In a rare situation, where I had the remote, and
Justin was complacent enough to not fight me for it, I watched Extreme
Couponing. As usual with any program I
watch, he first bitched about how dumb
it was while rolling his eyes like the drama queen he can be when he has to
watch anything I want to watch. (Or when
he can't change between 7 channels during every commercial.) Have you ever seen a man in work boots, with rough hands blackened from working with oil, acting like a diva?? It's quite funny!
After a while, he started seeing the people saving
money and he got interested in the show.
You have to understand that Justin has an odd relationship with
money. He will go into Wal-Mart and
spend $300 without blinking an eye. Yet
at the grocery store, we seriously fight, every time. It always turns into a fight about how much
we spent and how we cannot afford to do this.
(But we can afford to buy fishing gear, random paint/primers, etc for
"projects" that will never even get started nevermind finished, at Wal-Mart
or even worse, a store with tools)
There's really no logic. The cost
of food just disturbs him and gets him all angry and upset. Again, some things it doesn't cross his mind
to waste money on, yet other things get him all fired up. And he's like an old man when it comes to savings,
really cheap items, sales, or heaven forbid....something free. (It's disturbing and I've pretended to not
know him during these times in public.)
Anyway, after watching the show, he decides that I
am now in charge of getting coupons and getting all our groceries for free. (Me, really??!! I'm so lucky!)
I explain to
him a few key issues he's missing from
watching the show:
- 1. The coupon policies are different in every state and every store
- 2. I have a fucking life and don't want to pick through garbage bags on Sunday mornings to find thrown away coupons
- 3. We don't have the cabinet space for the food we actually need, never mind a stockpile.
- 4. These people never have full meals in their carts. Or things to make full meals. Yay. 50 jars of mustard, 42 tubes of toothpaste, 23 boxes of oatmeal, and 67 jars of pickles! Dinner will be awesome this week! Look at all the options! Call me crazy, but I like meat or vegetables thrown in with my mustard/toothpaste/oatmeal mix.
After he nags a bit longer, I buy a paper one
Sunday, look through the coupons versus what's on sale and what we actually BUY
AND USE, and find 2 coupons that will be useful. We are buying a mansion with these savings, I
can feel it!
Don't get me wrong, I understand that you can save
money. I know that you don't have to
devote your entire life to it, and any extra money does help. But I will not go to that extreme and I also know that we will not be getting money back from the grocery store every time we go there.
He whines a bit about how they do it on tv, and blah
blah blah. Then, he decides to be a bit more
reasonable, and says I have to save $100/week with coupons. I tell him he's
being unreasonable, but really I don't care because I'm ignoring him for the
most part. He does have a slight point
when he mentions that since I don't actually work, I have time to do this and I
should. Blah blah blah....fine. I'll do it "soon."
That was over 3 months ago.
He still brings up the issue occasionally, and I
still swear I will look into 'this week.'
Finally, I decide that if I had a wireless printer, I could easily look
for coupons and print them while being parked on my cozy couch. So off I go to buy a new printer. It's a jazzy little combo with scan/fax/copy
and wireless! Woo Hoo. And I had a $50 rebate from buying my
computer, so I only spent about $30 buying my very needed printer. Obviously, when he came home, he didn't
appreciate the printer nearly enough and he told me I was to "return that
thing immediately." I knew this
would happen (and hello I bought it with MY MONEY!), so I had planned
ahead. I hooked it all up, and wandered
the internet looking for coupons for products that we actually buy. I had found a good amount, so after he got
over his rant, I showed him all the 'money' I found and how this printer was
really the reason. He eventually got
over the printer, and that was that.
I was so proud of my coupon findings that I picked
up the Price Chopper ad that we'd had kickin' around for a few days and started
matching up coupons with what was on sale.
I made a neat little list (I love making lists!) and marked which I had
coupons for so I'd be "orgnized."
I then begged, pleaded, nagged, and pretty much forced Justin to come to
Price Chopper immediately so we could go save! This was last Friday.
