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
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.