I have a picture in my mind of the kind of person that uses coupons. She's in her late thirties and is wearing a jean jumper with a floral print cotton shirt. She has an envelope in her hand that is packed and overflowing with small slips of colorful paper. Her gaggle of children are clambering for her attention as she digs through her clutch of coupons and the people standing in line behind her are checking their watches and wishing they had picked a different line. Yes, I know that I'm falling prey to socioeconomic profiling, and I realize that this mental picture is not accurate, but it's still the stigma that clings to the concept of couponing.
In spite of this, Bryan and I have been seriously considering entering the wide world of coupons.
Now, we can't go coupon crazy. Peter's food allergies and our general desire to eat healthy food cuts out lots of the stuff that coupons cover. You know, TV dinners, meals where you just add water, anything by Hostess. No, we like fruits and vegetables and make lots of stuff from scratch.
That said, is it even worth it for us to invest the time and money in clipping coupons. We've agreed that we would need to subscribe to the Sunday paper in order to make this work. I don't want to shell out that money ($91 for 52 weeks) if I don't think we're going to save even more than what we've spent.
So here's my question to those of you with coupon experience (and anybody else that wants to respond): Is it worth the cost of the Sunday paper to save money on toiletries and whatever healthy food might be on sale? Or should we just look for deals online? Are their other coupon tricks we should be aware of? Do I really need to buy a jean jumper to make this work?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I'm thinking jean jumper. . . just kidding. :)
We haven't subscribed to the Sunday paper b/c we don't buy a lot of the products they have coupons for either (though my dad does and uses his coupons almost religiously).
There are a lot of websites with coupons online (just make sure the stores you shop at take internet coupons).
I shop at Target a lot and use my credit card (to get rewards points) and they have register coupons for things like dish soap and sandwich bags and they've been mailing me coupon booklets with coupons for about $30 in savings if you use them all.
We're hoping to save money by planting a garden this year. If there are CSAs near you (community supported agriculture- you pay a small amount to local farmers and get a box of fruits and/or veggies every week or two of the harvest) you can get a great variety of local produce for cheaper than the stores. (There aren't any here, unfortunately)
Also,the blog athriftymom.com has some good ideas about free samples, sales, and stacking coupons.
Sorry this is so long!
Coupons are a method of price discrimination. They offer lower prices to those wiling to spend the extra time to find them.
As a mother of three (or is it four now?) time is the most valuable thing you have. Is the thirty cents you just saved on cereal worth the 90 seconds you spent finding, clipping, filing, and recovering that coupon?
I am not here to offer advice, but to point out how someone might place you (erroneously) in a category. You guys eat lots of fruits and vegetables, make a lot of stuff from scratch, and try not to use sugar or eggs in anything. Hmm . . . what does that sound like? Face it: you and your family are hippies (minus the radical leftist views).
Hi Margot! - this is Olya Platt (Donovan and I worked with Bryan at the MTC... remember?). We started using coupons last year in August, after I went to a free class that this one company did. It took a couple of months to figure out what works for us and what doesn't, but we've been able to save a LOT of money (I think our yearly subscription to 4 Sunday papers got paid off in a couple of months, and I'm not kidding - I save between %50-90 every time I shop). I too make most things from scratch, and buy more and more things from health food stores (we're also pretty sure that Donovan and our son Damian might have celiac... oh well, they just have to get tested). I found out that because I save a lot of money buying certain things I can buy a lot more produce, specialty grains, etc... to compensate and still stay in our budget. Again, with food allergies it's a lot harder (I'm not sure about yours but with celiac I'm pretty sure we won't be able to buy that much). Sorry for the rambling, but the site is www.grocerysmarts.com, and the password is g84rcm. What they do is they match manufacturers coupons with current store sales (and they have most if not all the grocery stores in Utah), so you never have to cut out the coupons you get. And every week they go through all of the grocery store ads and a coupon and tell you exactly where to get the coupon, and it's SO easy to use. You'll need to read the instructions when you get to the site, but they also do free classes on how to use it, etc... Also I've been able to stock up on a lot of natural food products with that b/c many companies are starting to make more of those. But no, we NEVER get TV dinners :) - sorry I'll be quiet now. Please let me know if you have questions. I enjoy reading your blog by the way.
Don't let Jordan's comment phase you too much. I'm a crazy hippie, too. There are a lot of us out there when you start to look around.
One of the most fun FHE's Luis and I have ever had is when we made a standard shopping list (what we normally pick up on a trip to the market) and then comparison shopped. We took a calculator and a pad of paper and went to our regularly visited markets and compared to see which had the best sale and non-sale prices on the items we buy. We compared store brands to other store brands (we never buy name-brand unless there's no alternative, with a few exceptions) and found out that the place we thought had the best prices actually didn't.
We had the BEST time walking around comparison shopping.
As far as coupons go, I've heard great things about grocerysmarts and a few other similar websites. I haven't tried them out, but I have a friend who saves around 75-90% shopping that way (you remember Kelly Chavarria?)
I have just started getting into this, and have been able to save a lot of money. While we do eat cereal, I also make everything from scratch, and I am very heath conscious. I just started a small blog, and although it doesn't offer much, I do have a lot of links that I really like listed on there. When you are on my blog look for MY FRUGAL SITE under my favorites.
Hey Margot, I went through the same question myself last February. I got a Valentine's Day deal of a year subscription (daily) for about $30. I was surprised when I was able to renew this year for the same price. For that price I felt it was worth it for the entertainment value alone. (N and I like crossword puzzles and comics)
However, a cheaper method might be comparison shopping. Savvy Shopper Deals (http://www.savvyshopperdeals.com/) is a website sponsored by The Daily Herald. The shopping wizard will do a search to let you know which local grocery store has the best price on a certain item for that week. I like this site because staples such as meat, dairy products, and produce don't often have coupons in the newspaper.
Use what works for you. Stockpiling my favorite nonperishables at caselot sales, tagging along with a friend to buy cheese at Costco, and buying the meat and fruits that are on sale that week are what works for me. Some people take advantage of WalMart's price matching policy, but for me it's not worth the extra time standing in line showing the cashier the various ads. I would like to buy bunches of "organic" ground beef when it's on sale for less than $2/lb but I'm limited by freezer space. I don't use Walgreens' rebate offers because I know that I won't mail in the receipts. I do use Rite Aid's rebate offers because I like that I can do it online.
Um, sorry if you were just looking for a yes or no about the newspaper couponing. I guess my answer is that there are less expensive, possibly less time consuming, ways to save money on groceries.
Good luck with trying to save a penny.
Post a Comment