Couponing

I’ve always been a coupon shopper, if the coupon applied to something I used regularly, and if the coupon was in the Sunday paper to clip.  Never went out of my way to find a sale or to look for a coupon.  Now I’ve changed my mind.  I’m not an “extreme” couponer, not “semi-extreme”, not even a tiny bit “extreme”.  This week I saved $41.00.  That’s not enough to get a mention, but it sure excited me.  My plan is to each week save a larger amount until I retire and then I’m kicking into gear.

Watching the Extreme Couponer show on TV makes me twitch.  Where would I store 12 cases of toilet paper?  Who has room for 75 jars of mustard?  We don’t eat enough salad in a year for 36 bottles of salad dressing. The shoppers on that show have bunkers full of food.  If we had to deal with nuclear fallout, these people could live forever in their bomb shelters full of canned vegetables. I have sweaters and shoes under my beds, no room for cases of canned peaches and shampoo.

 When the scare of the New Millennium came 12 years ago, I started to hoard food in the basement.  Some soup, a few vegetables, canned ham, and of course dark chocolate. (What would a new Millennium be without dark chocolate?)  Then the New Year rang in, the ATMs still worked, my computer was still computing, automatic doors unlocked and cash registers continued to take my cash.  I was saved.  Then I forgot about the hoarded food in the basement.  My dear husband, Randy, who seldom questions what I do, came up from the basement last week, to announce that had he had decided we were not going to starve during this 100 years and he’d thrown out all of my millennium stash.  The dates had expired.  The stuff in the jars looked like failed 4-H projects.  Wise decision.

Now I read every week in the Patch.  She ferrets out the best local deals and in addition provides links to even better coupons.  Of course now I belong to an internet club for just about every consumable in the world.  However, I’ve set up an e-mail address for my coupon sites only and I don’t get annoyed with constant coupon messages.  I can look at them at my convenience and delete them when I want.

So as I’m reading through the ads this week and coming up with menus that match the ads, I got the feeling that I was on the TV show “Chopped”.  Each week four contestants are given mystery baskets of food and asked to prepare an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert using the products in the baskets.  Plus they have access to an amazing pantry.  I told my dear husband that we’re going to play our own version of Chopped.  We’ll start buying ONLY products that are on sale, even if we’ve never heard of them and we’ll make up our own recipes using only the sale products.  What a great plan!  And, check out the calendar…. It’s Cinco de Mayo!  Look at the ads……Taco dinner kit, Buy 1 get 1 free.  Salsa, buy 1 get 1 free.  Refried beans 4 for $5.  It’s a hit.  Celebrate Cinco de Mayo and eat cheap. 

Next week it may not be as easy.  There may be things I’ve never used, but we’re pretty adventurous when it comes to tasting new things.  I can see a big, brave world of dinners using only the ads.  A veritable plethora of exotic recipes.  I’m excited.  However, I’m going to stop now and look for a Margarita sale.  I’m sure there’s a coupon out there somewhere.