Thought husband was converted. Was wrong.

[ravenfyre]

My DH is pretty supportive! He "makes fun of me" (really, he's bragging ) to his coworkers or friends about how kooky I am with my addiction, but he always says he's impressed when I add up the total savings every month or come home with free or insanely cheap stuff, and actually thanks me for my hard work Especially since only one of us is working right now and we have a strict budget. I do all the shopping, so he doesn't have to worry about using the coupons himself, but he knows that if there are coupons or pins on a box, he'd better cut them out for me! lol

My father, on the other hand, is hopeless... I've gotten my mom back into couponing, and she gives them to my dad who does the weekly grocery shopping. He always "forgets" to use the coupons at the register. Really, he's just embarrassed. I have no idea why

[miamitall]

I have the same problem with my DH. He shops at once a week at Metro (fresh fruit & veggies, meat, baked goods).

I shop at Supercenter Walmart. I don't drive, but the walmart is a 15 minute walk from my home. I purchased a white shopping cart (as shown in an earlier message. I put a thick piece of cardboard on the bottom, and a 3 piece cardboard around the side, then use 4 reusable large shopping bags (that they sell for $1.99 at all the grocery stores) to put everything in after shopping. This way the smaller plastic Walmart bags won't poke through the wires of the buggy as you're coming home or rip.
I can fold the my buggy & the cardboard so it fits into the Walmart shopping cart when I enter the store & do my shopping.
After paying, I then take the Walmart shopping cart to the farthest cart deposit area in the parking lot, and then I take out my white shopping buggy & take my time loading it up.
First put the bottom cardboard on the bottom, and then the 3 piece folded cardboard so it makes a "U". The open part is facing away from you. This way, as you pull the buggy home, all the items are leaning against the cardboard. Open 2 of the reuseable shopping bags on the bottom of the cardboard, & put the heavy items on the bottom ie. laundry detergent, cans, etc. Then place the other 2 reusable shopping bags on top with lighter items. Get 1 5th resuable cloth bag with long handles that you can sling over your shoulder ( not the one pulling the buggy behind you). This way you can really cram in a lot of items. I have the older buggys with the large wire ( as shown ealier),. The newere buggys I believe are a lot smaller. It it's raining, snowing, just take a few large green garbage bags & cover everything with them.


1 or 2 days before DH shops at Metro, I go to Walmart & stock up on paper products, canned foods, cleaning supplies, snacks, frozen foods, etc. and whatever I can PM as these products are very expensive at Metro, and there's no difference in quality. At least this way you can save a lot of money and he doesn't have to buy as many itmes.

My DH refuses to use coupuons at Metro, and after a couple of arguments, I stopped asking him to use them. If you can, when you go shoppping with your husband, take your own cart, fill it with PM and coupon items, and use a separate checkout lane. If possible, make sure you finish shopping before him. Then show him the receipt showing all the coupon deductions, etc. Hopefully this will help.

Good Luck!
(As Ann Landers used to say, "Would you life be better WITH your spouse or WITHOUT your spouse?"

[torontogal12]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! Here's some of the changes we've made since I first posted this. #7 is AMAZING!

1. I haven't gone out to get a cart yet, but I have been going to the store more often and getting stuff in bits instead of all at once, so I can get more exercise and not bust my arms.

2. Hubby still comes shopping for groceries (he likes to sneak junk food into the cart, so wants to come), but when there's some stockpiling going on I go with my parents, who have couponed forever and have a car. My dad is used to it after 42 years of being married to my mom, and loves a good deal. (He nearly flipped when we got Dove bodywash for $1, and he will always claim his SCOPs).

3. Meanwhile, my hubby has learned not to throw out the packaging unless he checks for any coupons/pins/whatever on the box.

4. Asked hubby if he wanted to mantain a spreadsheet but he said he'd leave it to me so I started one.

5. I showed hubby how all those .50 and $1 coupons added up to $160 since January, and I made separate columns for "Free stuff", which includes FPCs, BOGO coupons, and SCOPS. That adds up to $65 already. I told him this will go towards a trip fund, which made him happy.

6. We shop at stores like SDM, Zellers and The Bay, which have a "You have saved $ ___ on the receipt." I always show him how much a sale/PM/clearance has saved us.

7. The most amazing of all: We were in line the other day and I forgot something. The line was long so husband waited there so we wouldn't lose our place, and I went to go get the last thing. This is where HUSBAND ASKED ME TO GIVE HIM THE COUPONS!!!

By the time I came back to the lineup, he had already paid and used all 3 coupons!!! I made sure to give him a big hug and a coffee in appreciation.

So, after 8 months of marriage, he is on his way to spending more sensibly!

Thanks everyone for your support and I love reading your tips/tricks/stories.

[JadeDragon]

good thing my DW and I enjoy this together. I've been buying sale items in bulk for years, working the Airmiles deals, and going for FPC's but just now getting into clipping coupons and matching up sales. So I have a running start.

Every package with a code, coupon etc gets dealt with before the stuff goes in the pantry. Then we know we captured the info.

[coupon girl]

well i have cpned for many year-so you think he would be used to it-nope he wont look for a pin -so hopefully my dog doesnt take the box and chew it from the reclycling box-i was off last summer (for personal reasons) no pay for 3 months-and my stockpile saved me for sure -i might give my hubby 1 or 2 cpns if he went shopping but no more -he just wouldnt like that-i cant conform him to cpning but we could be doing worse

[Shwa Girl]

Need some advice from you guys. I've posted about my husband starting to get converted to couponing, but today he took lots of steps back.

Two things happened:

1. My husband throws out everything. Often without asking. Boxes with Pins or coupons, etc.

Well at least he is helping someone doing a recycling walk

We never, ever get flyers and by some miracle we got the No Frills flyer for their dollar sale this week. There is no No Frills near us but at least we could use it to PM so I was pretty happy about it. I circled lots of stuff I wanted in black pen. He threw the flyer out, not even noticing that it was all scribbled up for a reason. Now what? Will stores let me PM with a .jpg on my Blackberry?

Sorry to hear about the flyer.
Nice that you got one this week.
Maybe you have to hide these valuable flyers so he won't throw them away

2. I thought I was doing great with him until our shopping trip to Metro today. We went there specifically to buy Olymel chicken for him (he is the only one that eats them). He was happy to get 2 boxes from the shelf. The 50% Facebook coupon was one per transaction, so I told him to pay for one separately. He made a big stink about how we should just forget it because he was too embarassed to use a coupon. It didn't seem to compute that its better to buy 2 boxes at $4.49 rather than one for $8.99 when he gets a craving (twice a week sometimes). We spent a total of about $50 oop and saved $27 in coupons today and he was putting up a fight! He uses complex math at work every day, which is why this boggles my mind.

How do you guys make your partner supportive of couponing? My couponing is very mild compared to some of the brags I see here and I still have an uphill climb to deal with here. And how do you stop them from throwing stuff out? I just hope he won't throw me out too

I think he will come around. At least he likes the savings from the Olymel chicken. The chicken may be the thing to change his mind, in time.