15 Apr Why I will Never be the Coupon Queen

I get the whole frugality thing – I really do. I love a good deal as much as anybody, but you will never find me clipping coupons. There are a million reasons why I will never be a Coupon Queen!

In order to give you a little perspective, I’m going to give you a little glimpse into my younger years. I was raised with 14 brothers and sisters. Need I say more? Obviously it was a one-income family, and even more obviously there was very little money. The lack of money was not something that I was acutely aware of, but I as I watched my parent’s shopping habits, I learned a thing or two about saving money.

I Learned From the Best of Them

My Dad was THE Money-Saving Master. I’m not going to spill all of his secrets because some of them are downright embarrassing, but nobody – and I repeat, NOBODY, comes close to my Dad’s skill in saving money. He knows every trick in the book! His skill was developed through necessity, but honed by a love for it. He made a hobby out of grocery shopping, and indulged in this hobby every afternoon on his way home from work – justifying it, of course, by claiming he needed to “catch a sale.”

For several years, I attended University fairly close to my father’s place of employment, so we would travel together to save money on gas and parking. Every evening, he would pick me up from school and together we’d head out to the grocery store. I hated it, but I can’t deny that I may have gained a valuable skill or two.

Later, once I graduated, I worked for a older woman who was on a fixed income. Grocery shopping with this lady was a whole new experience in frugality and mathematics. I had to start bringing a calculator to calculate the cost of per piece of toilet paper. And no, I’m not exaggerating.

Then along came extreme couponing. Am I the only one who found this show so distasteful? The participants clearly spent more time searching for, cutting out and organizing their coupons than I spent at my full-time job. Then it was like watching rabid animals devour a meal, greedy and grabbing as they tore through store after store to “save” and ultimately hoard more. Can someone help me understand why anyone would want 68 boxes of  breakfast cereal and 43 tubes of toothpaste?

I did consider couponing for a split second, once, but I quickly noticed something. Not one coupon was for an item that I would normally use (with the exception of toilet paper – and let’s be honest, I’ve learned how to save there!). Even now, as I check the popular coupon websites, I find canned goods, laundry detergent, bathroom cleaners, salad dressings, cookies and shampoo.

Have you ever seen a coupon for kale? Fresh fruits or vegetables? Any meat or eggs? No? I haven’t either. Coupons are almost exclusively for processed foods, cleaning products and bath products.

I love to save money, but I love my family even more and I am not going to feed them sodas, sugar-coated breakfast cereals and protein bars. Nor do I care to use the chemically-laden, often toxic cleaning and bath products in our home or on their skin.

What do I do instead?

Here’s a few suggestions on how to grocery shop for healthy foods and still save money without using coupons:

1. Avoid pre-packaged and processed foods. They do not feed your body and will often leave you craving more processed foods.
2. Buy produce that is in season and freeze it.
3. Shop at local Farmers Markets.
4. Find local farms that sell meat and dairy.
5. Join a local food co-op. These can often be found by doing a search on Facebook.
6. Shop at Aldi’s if there is one in your area. Seriously, the prices are amazing.
7. Consider making your own cleaning products and personal care products.  It’s easy, effective and extremely cost-effective. AND you are not exposing yourself to harmful chemicals everyday.

There are so many alternatives to the cheap, processed garbage found in coupons. I, for one, want to do better for my family and this is why I will never be a Coupon Queen.