Time VS Money

My sister Linda and I  decided a while back to get into couponing.  All it took was one episode of Extreme Couponing to get us going.  

When we started, Linda ordered six Sunday papers delivered to her house each week & I went to tons of couponing sites and subscribed.  We spent hours clipping and organizing all the coupons we could find.  We were so excited, we put together huge three ring binders with baseball card holders in them.  We printed categories from some of the websites so we could be ultra organized.  We read everything we could find about couponing.  But neither of us were able to walk out of the grocery store with $600 worth of groceries for $15 like we had hoped! Granted we learned a lot and we did save a few bucks here and there. 

You see, I am single.  I don't do weekly or even bi-weekly grocery shopping.  I stop at the store grab some fruit and a frozen pizza or a couple of boxes of cereal, a bag of salad and a 12 pack of diet Mt. Dew.  So all that clipping really didn't do me much good.  I did save on Loreal Hair Color and I bought enough deodorant to last me a year by using multiple coupons on the buy one get one sales, but really, I found I spent way more time surfing coupon sites, printing and clipping coupons, organizing coupons, & carrying coupons around to warrant the $2 bucks I was saving on hair color and deodorant!  I also found I was not able to use all the coupons before they expired, so now add an hour each week taking them out of my coupon book and putting them in the recycle bin.  It was just too much!

Linda had similar experiences.  She and her husband are Vegan, and there really aren't a lot of coupons out there for produce.  Also, she doesn't have kids at home anymore and doesn't eat a lot of processed foods.  So now she has a spare room full of newspapers for recycling and a bunch of coupons she will never use.  When she did find a great deal, she would use her coupon and buy as many as she could of whatever the product was.  But then there is the storage factor.  I mean, where do you store 67 bottles of mustard anyway??

We did find that we could send our coupons to the military for families over seas to use at the base grocery stores and they can even use them if they are expired less than six months too.  I sent more coupons there than I used.  

I know there are folks out there who have figured it out.   But I just can't justify spending 5 hours or more a week to save a few bucks.  Now, if I do find a Loreal coupon in the paper, of course I will use it, but I just can't find the coupons I would use.  

The other thing we have discovered is that we like making our own stuff like soaps & shampoos.  We have been having a great time experimenting with new recipes.  And it is so much cheaper.  For about a buck sixty we can make a gallon of shampoo and split it and it will still last us 3 months or more each.  Now that is what I call a bargain and we can make it smell better than any we could buy.  Plus we enjoy doing it together.  

So, if there is anyone out there who can enlighten us on a better way to coupon in less time that allowing us to save more money, we would love to hear from you!