Years ago I was a newly married grad student, doing my best to make ends meet. I wouldn't say we struggled to make ends meet, but we did eat Tuna Helper meals several times per week. (I still get slightly gaggy on tuna casserole) I shopped in the discount stores and knew the prices of things I purchased regularly, we rarely ate out, and if we did it was fast-food. Then we both started working full-time and had a little breathing room. We still are both pretty frugal in general, but having 2 salaries enabled us to relax a bit, and I stopped driving across town to get the best deal because my time had become more valuable when I didn't have such a flexible schedule to do grocery shopping. However in all of this I was never a coupon clipper. I even remember seeing someone out shopping with their coupon organizer and laughing a little at how much time she must be investing to save... what... 30 cents per visit? How could that be worth it?
Then as I learned that I would be losing my job I started looking into ways to cut back on our monthly costs a bit. I knew I could do better on my grocery bill if I just paid a little more attention each week. And I started clipping coupons :) I honestly never thought I would. I went into it telling myself that I'd do a bit of it and if it looked worth it I'd keep with it. I was definitely willing to throw in the towel if it appeared to not be worth my time. I subscribed to a few blogs listing deal updates, stopped by the store to buy the paper each Sunday, and bought a coupon organizer. I seriously am starting to become one of those people.
But the kicker was last week when I went by a grocery store where I knew a good sale was going on. I made my list of things that I could get on sale, plus the coupons, and stock up on these items for very cheap. So there I was walking around with my coupon organizer in the seat of the cart. My cart was filled with tons of boxes of cereal, gat orade, ice cream and yogurt. And that's it. Only those 4 items in large quantities. I then notice one of my neighbors in the aisle with me and we talked for a bit. I felt funny about the contents of my cart but just laughed about it. Hopefully I don't need to explain that we do in fact eat more than cereal and ice cream during our week. I'm definitely becoming one of those people... it's a bit scary :) But now I'm thinking it's kind of fun and we're definitely saving money! And who knew they sold coupons on E bay!! Yeah, I'm off the deep end now :)
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