You may remember that a few months ago, I decided to give couponing a try. In case you are wondering how that all worked out, I must confess that I have stopped couponing. For about a month, I faithfully got the newspaper every Sunday and clipped and sorted the coupons. I had them all organized in envelopes, and I scanned three area grocery store flyers to see whether I could use any coupons along with sale prices to get great deals.
While I did get some excellent prices on a few things, there were things that I noticed along the way that made me realize that couponing is not for me. In fact, the very first thing that got my attention was when my financially savvy husband saw me sitting at the kitchen table clipping and sorting coupons during our son’s nap one day. He is very good with money, and I respect his advice when it comes to all things financial. When he saw me sitting there, he told me that I am a very good grocery shopper and that my time and energy would be much better used doing just about anything else but sitting there and clipping coupons.
Not only did I think that it was sweet that he said that, it made perfect sense too. If I took the hour that I spent clipping coupons and spent it doing some of my writing work, I would make about fifteen dollars. If I did work on one of my law office cases, I would make quite a bit more than that. The amount of money that I would save by using those coupons would not stack up to what I would earn doing even the lowest paying work that I have on my desk. He explained that he thinks about a lot of things that way, such as whether to do a vehicle or household repair himself or have someone else do it.
The other main reason that I decided to stop clipping coupons is that most of the things that I was finding coupons for are not items that we eat or use in our household. Many of the basics that I use in my weekly menu plans go on sale from time to time and I save on those with my grocery store key tag cards. We do not eat a lot of processed foods, and the things that I do buy that are processed like peanut butter and pasta sauce, I’m picky about because we avoid high fructose corn syrup and most things with lots of sugar. Simply put, in order to take advantage of the savings that could be had with most coupons would require a drastic change in our eating habits that we are not willing to make.
Do you clip coupons? Why or why not?
Photo by cohdra on morguefile.com.