Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Queen of Coupons, I am not

Last night I was watching a show on Extreme Couponing and I was completely enthralled.

These people were able to walk up to the check out lanes with over $1000 worth of groceries and walk away spending somewhere around $.06 or less.

Much like with food and weight gain, anytime I walk into a grocery store, I'm pretty sure they charge me $100 immediately just for LOOKING at the food. The idea of couponing seems like a great idea, but I question how great of an idea it would be for ME- especially since, when I saw the extreme couponers (ECs, if you will) walking around with briefcases full of coupons, my immediate thought was, “Ooo, and I could get a pink one! Maybe Coach makes one I could buy with all my savings!”

Yeah, wouldn't work for me.

Its a lot like how I am with dieting. I lose 3 pounds and I think to myself, “Awesome! Now I can eat that whole cheesecake!” Or worse, I go walking for a half an hour, don't even weigh myself, and think, “Ya know, I should reward myself for my effort.” And off I go to buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's.

I'd really like the benefit of using coupons, but I'm just not that dedicated to the cause. Every time I heard one of the ECs say how long they would spend clipping coupons and getting ready to go on their shopping trips, all I could think of was, “I'm tired just from listening to this- I need a break”, and off I would go to make a cup of coffee and relax.

Shouldn't I get brownie points for WANTING to save money?

I know I sound naïve, shallow, what have you, but I'm not. The idea of being able to spend -$50 on 10 carts of groceries sounds amazing, but it also sounds exhausting because at the end of the day, I would have to do that shopping trip with a 10 year old, a 4 year old, and a 4 month old. While trying to figure out how many tubes of toothpaste I have to buy to save $7, I would end up hearing why my 10 year old wants one he saw on TV and my 4 year old wants the one with Thomas the Train on it- neither of which, I'm sure, would give me bonus bucks or whatever. While trying to get the necessary amounts of Gatorade to save $1000, I would have to listen to my 10 year old tell me that he doesn't like Gatorade, he likes Powerade, and my 4 year old would be asking me for Twizzlers... because he saw them as we shopped in the candy aisle when I went to buy the 1000 packs of gum to save $2000 off my purchase, but I wouldn't buy them for him because it might cause my shopping trip to equal out to $.05 when I didn't bring a nickel with me...

I'm getting tired just writing this.

In the end, couponing to save money for MY family wouldn't work BECAUSE of MY family.

Or maybe I'm against it because I'm lazy.

Yeah, there's always that.

7 comments:

  1. I watched this open-mouthed as well last night. Did you see the guy with the FILING SYSTEM for his coupons? Who has that kind of time? Their is no coupon for that kind of time suck.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love it here!!!
    And thank you for stopping by!
    :))

    ReplyDelete
  3. ps: I do to get extra powers from coffee....well...being Italian....I am a real professional :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. "In the end, couponing to save money for MY family wouldn't work BECAUSE of MY family." LOL I loved this post! That was my favorite line! Very nice blog!!!

    XO Shar!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am your newest follower through VB and I wanted to welcome you. I love the show and don't save nearly as much as they do. My biggest trip was spending $200 and saving $100 walking away with $100 worth of product was nice. It takes a lot of discipline. A lot of time clipping out coupons or finding them online and price matching is the most time consuming. It is worth it in the end but for many it can be more of a hassle. If you ever become interested in saving with coupons or just want some freebies or even some free gift cards please check out my blog. I hope you have a wonderful day!
    ~Debra~
    http://debrasdollars.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow!!!! We are so much alike! In fact, I think you just wrote down my thoughts! I do exactly when you do when I lose weight. I think about what I could then eat. In regards to the coupons, I would really LOVE to be able to save money, but I just don't have the patience for it. I saw this guy in the news who boughts carts full of stuff and even had them sent out to Japan. After coupons, he ended up only paying $20 or something silly like that. Can you believe it?

    Anyway, thanks for sharing this!

    Hope you're having a great week!

    Sincerely,

    Lexie
    www.voiceboks.com

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Much like with food and weight gain, anytime I walk into a grocery store, I'm pretty sure they charge me $100 immediately just for LOOKING at the food."

    LOL. I feel the same way, especially at Target.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog! :-)

    ReplyDelete

I love comments almost as much as my coffee, so leave me some love letting me know that you stopped by- I'll be sure to visit you, too!

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...