"You will go broke saving money!"

"You will go broke saving money!" "If you stockpile it's not saving money." "You are only buying into corporate America's trap when you use coupons."

How many of you have heard all of this baloney above when someone finds out you are using coupons?

I grocery shop for my best friend every week. She buys her produce and I think her meat because that is kind of a personal thing for her and she worries it would be too much on me to try and pick out even more stuff. If I am able to get enough money saved by next spring I am going to try and talk her into joining a CSA with me but that's another subject!
People are so nosy - aren't they? They have the most interesting things to say about the arrangement she and I have. Even more interesting though . . . they have quite bizzare thoughts about couponing.

I just read this article here and I am inspired to write a little about this.

This particular author has multiple hangups about using coupons that she shares in her article on why using coupons cost people money...

Don't Stock Up

This author says that it is ineffective to stockup or stockpile. I disagree. Check out my pull ups stock at the top of this entry. I have 8 bags of pull ups there. I paid less than $4 a pack for those. The regular cost for them is roughly $9.77 a pack. I bought them over time and slowly built my stock. (I actually have 14 bags now.) On those 14 packs of pull ups I have spent $56.00. If I did this the "normal" way I would have spent $136.78 or 59% more than I did.

You can see other bits and pieces of my stockpile here. It is stored nice and neat and I know where everything is. I bet I know better what is in my cabinet than most people do. The Nivea bodywash you see stored on my shelf above is scattered in the picture but I now have it all nice and snug together. I believe I have 14 bottles. (What's with the number 14?!) It is my very favorite body wash. FAVORITE. It is seldom on Sale. It was on sale at Walgreens in April and then again this past July at Kroger. When you average out what I paid for all of those bottles it comes to $1.25 per bottle. Now I don't have to worry about bodywash for probably a year. That is one expense I just don't have. And I can probably afford to give some of my FAVORITE away.

Now if you do like she apparently did where she bought a bunch of stuff, didn't store it properly and forgot she had it then YES that is incorrect! If you are stock piling like the photo to the left here then we need to talk about your organizational skills :)

Coupons Aren't There to Save You Money

Honestly? I don't care WHY they are there. The writer of the other article believes that coupons are there to get you "Addicted" to the name brand where you can't go back to store brand. That's fine, believe whatever you want. As long as the manufacturers and stores keep putting coupons out I will totally continue to use them. :) The coupons are there to draw you to the manufacturers product. I am the worst kind of consumer. I have brands of items that i prefer but if I can't get that brand or there is another brand on sale instead that i can get for free - I just jump ship and jump right on in with the other manufacturer.

Sales Can Be Dangerous

Of course they can! But here is the pitfall that I fall into: Sometimes I *DO* buy too much because i have my head in the clouds or my children are screaming. I don't overbuy to the point she is talking but once in a while I do make the mistake of buying a few too many boxes of something. If the coupon/sale combo makes the item free and i can donate any extras I will use ALL coupons I have in my possession. If the item costs more than pennies or is a frozen item or deli meat or something - i'm probably not going to go wild.

Basically I guess what I am taking 9 years to say here is to coupon responsibly. Don't buy more than you can use. Know your limits and stick to them.

Final words of advice:

Don't react to the detractors. It's not worth your time or your energy to try to tear down everything they say. If you think you might be falling into the pit this lady wrote about then please ask for help. Email me or leave a comment on my blog. all comments are moderated and if you say in the comment you don't want it published i'll just delete it after I read it & email you or whatever to help you.

With Joy,

Carol