Fight the Man! (Or the Lady?)

This post is being inspired by the best smelling money saving method that takes place in our house: the making of chicken stock.

This post also comes with a bit of a "warning", if you will. I discovered "The Krazy Coupon Lady"'s website, and I want to punch her. If you're an extreme couponer and reading this, then I'd assume that anything I bitch about from here on our won't pertain to you. If it does, well, then you deserve it!

The Krazy Coupon Lady's website provides some pretty specific instructions on how to become a crazy couponer, like herself. Here are some of the basics:

• No more weekly menu with its accompanying list of groceries to be purchased regardless of price
• You’ll be cooking according to what’s on sale.
•   You’ll be visiting multiple stores, saving from 50 to 90%.
• You’ll be shopping with coupons while a product is on sale and stocking up while it’s cheap or free.
•   You’ll eliminate those last minute trips to the store because everything you need will be right at your fingertip 

Okay. So that sounds basic enough. I'm a bit put off by not planning weekly menus...Also, once again, no mention to "oh, but it's okay to still buy vegetables" but who knows, maybe that comes later in the plan.
Step 2 of becoming a crazy coupon lady is acquiring said coupons. Her favorite method? Dumpster diving.
I don't think I have to say much about that. I find the idea of soccer moms digging through dumpsters more humorous than appalling. Did you use a coupon on those Talbot khakis? I hope so, because they're gettin' dirty.
By Day 4 in her couponing lesson, I've realized that she thinks herself a bit of a cult leader. I'll let it slide for now, we'll see if it gets any worse.
The rest of the days are pretty obvious. How to use a rain check, how to fight with store clerks, how to carry store policies around with you. Day 10 is how to become a faithful cult follower. Still, all of this is fine, I guess. I mean, what harm have cult leaders ever done to society? (it's hard to make blog posts sound sarcastic, so please, reread that in your sarcastic voice if need be)
But still, no vegetables. No mention of at least the importance of breaking your couponing habits to purchase the occasional fresh item. Now let us all hope that readers of this and other blogs are just wise enough to feed their kids something other than Tuna Helper, but people have sued over less. "I ate too much McDonalds because it's too good to stop eating". could sound a lot like "The krazy coupon lady didn't tell me to buy eggs"
I promise that I'm being over dramatic, I'm just SO put off by this. I mean, there is a part of me that has actual genuine concern over some less educated, struggling people who would let this get out of hand and end up with malnourished children (Again, sorry if that's offensive, but let us not pretend that we don't all know people like that) but most of me just thinks its so...I don't know. Maybe a word will come to be sometime and I can pin point my anger.
Let us also not forget to mention that Krazy Coupons Lady has lots of products that she's developed such as books, that you can spend YOUR money on to help her with her stockpile.
Okay enough of that. Let's get positive. The point of this blog was to try to develop ways that NON stockpilers could use to save money. For now, I'll just list some of the things Jared and I do, and in later posts, we'll delve into some of them.
1. Make things all by yourself. Jared apparently thinks baking bread is awesome. So beyond that fact that it may, in the long run, save money, he also finds joy in it. Same goes for stock. He's in carcass boiling heaven right now.
2. Food-save the hell out of shit. Now, I mentioned to Jared today to stop food saving EVERYTHING because there has to come a point when the price of what you're vacuum sealing in LESS than the cost of the vacuum sealer bag. We'll look into that someday, but for now, buying whole pork loins and cutting them ourselves is just another thing we like to do.
3. Go to multiple stores when you have time. Krazy Coupon Lady hates costco. Sorry, KCL (as she calls herself) but I fuckin' love Costco. My time is almost as important as money to me, and being able to buy large cases of macaroni and cheese and buckets of shampoo is awesome. We also LOVE the Strip District, for those of you fellow Pittsburghers. Wholey's has very great prices on fish and fresh meat. You can also get some dry goods and produce there...but one a warm day, you can walk up and down the street and get all sorts of wholesale deals.
4. Don't buy things just because you have a coupon. I'm still working on that. Totino's Pizza Stuffers are just gross.
5. GROUPON!!!!!
6. Stop spending quality time together if it costs you money. Haha. That's just a joke, but we're still working on how to feel like we do fun things now that we don't spend a lot of money. No more walks to get coffee. No more movies. No more nights at fancy restaurants or the casino. No...no we just watch TV and drink folgers.

Anyways, that's enough for now. But once again, another purpose of this blog is perhaps to get some discussions going on how to Fight The KCL and to come up with the more fun and interesting ways to save money, so comment on, my friend.