I wait forever to get a Price Chopper
"card" due to one of those god awful "lottery ladies" holding
up everything. My first "buy"
was coke 12 packs, 4 for $11 with the coupon I had from the ad.
But it said, "3/$12." I
just thought I read it wrong and carried on.
I found a few more things that were "on sale" but not
marked. It was around aisle 7 when I
realized my error. The flyer started the
next day. OOPS. Worse than that was that I had to now tell Justin
this....he does not take it well as I forced him to the store because I was
'nervous about couponing for the first time and it was HIS idea!" (Yes, I used that in my appeal to get him to
come.)
So that didn't end well. Luckily they had some things that overlapped,
so we got a few savings. A very
few. Like $3.50. Woo Hoo.
But I check my coupons now. I have a pretty good idea of what I have in
my little coupon purse, so when making a list, I know if I can save extra
money. I went back today. I never go alone, because as I mentioned, the
grocery prices cause anger from Justin and when I go alone, I get 20 questions
over everything I bought and how I spent so much. Plus, I get distracted easily in the grocery
store and seem to think I'm Betty Crocker and am going to cook amazing home
cooked food 3 meals a day. I tend to buy
things "you should have" just in case....cooking wine, heavy cream,
chicken stock, baking powder being examples.
(In my defense, I have a used few of these things once!)
I decided to go alone and before Justin left for
work I tell him about my plan. He gives
me an $80 budget. I explain that we
haven't been "real" grocery shopping in quite some time. (And I spend $80 going to buy a few quick
things!) He ups my 'allowance' to $140,
then tops off at $160. I'm happy with
that. I can do that. Or I can try like hell. I have coupons dammit! I have a list that I
will not stray from. I know what's on
sale! As I leave the house I grab $300 extra...just in case.
And away I go...I get a bit confused...I mean, the
store brand is technically cheaper, even with the coupon usually and that's
what I usually buy. So now what? I decide to buy name brand stuff, with my
coupon. Some items are on sale and I
have a coupon. I'm so proud. I double check my coupons throughout the
stores, making sure I got the right size and quantities. I'm awesome!
Then I get confused again because I can't do math....but we eat yogurt. A lot of it.
And only Yoplait, except when
Justin gets that greek shit. Yoplait is on
sale and I have a coupon for it. Two
actually! One is for .40 off 6, one is
for .50 off 8. Hmm...which is better? Common sense to most people, but I'm not
sure, and I wonder if they may be equal?
I do the obvious thing, and text Michelle because she can do math and
she explains. All is good. But I end up buying 8 yogurts, so there is a
week's worth and use that one anyway.
Anyhoo...it's a learning process for me.
Off to the checkout I go. My coupons are out, my little card is ready,
and away we go. I watch and get a little
antsy over the ever rising total. Then I
hand in my coupons, and my card. And
poof....the total is $151.81! I'M BELOW
MY BUDGET AT THE GROCERY STORE!!!!!!!
Justin will be so proud! I saved
almost $30 with my coupons and card and got .40 off each gallon of gas. (I think this is good for my first time...and buying only things we actually USE AND NEED!)
I was so excited.
I texted Justin right away to share my great news. An hour passes and I don't hear from
him. I call to ask why he didn't
respond. He hadn't looked at his
phone. So I explain it all to
him....what I bought, how my coupon worked, what it was on sale for, etc. He's driving, so I know he can listen. He says good job! I tell him that if I did so good he should
bring me a bottle of Patron home as a present.
(Thus defeating the savings, but oh well....we'd have gotten it anyway,
so it's a wash)
Halfway through my savings story, I'm cut off....
"I have to go honey, I'm driving. I will talk to you later. Love you."
Click.
And that's all I got. He said he was proud, got bored of listening
to the fact that I, ME, LORIANN, did what somebody told her to do. And he hung up.
Ungrateful is what I would say....jerk! I'm burning all my coupons!!!!!! See what he says next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment