I <3 coupons

[Zonny]

I just wanted to say how much I love saving money with those little slips of paper that SO many people just ignore!

I had a conversation with my DH last night, after responding to a thread about why we use coupons. I didn't (and still don't) think he 'gets' how much I save by shopping the way I do. If there's deals and coupons on say, our usual laundry soap, I buy a pile. He just doesn't notice that we don't buy soap for six months.

But before we got together, his method was to eat/use all his stuff until there was none left, then go shop for more. You can't wait for deals going this way right?

He challenged me to do my shopping today, then not visit a grocery store until next weekend. And yes, I do sometimes hop into the stores midweek. He's right there. I enlisted his help to go through the pantry and freezer, we made a list (something that I am quite bad at, I'm not organized like he is).

So I went shopping based on the list we made together. While I spent $95 at Superstore to get everything we needed (not to mention the $35 I spent at Sobeys the night before, mostly because they had chicken on sale), I also used $11 in coupons at Superstore.

I don't know about you all, but this makes me feel great! While my bill was still uglier than a family of two adults and a five year old should be spending, this is the reality, and I saved over 10% of my bill with coupons, without buying anything I didn't plan on buying.

I offered coupons to two others who were looking at cheese, etc. that I knew had coupons in the Coupon Zone (I'd grabbed extras, not knowing how many I'd use). While one gratefully took my coupon, the other said, "oh" took it and just kept on going, I don't think she was going to use it.

How can people ignore these things? Are they embarassed to use them? I guess they think that one dollar isn't worth saving, but if you use one every week when you shop, even one dollar matters!

[christinabay]

Why not use coupons?? They are literally like cash. I'd rather save my money for a vacation!

[GoddessDigi]

I love coupons, too! lol
We only spend about $65 on our groceries (including cleaning supplies, personal care, and baby snacks).
I think that's great.
And I can buy stuff that I normally wouldn't, like DH likes the instant potatoes as a snack, but $2 for 2 packs is blegh to me, so $1 coupons make it nice.