The Catch 22 of New Year's Resolutions

I promised a post grocery trip post, so here it is. As a warning, I'm in a pretty terrible mood so this may get ugly, but trying to navigate through Costco on the day of a Steeler's play off game is nearly impossible. Also, half of the Penguins line up is officially near death and as such, I am in a deep hockey induced depression.
For starters, let me whine about humans in general. I have a cell phone. I like it. It does fun things and I like to be able to google whatever I want, whenever I want, and to check Facebook on my smoke breaks. I DO NOT HOWEVER DRAG MY FEET WHILE IN PUBLIC, STARING AT MY PHONE WHILE RUNNING MY CART INTO UNSUSPECTING PEOPLE. These people are obnoxious, and after being in Costco for all of 15 seconds, I declared that I was ready to punch most of them. If your child cannot behave long enough while in public that you have to subdue them with loud video games, then leave them at home. In general, we all just want to get our large, bulk groceries and get out, so please people, don't make the experience any worse by being rude and inconsiderate.
Phew. Sorry but I just needed to get that off my chest!
Other than wanting to commit justifiable homicide, Costco was successful. We usually go there for toilet paper and paper towels...because we can get like a 3 month supply of each for pretty cheap. We tend to find a few other good deals while we're there too. Today we acquired coffee, soy sauce, a lifetime supply of macaroni and cheese, and 45,000lbs of lunch meat. oooo! Costco also had a totally awesome chest freezer for $170. Please expect that to be purchased, and hopefully soon.
Giant Eagle wasn't bad either. To be honest, all of the coupons that I attempted to use worked. I got a stock pile of razors for $16 (36 razors will last me a lifetime!) My inability to successfully coupon comes down to a few things:
1. I don't support a family of 62 and as such, I do not need a hoard of Hamburger Helper or Chef Boyardee.
2. Most of the time, I don't REALLY need any of the things that I find coupons for...so there's potential that I'm buying items that I wouldn't have bought without the coupon, and thus spending MORE money than I would have.
3. Last, the Catch 22...is it possible to buy HEALTHY items while saving money?? This, I am not sure of. I have 46 coupons for pizza rolls. Hows about a coupon for some quinoa, or broccoli, or ANYTHING that's perishable and not full of crap?

Now this is not a rant intended to blame anyone for this problem. I understand that people are going to buy carrots with or without coupons, so the carrot factory doesn't really need to put out coupons. This is purely a true question...IS it possible to eat healthy and save money?

On a completely unrelated note, Jared started baking bread. It was really quite delicious and cheap.


And on a completely other note, Jared apparently just stabbed himself in the hand while butchering a chicken...saving money is fun?

Beyond the Coupon: Other Money Saving Methods

So as I mentioned, coupons are still new and somewhat scary for Jared and I. But saving money is something that we've been trying to do for a while now, and have come up with a few things that have enabled us to still enjoy quality meals for a little less than what we're used to spending. For the most part, this involves large chunks of meat and a sharp knife.
For starters, it helps that Jared has an affinity for slicing steaks and dismembering chickens. So we started buying whole chickens, which frequently go on sale for like, $6-$7 a piece. We always buy 2. We take the first chicken and roast it off- roasted chicken is perhaps one of my most favorite foods. We eat what we want, and then shred the rest of the meat. We portion it out into about 3-4 bags and freeze it to be used later for chicken soup, stir fry, etc. Then we (by we I mean Jared) butchers the other chicken and we freeze the parts to roast/cook later. This mainly started due to my pure hatred of boneless chicken breast, which is seemingly always on sale, but does not taste better even having paid very little for it.
We moved on from chicken to pork, having found a full pork loin at Costco for like, $18. We got 2 roasts and nearly 16 chops from the loin. Cutting it yourself also allows for customized portions. 2 people don't need a roast that can feed an army. Also, different thicknesses of chops allow for different cooking methods, so we cut some thicker ones for stuffing and some thinner ones for frying.
Lastly, while we were at my parents' for the holidays, we were informed that meat prices are way way lower up in the great north. This allowed us to purchase a beautiful piece of beef for about $50. Seems pricey- sure. But we got about 8 gorgeous steaks out of it, plus a roast and some strips of meat for sandwiches, stir fry, etc.
Now I know this idea isn't rocket science; but its a start. As I said, it's actually something that we enjoy doing, and if we can save money while we're at it, then all the better.

Let me segway from that quickly to ask a quick question before I hit the hay. Does anyone know where to find some perhaps "rarer" coupons for perhaps some healthier items? As I mentioned in the first post, we're not the Hamburger Helper type and are having trouble finding coupons that pertain to us. So, suggestions welcome!

Day 1: Misadventures in Couponing

I'm a 26 year old, post college broke girl. I live with a 28 year old, post grad school broke boy. I manage a semi-famous bakery and he's a child therapist. On the surface, we appear to be somewhat successful, as we should be, each having spent a good portion of our lives in post-high school education programs at reputable schools. We live in an upscale, Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh in a decent apartment and drive dependable and presentable cars. We (generally) wear clean and acceptable clothing and even shower regularly. We look like pretty decent folks.

We are, however, broke as hell.

College is expensive. Apartments and cars and clothes and shoes and food are all expensive. Beer is expensive. Each of us have spent most of our adult lives with a steady job, even while in college. But we both paid for college with quick and easy loans and used our lucrative minimum wage jobs to pay for beer.

Now, we're broke.

