I watched the TLC show Extreme Couponing. Wow! I was really torn by some of the stories by others I was encouraged.
clipping coupons
The stories that bothered me were the stories that the person seemed to be hoarding rather than saving money on food they use. Having dealt with hoarders all my life (two people close to me are hoarders) the difference comes down to are you using the things you stock or are they just there. If you are only buying for the thrill of buying you will tend towards hoarding. If you are buying for the thrill then constantly returning items or just throwing them into an unused room that is slowly filling with these items than you are already to the hoarding side. IF you buy what you can and will use (check expiration dates) than you are wisely using the tools of sales and coupons to create a food and supply reserve to see your family through difficult times.
A friend on FaceBook pointed out this kind of use of coupons could make changes to the rules of using coupons that might hurt the rest of us. That may be true, but I am going to use some of the tips they shared to save my family money. Sales cycles are roughly every 3months. If you see your favorite cereal on sale it will most likely not go on sale again for 3 months. If you change your thinking from a week to week or paycheck to paycheck budget and think yearly those sales can fill that hole in your pantry in one run to the store!
This is my shopping weekend. I am going to pick out a couple of items that are normally on my shopping list that have sales this weekend and see if I can get them using extreme couponing. Meaning I have several items that are on sale at CVS including the kids diapers. I am going to buy $25 of diapers and get $10 back. On top of that I am going to use coupons. That kind of deal doesn’t happen often with diapers. Also at Kmart they are having a $.50 off chicken sale. I always keep meat sales high on the list to look for.
When I use coupons wisely I can then buy several more items and put them into the pantry. This is a great way in a speedy fashion to beefy up your food pantry and supplies. Don’t buy just anything, only that which you will use!
I’ll let you know how the couponing goes!
I need to get stocked up on a bunch of things. Every time I go to the store I spend over a 100 and I still use coupons. What am I doing wrong?
Great idea!! I collect all my coupons from three Sunday papers. I sit and clip everything we use or could use to substitute for something else provided we will truly use it. I keep them all together. Before I shop, I make a list of what we need. I pull from my coupons the items that match my need. I do keep a stock if it’s a good staple item. Pasta, sauce, baking items, soups, canned foods, etc, cleaning supplies are bonus. But I’ve learned that hoarding drowns me in that it makes me feel very weighted down in my small house. Whatever supply I have needs to be cycled thru w/in 3 mos or it was an impulse buy and NOT needed. Truly with a large family, old-mother-Hubbard’s pantry, really starts to look bare in 3 weeks. It can be hard to have extra stock when there isn’t that much space. I do keep 23 cup containers that I stock with cereal, pasta, flours, basically dry goods.