My New Obsession

Feb 10, 2010 by Basha   Posted under: Coupons, Saving Money

So the last few months I’ve been working on an experiment. It started off as just curiosity, developed into a moderate interest and now is officially an obsession. Here’s how it started:

I was oneline this past fall when I came across a video clip, from Good Morning America, about a woman who feeds a family of 6 on $4 a week. This began the curiosity stage.

The video was of her shopping at a grocery store, showing how she was able to pay so little for so much. It was fascinating. I mean, she had an entire shopping cart filled with groceries and household items. When it came time to check out, her total came to $267.23. Can you guess what she ended up paying after all her coupons were scanned? A penny. Seriously, 1¢! I was hooked.

She has a website, which I immediately went to. I ended up staying up half the night reading through the forums, following links, and inhaling all the information I could about how to save so much money at the store. It turns out that couponing (I love that it’s a verb) is huge. There are dozens and dozens of websites out there about how to save money, where to find the sales, where to find coupons, how to match coupons, how to get and use EBCs and RRs and SRCs. It was a wild night. I didn’t know what most of it meant but I couldn’t get enough.

In the beginning, I was happy to just read about it. It was kind of like watching a game show – I was enjoying sitting back and watching other people play. Until…

One rainy Sunday I decided to take the entire day off (a rarity and real treat for me) to see what kind of magic I could work at Rite Aid and CVS. I had coupons from the Sunday paper, I had the weekly circulars, I had 25 websites bookmarked on pages matching up coupons and items at both these stores. I even researched how to set up a spreadsheet for my shopping list. I thought it would be fairly easy, seeing as how I knew the lingo, had lists of deals other people found and only had two stores to go to.

However, I found out that Sunday why a verb is used to describe shopping with coupons like this. It’s exhausting! Six hours after I started, I finished my shopping list spreadsheets, had all my coupons in order and headed out to see if I could really pull it off.

My first stop was Rite Aid. My total was $20.47 before coupons and after coupons I paid (drum roll please) $3.23! And, it was stuff I needed! CVS I ended up paying $4.50 for $15.10 worth of stuff. It was crazy! I felt like I had just bungee jumped or something. I haven’t been the same since this shopping trip. I’m obsessed now. It’s like a treasure hunt. There are clues and hints and trails you have to follow which will, if you put them together well, lead you to amazing savings and an endorphin rush. This is not Grandma’s coupon clipping. This is a sport.

Since then, I have become a compulsive couponer.  I am constantly scanning the internet for deals, I subscribe to RSS feeds on big couponing sites, I comb through weekly circulars, research rebates and unadvertised savings, clip coupons from the paper, search for coupons online and have turned into a pretty good shopper.

My new hobby isn’t glamorous or even that interesting to people other than my sister in law (she loves the couponing rush too), but it’s fun, it’s relaxing and it’s saving me a lot of money. Going through a career change this past year and a half has been wonderful and scary and has changed my lifestyle considerably.

In exchange for taking a chance on something new, I traded in being able to do pretty much what I wanted to do to not being able to do much of anything that wasn’t free. It’s been a great exercise in appreciating what I have and not wanting things I don’t actually need. As silly as couponing may sound, it is this activity that has provided me a way to do a little more than I would have been able to otherwise and has helped me to truly see the value of a dollar. Every bit that I save at the store allows me to invest a little more in my work and in my future.

Plus it’s wicked fun.

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