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TagsBY PAM LOBLEY
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
NOW THAT'S FUNNY
Do you cut coupons? I do. Most of the grocery stores double them these days, so you can easily save $1.50 on some hot dog buns or yogurt. I like that.
But like everything else in our culture today, coupon use has gone extreme. The experts are writing books, creating websites and doing segments on TV talk shows, all telling you how to save BIG money with coupons. Did you know, with just a little planning and some vigilant coupon hunting, you can feed your family for a week on just $16 and the lint in your pocket?
I wanted to try this. I spend at least $150 a week at ShopRite, so if I could save just $20 a week that would be huge. The first piece of advice is to plan your shopping list around what coupons you have. I hit the Sunday circulars and start clipping. Based on those coupons, tonight's meal will be planned around Butterball Turkey Links and Ken's Creamy Caesar Dressing. Tomorrow will be Cheesy Pepper Jack Tornados (some kind of frozen burrito deal) and Yoplait. Wednesday night is Windex.
Another tip is to buy items when they're on sale, and then stock up. So, if you have a coupon for chicken soup, and it goes on sale, buy three or four cans at that terrifically low rate. You saved a ton of money! Then you can eat that damn soup all week whether you like it or not.It's a great theory, stocking up, but having kids just blows it out of the water. My oldest son tried some kind of fruit snack a few years ago. He loved it and wanted to eat those little packages every day. I promptly went out and bought the cheaper, bulk size at Costco. Two days later he decided he didn't like them anymore. Six months later I ended up donating the packages to his preschool for snack time. The teacher just nodded and gave me the "I see you bought in bulk and now your kid doesn't like it" look.
Coupon bargains can be just an excuse for hoarding. On one of the talk shows, I saw this guy -- not even a housewife mind you, just a single guy in his twenties -- who had become so obsessed with savings and freebies that he had managed to amass a year's supply of toilet paper and paper towels for about three dollars. He had it stacked on flats in his garage. Apparently he paid cash for a couple of rolls and then, because he had so many coupons, he qualified for roll after roll of free paper. The guy lives at home with his parents. Big surprise.
It's not enough to clip the coupons. You have to know how to use them. You have to organize them in a little zippered folder. You have to keep a mental calculation running while you shop as to the size of the product, price per serving, and in-store specials. This is a problem for me. First of all, I'm already grocery shopping, which I'm not crazy about. I don't want to be doing algebra at the same time. Secondly, my number one goal is to feed my family healthy food, and the in-store specials are usually on the junk. Special K? Never on special. Corn Pops? On special almost every week.
One tip I could really follow is to use everything up you already have. I need to be better about this. I have thrown out soggy zucchini more times than I want to admit. To that end, I'm going to try a recipe with stuff I need to use up from my pantry. I have some sweet pickled gherkins, half a bag of egg noodles, a couple of Slim Jims and some low calorie maple syrup I bought by mistake. Sure, it'll be disgusting, but it's just 12 cents a serving. Let's eat!
Pam Lobley writes the "Now That's Funny" column. Sign up for her mailing list at www.pamlobley.com.
