Coupons are Whack.

 picture from blog.dealsgoround.com

Word.

I have never seen an episode of Extreme Coupon Whatever it's Called.  I have also never even half-way tried to use a coupon in all my 15 years of grocery shopping.   After reviewing our budget this year I decided it was time to at least give it a half-way shot.  

Right off the bat I learned something valuable.  Coupons don't come in the Sunday paper on a holiday.  I learned that twice in one day b/c surely someone stole them out of the first one?  No.  Yeah, we don't read the paper.  So, it was Connie-minus 8 bucks,  coupons-1 and recycling bin-2 big fat newspapers.

Well I wasn't going to fall for that on New Year's, no ma'am.  I did not buy a paper on that Sunday b/c I was in the know.  But when I joined the Grocery Game (more on that later) I realized that yes, coupons did go out that weekend and now (until they all expire) I have to get excited about saving $ only to realize it was from the Jan 1 paper that I didn't buy.  So, I really have no idea when they do and don't give out coupons.

I finally got some dang coupons to get the ball rolling and I immediately clipped them all and stuffed them in a zip-lock bag and marked the bag.  The next Sunday I did the same b/c you need a couple or three Sunday's worth of coupons to get started, so I was told.  Then came that fateful day when I was ready to save BIG bucks.  I signed up for my free trial of the Grocery Game and got my zip-lock bags in my hand and immediately realized that I had made a big mistake by clipping all of those coupons. 

You see, you are supposed to leave them in their little booklets b/c the GG tells you where to clip the coupon/s you need.

My couponing adventure got a rough start.

OK, I got this.  Third times a charm, right?  I absolutely did not clip the coupons from the third paper and it certainly wasn't a holiday weekend.  I put the booklets in a zip-lock, labeled it and watched Desperate Housewives.   This was going to be a piece of cake. 

I realized that the GG was great for matching store add items to the coupons but what about random things I need that I would have to purchase regardless of the add?  Well, I decided to log all of the coupons like a nut job in Excel.   Levi buys the paper for me and it takes me about 45 minutes to do it while we watch a movie on Sunday Afternoon.  It is an awesome resource for me.  I can do "control F" and look up an item by key word and know if I have a coupon for it or not.  Here is a portion of what it looks like:

OK, now was time to try the real deal.  I have my not clipped coupons, my spread sheet, my GG account so I was ready.  I think I spent 3 days planning a menu, working through the items in the GG, clipping my coupons, checking adds, organizing my list and my coupons according to store, and occasionally stopping to cry and moan b/c it was a total beating.   I saved $25 at Target and $30 at Tom Thumb.  However, I spent the same amount of money I always do, possibly more.

Clearly the learning curve on couponing is long and large.  Either that or I am just way to ADD for it. 

The second time around for the beating couponing adventure I fared a little better mentally.  Well, until I got to the store.  I learned something new again.  The adds go from Wednesday to Tuesday.  I never, not in my whole life, knew that.  This was a problem considering I went to the store on Wednesday after gathering coupons based on the previous weeks adds which ended the day before on Tuesday.  So, none of my coupons really made a hill of bins worth of difference because you save the most money when you match the coupons with the items in the adds. 

That's the main reason to join the GG b/c they do that for you.  It's free for the first 4 weeks and you can use your free trial on as many stores as you want.  After that it's $10 for one store and $5 for each additional one.   I paid a total of $15 for 8 weeks to use it for two stores.  You can also look up most of your local store's adds on-line.

Another mistake I made is doing my list for two weeks.  I have always done it that way but I don't advise that when first starting out with the coupon thing.  It's much too much.  

Tomorrow I am excited to use the adds properly according to the correct add dates, use my not clipped coupons, and shoot for just one week. If, after this last ditch effort, I still want to punch something when I'm done and if it takes me more than one morning to organize it all and includes me crying, I am bidding my farewell to couponing. 

I am not entirely sure which way I want this to turn out.  

In conclusion, I have officially lost my mind for the sake of our savings account.