The Coupon Experiment

Something has been bothering me.  I’m attracted to the real food movement and have been was making progress eating more real food.  I try not to eat processed foods and have been limiting packaged powders.  I was getting good at grocery shopping and finally staying either in or close to our budget.  Then something happened.  I’ve read quite a few blogger’s out there get their groceries for a little bit of nothing thanks to coupons and rebates and this intrigued me.  I subscribed to the Sunday paper for $7 per month to get coupons.  If it didn’t work out, I could easily cancel.  Here’s how it went…

Week #1: Wow!  I saved $10 on groceries!  Crap – I just spent double our budget.

Week #2: Wow!  I saved $13 on groceries!  Crap – I just spent double our budget, again.

Week #3: Wow!  I saved $16 on groceries!  Crap – I just spent almost double our budget.  The real food is disappearing from our cart

Week #4: Wow! I saved $30 on groceries and only went a little over budget!  Cart filled with processed foods

At this point I feel like I fell into a trap.  It’s winter in Iowa and there are no markets around here.  The nearest grocer that sells a decent supply of locally grown meats and organic produce is one hour away.  We need to save money and I actually ended up spending more, not just monetarily, but with our health as well.  In the last month, even though we watched what we ate during the holidays, D and I have both gained weight.  Our cabinets are getting more and more full, leading us to snack on, guess what, crap foods throughout the day.  At this point, I feel stuffed and upset to my stomach.  I blame the cereal and HFCS-laden white bread.

Week #5: Well, we’re stocked up on canned soups, fruits, and veggies.  We also have plenty of powdered cake, pancake, and cupcake mixes as well as cereal.  We did buy quite a bit more fresh produce than usual due to the store’s 80th anniversary sale.  We ended up $5 under budget and saving 25% off of our total bill due to the coupons.  Saving money makes D really happy.

I had worked out a system and kept a budget and was purchasing real food before all this couponing business.  Now we’re so into clipping, we have a stockpile of “Q’s”  that we can dig through and use without going over budget.  I’m feeling much better this week and am thinking of a plan to get more good food back into the cupboards.

I have found that many whole food producers do actually have coupons!  Many I can’t use around here, but my grocer does carry a few products.  Some whole foods retailers give away copies of magazines that have coupons in them or even coupon books!  I already have plans for a garden around our fire pit.  I have some herbs, garlic, a grapevine, and rhubarb planted around the house – that was my first step last year ~ edible landscaping!.  This year I’ll be adding some veggies and another grapevine.

See the next page to see how I’m going to save money on real food…

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