not at an "extreme" level. I used to get excited when I saved a quarter or two. But admittedly so, after watching TLC's Extreme Couponing I fell into an addictive love with doing it - of course, after learning how to really do it =D After seeing the savings and familiarizing myself with methods on how to coupon, I discovered that not only could I do EVERYTHING I wanted to do with the boys, but I could also fall under budget! What an epiphany!!!!

As I read through local coupon blogs, I started to read about many veteran couponers were soon becoming irritated that the "newbies" were coming into town and "shelfing" sale items. Many claimed that the show were hurting couponers than helping them. As a newbie I was a little shock, but lets face it a majority of coupon clippers and grocery shoppers are women and well... women are pretty catty. So it comes to no surprise that this reaction surfaced.

I don't usually post on these blogs, I'm more of a silent bystander waiting for the next wave of deals and reactions that come through. Kind of like the new kid on the playground surveying the cliques of friends already formed and seeing if anyone would be kind enough to wave me over. But while I'm standing there waiting, I learn the social etiquette of couponing.

Couponing is more than just clipping coupons, to get your maximized savings you truly do have to be patient and detail oriented. The first thing I did when I decided that this would be a great opportunity for me to financially fund our summer and future vacation trips was see what exactly it was that I was spending and view my grocery shopping methods. I normally shopped for the week. I'd make a list and head to the store and if I did have a coupon-great! If not, it didn't matter because we still needed it.

After calculating how much I did spend (approximately $250/week) and adjusting my method of shopping (stockpiling bargains but still getting what I needed rather than just getting what I needed) I started to see the change in savings drastically. The first week without coupons I saved about $50 from my weekly budget just store hopping to grab the best deals on items we needed. After a couple of weeks of saving my coupons and patiently waiting for sales I increased my savings by $130!! What a difference! In addition, I was able to stock pile my pantry for items that I knew I would need later on in the next 2-3 months without "hoarding" - truly, I don't need 100 bottles of ketchup, so I only bout 10.

Like every addiction, there is a fine line between doing something pleasurable to down right being destructive. So even though I may have 20 coupons on a deal, I don't clear the shelves and hoard my savings. I pass the coupon to someone else. They've got a great coupon program on some of the blogs I read where you can send expired or unused coupons to military families on bases. Because they shop on those bases and they are military families, they are able to use these coupons up to 6 months after their expiration date. At the end it's a savings you can literally pass around without being selfish.

Self control and limits are key attributes you have to possess in order to do this without stepping on toes are becoming a hoarder. I'm still learning what the maximum amount of food I need for my family. But I'm figuring I need to ensure that I can feed my family for a month if anything should happen to our financial situation. Stockpiling doesn't happen over night, it happens over a period of a few months and so my expectation of wanting to fill my stock pile is a patient one. I'm having fun clipping and researching my savings and I think this is key when saving the most when you can. Not being able to grab the deals for the week isn't the end of the world, the sale will come again.

We are getting ready to enjoy our first family vacation of the summer. A fun week long cruise to Mexico (and no we didn't book this with our savings from groceries, but the coupons did manage to make it possible to have another couple of vacations through out summer), so I've halted purchasing groceries the last week and decided to use what we had in our pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. Part of the decision to do this came as a result of wanting to coupon more effectively and the other part was because I didn't want to waste what we already had with us being gone for an entire week. So we're taking this opportunity to clean kitchen and make sure that we aren't wasteful and still be cost effective. ALSO - and this is a big ALSO - when we return from vacation next weekend, I'll be able to stock pile with a clearer sense of just what we need. I'm super excited about this and can't wait to post more info on how this is going.

So despite all the hate and frustration that's built up out there by veteran couponers and people who don't see the rhyme in reason on couponing RESPONSIBLY, this is something that will help our family in moderation. I'm not trying to clear out shelves or compromise the way my family's eating habits. I'm a SAHM, saving a few bucks to live a better quality life.

Happy couponing friends and family.