Couponing 101: Part 1

There are few other things that make me want to run and hide more than when people start talking about coupons/couponing. I view them as ways for companies to lure unsuspecting (read: gullible) individuals into thinking they are getting a good deal on something when in reality they are getting scammed by some corporate machine. I also tend to think that couponing is a recipe for greater, NOT less disorganization in my life. I envision massive amounts of time and energy being wasted for a couple of cents and a mountain of magazine cuttings littering my already Trix cereal-encrusted kitchen floor. And don't even mention the mental picture that comes to mind of actually GOING to the grocery store WITH children and trying to sort through voluminous amounts of coupons at the checkout, only to find that 1) they are already expired, 2) I didn't buy what the coupon actually specified, 3) they work, but I spent twice the amount I normally do because I was TRYING to use COUPONS! You get my point. Couponing = 3 words to me.

Not A Fan.

And yet...

Every time I go to the grocery store, I have wondered if it would be possible to get a box of cereal for less than $3.00. I don't know why the cereal thing stuck in my head ... I just think the prices are outrageous. Enter the $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook by Erin Chase. Oh yuck, I just sounded like a total product promoter.

One of Tanner's New Year's Resolutions is to cook more. Score for me! So to encourage this behavior I bought him a Williams-Sonoma Apron and had his name stitched on it for Christmas. He also wanted a "simple, yet relatively healthy cookbook" to make recipes for dinner. Yeah, me too buddy.

I do not have a good relationship with Cookbooks. When I pick up one of my cookbooks and I read the ingredients for a certain meal and it includes things like lemongrass, or water chestnuts, I want to throw it across the room, not in a violent way, just enough so that it bounces off the wall and straight into the garbage. I need simple, quick, easy, and healthy. Is that so hard? Apparently for cookbook authors it IS. Joy of Cooking is NOT a joy most of the time ... the no-knead light rolls excluded of course ... but there are times where it almost reads like a foreign language. Yeah that's right, I just dogged Joy of Cooking, which is like breaking one of the 10 commandments of cooking, but it needs to be said.

So I decided to venture to Barnes and Noble and check out what is new and exciting in the way of cookbooks. NOT MUCH. Except, on the bottom row there was a new book that just came out that screamed $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook on the cover ... with a picture of a "today's-looking mom" on the front who happens to be the author, Erin Chase. The title seemed to fit what I wanted, so I picked it up. A quick thumb through and I was sold. None of the recipes cost her more than $5 at the store. She puts the cost next to each of the ingredients. Suffice it to say, they are mostly simple, quick, easy, and healthy ... and I didn't see anything like lemongrass or water chestnuts included ... so that was a bonus. After I got home, I decided to read a little bit. The first 60 pages are all about saving/budgeting on groceries and couponing. I was enthralled and decided to throw out all my preconceived notions about the coupon world, and just see what would happen.

I made a few personal rules before I started:

1) I am only going to one grocery store to coupon. A lot of people do it at their grocery store, Target, Walgreens, etc. They search for the best deals on different items at different stores and then run around to each store getting the best deals they are offering. Too much for me. I have one grocery store that I like, and I will do it there. Nowhere else.
2) I will not become obsessed. Yes, I want a good deal, but will not spend hours and hours searching online or otherwise. I spend 1 hour a week cutting the coupons that come in my Washington Post and online, planning my meals for the week, and organizing my coupon binder. THAT'S IT. 1 hour total.
3) I will be willing to correct the cashier at the Grocery Store and endure the stares of those standing in line behind me. I don't inherently enjoy confrontation or telling people how to do their jobs, even when they are clearly not doing it correctly. The book states that this is something you have to get over, that most grocery clerks do not know coupon rules or their stores policy regarding them, so you have to be willing to have a conversation with them even if it may delay you and the people behind you. I decided that I would be willing to TRY.
4) I will only do my couponing grocery shopping with 1 kid MAX in tow.
5) I have to make my weekly meal plan BEFORE I go shopping. It just makes sense. Then you don't buy things you don't actually need.

Once I had everything organized, I decided to make a quick test run by myself to the grocery store. I was actually nervous. I thought I knew what deals I should get but I wasn't sure.
Well...

My best deal was that I got 2 Breakstone Sour Creams for 12 cents total. My grocery store was running a deal on them that was buy one get one free. I had a coupon that was for 55 cents off of one. Did you know that you can use one coupon for multiple items of the same product? As long as it says on the coupon "Per item" or "per purchase" and NOT "per customer", if you buy 4 of the same thing, you can use one coupon 4 times. I did not know that! Anyway, my grocery store also automatically doubles all coupons under $1.00 ... which I also didn't know before I started doing research. So, my coupon was actually worth $1.10 per Sour Cream container.

Did you ALSO know that you can use a coupon twice even if you are getting one of them for free? So, I now had $2.20 to put toward my one container purchase to get the other one free. One container cost $2.32. I did not have any issues with the cashier and she knew to just keep scanning my coupons until they beeped at her. I checked my receipt when I left, and voila! I spent 12 cents for two Sour Creams. You would have thought I had won the lottery. It was actually very empowering. It must kind of be like the high people get when they steal, except that what I am doing is actually very legal. Bonus!

Stay tuned for Part 2. I promise to only have one more part to Couponing on my blog. Let's face it, no one likes an annoying couponer who keeps shoving it in your face all the time ... except for my friends who live by me have to hear about my awesome deal of the week each time. But I think (and hope) they still like me anyway.