So, this year I decided that one of our, numerous, New Year's resolutions was to begin being super-thrifty. This has resulted in the following actions:

1. Buying in bulk, especially meat (Santa brought us a food saver!)

2. Saving up to purchase a freezer so we can hoard even MORE meat.

3. Learning to cook and bake things that are cheaper to make for ourselves: (stock, bread, etc)

4. And last but certainly not least: COUPONING

Now I understand that there are many blogs out there about being thrifty and especially about this new fad called extreme couponing. But let's get one thing straight: we're not about to start constructing shelves in the basement and stockpiling canned goods. This is about 2 average mid twenties "professionals" who just need to save a few bucks every week while still eating more than boxed dinners, which is usually the kind of things acquired by coupons. Also, it's just the two of us, so there's no need for deals on diapers and baby formula.

Just two kids who are broke and would like to bill collectors to call just a little less.

So now on to Day 1 of our couponing adventure.

I stayed up late last night clipping away. I read a few other blogs written by couponing stay at home moms and found some web sites with printable coupons. I signed up for more news letters than I can remember. And I probably spent more money on printer paper and ink than I will actually ever save by using coupons!

Anyways, I felt pretty great about it this morning. And this afternoon, I got back online and checked my local grocery stores flyer...because the extremists tell me to use my coupons on items that are already on sale as to maximize my savings. I compiled a short list of about 7 items that were both on sale and that I had a coupon for.

I was pretty proud of myself, and I have to admit, I was very excited. I explained to Jared when I first discussed this whole idea with him that I was going to probably get a little out of hand with it, at least in the beginning, but only so that it felt fun to me. I wanted saving money and being broke to be like a game where saving money meant that we "won" and this being poor would feel less, well, lame. I told him that after our first coupon-toting grocery trip, I was going to keep the receipt and keep records of how much we had saved. I was going to be mega-organized about this whole thing.

So we go to the store...walking, mind you, in the cold dead of winter, bundled up and probably looking somewhat homeless. It is also important to note that I absolutely despise carrying...ANYTHING, and as such always have a very large messenger bag with me in order to put groceries in so that I can get away with not holding any bags. This helps with the homeless look I was going for.

Here was the intended plan:

1. Venus Razor on sale for $6.99...coupon for Razor+1 pack of cartridges for $5 off

2. 8 0'Clock Coffee on sale for $4.99...coupon for $1 off.

3. Pizza Rolls and Pizza "stuffers" on sale for 3 for $10...(3) coupons for $1 off each

4. General Mills Cereals on sale 3/$10...coupon for $1 off of 2 boxes

5. Johnsonville Pork Sausage on sale for $3.99...coupon for $1 off

6. Always Infinity Pads on sale for $4.29, coupon for $2 off.

Pretty good plan, eh? Sounded good, and I was pumped. Mega pumped. So pumped that I walked through the snow to make it happen. But of course, it couldn't just be that easy.

First off, I totally forgot the coffee coupon, so screw that one. I'll take the fall for that. Next - the cereal. Advertised online for 3/$10...in store only advertised as 2/$10. Me being shy and unwilling to make trouble, did not ask for verification from any store employees and gave up on that deal pretty quickly. On to the razor...even for $5 off, I couldn't commit to buying a razor that without a coupon, would cost me $15 every time I needed refills. It's winter; I don't need no stinkin' fancy razor. Pizza Rolls/Pizza Stuffers seemed promising at first, until I realized that the box size on sale and the box size on the coupon did not in fact match for the pizza rolls; so we grabbed 2 boxes of pizza stuffers, both of which I had a coupon for. The maxi pads were easy enough, but mostly because I  actually had like, 10 coupons for them and thus just had to pick any of the ones in the store and I was sure to find a coupon to match up. Lastly were the sausages...and not to poke fun, but finding pork sausage in the jewish-based community grocery store is not always an easy task. So of course the ones that they DID have were not the ones that I had a coupon for, so no pork for us.

I was still feeling optimistic when we got to the check out...I had about 5 coupons that I was able to match up with their corresponding products and that was 5 more coupons than I had used all of last year, so there was a small victory in of itself.

Groceries get scanned. Advantage card gets scanned. I hand over the coupons.

First one, success.

Second one, also success.

The rest all failed. Who knows why; the very intellegent and aware (can we sense any sarcasm there?) cashier was of course unable to tell me. Something about them not accepting all coupons from the internet...blah blah...and of COURSE she had to ask about 6,000 other employees if they knew how to take the coupons. Meanwhile here we are, two broke kids, looking homeless and holding up the line so that we can get $1 off of some frozen processed pizza crap.

And even after the parade of employees, they ended up only accepting 1 of our 2 pizza coupons, even though they looked the exact same to me.

All in all, I think that we saved about $6 with the coupons.

I will accept that as another small victory.

The moral of this long winded story is that I have not given up hope; I will continue to go forth and coupon. But I am interested if anyone out there in the coupon clipping community has run into such problems with coupons that are clipped from online sources. I think that next trip will begin at the service desk and I shall present my coupons for inspection prior to running around the store trying to find their respective products.

Until then, I will try not to lose hope in the power of coupons and their ability to save me some mulla. I will continue to write about my adventures in hope that it, too, will inspire me to keep up with my clipping. 

But for now, please excuse me while I go microwave some frozen processed pizza.