Like a lot of moms right now, working or at home, I have drank the Kool-aid and joined the new fad I call, the Church of Coupon. Yes, the coupon bug bit me, but also like a lot of moms, it was not something I decided to do to be trendy or because I saw the TLC show, Extreme Couponing.
I began couponing right after returning to work. Combined with car payments, house payments and now daycare, I was doing good to have one penny left in my account by the 31st of each month. No one tried to convert me to The Church of Coupon and like I said, nor did anything on TV convince me. I actually had no idea couponing had its own cult following or that it could save you so much.
I devised the idea of using coupons simply to try to get a few dollars off my grocery bill every week. So I started getting a Sunday paper and went from there. Looking back on it, I laugh to myself at how stupid this was. Now I know better. I would make out my grocery list for the week as usual, go through my small stack of coupons, which I kept in a Ziploc bag, and pulled any coupon I thought could help me that week. So the only savings I saw for a few weeks were $3 here and maybe $4 there.
Then I started talking to other people who couponed, found blogs and websites with printable coupons, and finally in September attended a class.
Now my coupon weekly worship is a bit different. First, I got rid of that sad little Ziploc bag and invested in a notebook. I used baseball card holders to display my coupons and divided it into sections like the ones used in grocery stores: dairy, meats, canned goods, etc. Then using the blogs and websites I mentioned, I look a weekly ads. I make my grocery list out based on what's on sale and what I have coupons for to get the best savings possible. I also am starting a sad little stockpile that I hope will continue to grow. At first, I thought stockpiling was dumb and a waste of money, but now I see the value of it. Example, this week Cologate toothpaste is on sale at Kroger for $1. There are plenty of coupons out there for $1 off Cologate or .50 cents off Cologate. Since Kroger doubles coupons .50 cent and under, I could use either of those coupons to get the toothpaste for completely free. Now do I need toothpaste right now? No, but it's FREE! I added three tubes to my stockpile. Since toothpaste doesn't go bad, I can get toothpaste when it's free or practically free and save the money I would have spent on something else.
Right now, compared to other long-time members of the Church of Coupon, my stockpiles are small. I have maybe seven or eight tubes of toothpaste, three large bottles of body wash, ten bars of soap, four boxes of dishwashing machine tablets, three bottles of laundry detergent, five boxes of cereal... You get the picture.
So five months or so later, what is my grocery bill looking like now? Well, I'm not where I eventually want to be like these moms who get $200 of groceries for $10, but I will most of the time cut my grocery bill in half every week. My New Year's Resolution is to spend no more than $100 a week. Now to some of you, that may not sound like much of a goal, but that is for a family of four including diapers, formula, dinners, lunches, toothpaste (hehe), anything my family may need. I've been successful thus far and may even amend that weekly budget to $75 and then hopefully $50 by the end of the year. As one mom proudly proclaimed on Extreme Couponing, “I will never pay more that $1 for cereal again!” Testify sister!
Being a working mom is more than just balancing motherhood and career. People tend to forget, you have to manage a household too. Milk still has to be bought, dishes washed, floors swept. Some joke, or maybe they're not joking, and say couponing is addictive. And I'm here to say it is. Why would I compare it to a cult? But essentially I do it, because it makes me feel like a better mom. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying spending .75 cent on a box of Fruit Loops makes you a better mother. What I am saying is, I feel like a better household manager when I use less resource for the most product. I'm saving money that can go to my kids while making sure they are not sacrificing anything in the process. So if you're not ready to join the Church of Coupon or if you think my argument is ridiculous. That's fine. I think homeschooling is weird. Guess, I'll save that argument for another entry. But regardless of what we think is weird for one mom to do as compared to another or ourselves, we need to respect each other as mothers and the decisions we make all (at least in our minds) for the betterment of our children. And isn't that what being a mom is all about?
Nice entry!
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