Spending Sunday Saving Money

I used to start the Sunday morning ritual of coffee and Sunday papers by pulling out all advertisements, coupons and other inserts – with the exception of Parade magazine – and tossing it right in the recycling bin.

Then I got behind a woman at Giant who reduced her grocery bill by more than $175 using coupons.

At first, I was irritated. I just wanted to check out, pack my car and get home. She had put a cart full of groceries on the belt and then handed the cashier a pile of coupons. I rolled my eyes. How long is this going to take?

I watched with disdain as the cashier swiped each coupon over the scanner. But then I noticed her total shrinking more and more. She looked at me sheepishly before turning back to the screen and her diminishing grocery bill.

I began to feel her excitement. It was almost like watching election returns. As each coupon was swiped, the total amount continued to drop. Her groceries were $175 cheaper than if she had not used coupons.

$175? I decided to give it a try.

I started with the Internet. There are all kinds of sites that help the new coupon shopper get started, offer advice on what to do and list the ‘no-no’s of coupon shopping. They suggested buying more than one Sunday paper and organizing your stash to make it easier to find the stuff in the store. Use of a shopper’s or store member card is crucial.

Armed with a fistful of coupons I had cut from the Sunday papers, my next shopping trip cost me $23 less than if I had just purchased the items. It also took me an hour and a half. I was encouraged but disappointed. How is this going to be of any benefit if it takes me so long?

Not one to be easily shaken, I separated my coupons in envelopes labeled for product categories and put them in order of the aisles at the store. At Giant, I always start in the shampoo section – two girls with very long hair in my house go through a lot of shampoo – so my ‘personal care’ envelope was put on top. Next is the baking aisle, so I put all the baking coupons in the next envelope. And so on.

On top of my envelopes, I labeled one ‘today’ and filled it with coupons with pending expiration dates.

On that second trip, I saved $114 dollars – approximately one-third of my total bill – and I spent only a little longer than I would on a normal shopping trip.

I called my friend Cindy and asked, ‘this has to be a fluke right?’ She asked me if I was wearing Mom jeans, a cat sweatshirt and white Keds.

Laugh all you want, Miss Smarty Pants. That $114 can buy two pairs of jeans from Hollister or a college textbook. If I figured out a way to save one-third of the department budget at work, I would probably get a promotion.

There had to be rules.

• There are a lot of coupons for junk food and crap that we either won’t or shouldn’t eat.
• Hoarding too many of one kind of item is silly; I have neither the pantry space nor inclination to stockpile.
• Coupons for products that we don’t use (the other brand of toilet paper, diapers, etc.) are great to use for Food Bank Sunday at church.
• The store brand is still sometimes cheaper than the name brand product with coupons.

It works like this: The store advertises a weekly reduction of ‘Buy 2, get $2 off’ on shampoo that normally costs $4.99 per bottle. A $1 off coupon is at minimum doubled at Giant, sometimes tripled depending on my other coupons. The price of two bottles of shampoo at a total of $9.98 is dropped to $7.98 with the store card and then maybe to $4.98 with a tripled coupon. Essentially, I get a free bottle of shampoo (and I’ve saved enough money to buy Drano to unplug that long hair from the drains).

The first time my kids were with me when I pulled out my coupons, they were mortified. ‘Mom, people are going to think we are poor.’ Really? How is getting $490 worth of groceries for $365 poor? They have since come to understand it means more stuff in the pantry, trying new products and extra money for movies, clothes or vacations.

I ran into a colleague in the store with a handful of coupons. When she saw me, she turned red. ‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ I said. ‘I totally get it.’ By using the store member card and spending a few minutes matching the weekly grocery flyer and coupons, it’s pretty easy to save money.

Sometimes on Saturday mornings, you can find the professional couponers at Giant with multiple carts, multiple people and binders full of coupons in what look like trading card holders.

I overheard one of them say she drives from near Harrisburg because the Giant markets in State College have the best coupon system in PA, although most grocery stores have some kind of coupon program. (I assume she saves enough to balance the money she spent on gas for the trip).

While I’m not sure the manufacturers intended that coupons be collected in binders, it is widely known that companies want people to use coupons as doing so encourages us to buy their products. Grocery stores and manufacturers actually work together – the stores put items on sale the same week as coupons are in the paper.

Even if I won the lottery tomorrow, I would still use coupons. It just makes sense.

So, if you get behind me in line at the grocery store, don’t bother to roll your eyes. I’m not poor. I’m not hoarding. I’m not even a little embarrassed. I’m saving money. I’m using coupons.