I love coupons. In fact I rarely leave home on a shopping trip without a coupon in hand. I even attended an “Extreme Couponing” seminar with my sister-in-law last year and was impressed by the time and dedication some people are able to put into the collection and organization of couponing.
I tried the extreme couponing for a couple months. My husband was not happy with the amount of time I spent couponing each week. I cannot say that I blame him. I was spending a couple hours in front of the computer looking for specific coupons and where I could then locate them in my Sunday ads and then I spent even more time clipping said coupons and organizing them for my trip to the grocery store. It was a production of epic proportions.
I
finally sat back and asked myself “how much is my time worth?” Was I saving
enough money doing this extreme couponing to justify the amount of time and
effort I was putting in? The answer was no. While extreme couponing is not
something I am very good at, I do know people who are phenomenal at it. I am
envious of their ability to coupon so efficiently.
I still clip coupons out of the Sunday paper, but only the ones my family will use. I do not go overboard anymore with collecting a gazillion adds. Instead, I prefer to go online and use coupon codes and printable coupons whenever possible. I find that for my family online coupons are the way to go. They are easy to find and easy to use. I don’t spend hours looking through ads for one or two coupons that may or may not be there.
I have also found that there are a lot of great deals to be had
when shopping online and using promo codes. Who knew?!? The best part of online
shopping is that I can do it while my two little boys are happily playing with
their toys at home. I can shop in my pajamas with a cup of coffee in hand. I can
compare prices and coupons at my leisure. I am not stressed out with two
screaming children vying for my attention while trying to figure out the better
deal while simultaneously trying to keep my children from taking over whatever
store we happen to be in.
I clip in moderation, but I prefer to print {some places even
allow you to show them the coupon on your smart phone to receive the discount-
WOW} and I love coupon codes even more!
How do you coupon?
