When I was a kid my parents basically tortured us by setting up a mini sweatshop in our house. Our job was to take the five or six Sunday papers my dad brought home and lay out all the coupon pages in a row and then staple the pages together so that all the same coupons were in a group and then we would cut them out. Then we would file them in the little Tupperware box my mom always took with her to the grocery store. Often, she would take one or all five of us kids and have us stand in line behind her with identical carts when there was a limit to how much you could buy in one purchase. We often had shopping trips where we paid a few dollars for a whole cart of groceries, and we had a few memorable times where the grocery store actually owed us money when we were done. It was a pain (even though I secretly enjoyed the lining up and cutting of the coupons because I am sort of a dork).
The whole thing seems a little crazy to me because if you are really serious about it then it can consume your life. You end up with like ten things of Mayo that you paid like two cents for but who really needs that many things of Mayo. Nate and I don't really have room for food storage and we move so much that it wouldn't be worth it to haul around ten things of Mayo. However, somehow we drink about five gallons of milk per week. It sounds crazy but I would say that at least a fourth of my caloric intake in a day is consumed in milk. I just really like it, and Nate really likes chocolate milk (being the big strong growing lawyer that he is).
Last week I got a tip from my friend here in Boise, who knows the ridiculous quantities of milk I consume, that Milk was on sale at Alberson's for like $1.46 a gallon or something with preferred card. Then there was a coupon on coupons.com for 75 cents off any milk AND the Alberson's ad had a coupon doubler that week. Then when we went to the store there was a special where if you bought three boxes of General Mills Cereal at $2.50 for the big box, then you got $4.50 off your next total milk purchase. Somehow with all that we walked out of the store with five gallons of milk for $1.23 total, not each. I'm sure if I knew how to work the system better I could have gotten them for less but I'm new at this. I'm also sure that if my mom read my blog she would be proud. If anyone has any tips on couponing bring them on. I may be a couponer after all.
