Couponing (or non-couponing)

A post to help all the well-meaning couponers who don’t quite coupon feel better 🙂

I try to coupon.

But I’m really BAD at it!

It kind of goes in spurts.  The problem is, that unless I can find staple food items for next to free, it isn’t worth the time at least for a large family. (in my opinion of course, for some, it totally works for them)

My biggest problem:

most coupons come from the paper!

and by the time I buy the paper, spend the time organzing the coupons, finding the deals, and dragging my kids around the store – all while trying to keep the toddler from eating the coupons

(“Hang on a second ma’am while I get him to cough up that last coupon.”),

I would have been better off making a batch of

spaghetti from scratch.

I’ll admit to snagging copious boxes of pasta for free or nearly free – those I can use in grand quantities (I consider pasta a staple), but prepared sauce?

Phooey.

I throw in a few cheapy cans of tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, a smidge of hamburger (if there is any hiding in the freezer), a few canned olives and mushrooms, scatter some herbs about and

Voila!

The yummiest cheapest sauce ever.

See, I think 6 is a lot of kids. I know there are lots of people out there with more. But six is still a good handful to juggle. We don’t do prepared foods. Not so much because their not as healthy, but because the quantity is so

SMALL!

I remember sitting in a couponing class and the lady held up this little box of Uncle Ben’s rice and waved it around. All I could think of was,

“You know HOW many boxes it would take to feed my family???”

All of my kids eat like teenage boys!

Ok, well My 12 year-old girl has a somewhat tamed appetite – she’ll only eat half a dozen pancakes or 2 sandwiches, and the 1-year-old only eats like an undergrown teenager, but my others –

wowee!

My 6 year old son must consume two times his body weight in food! He  easily ate a dozen home-made (non-mix) pancakes the other day!

If he doesn’t at least get seconds he’s devasted. No matter how much he had for firsts.

He’s like a hobbit.

“But what about secondsies???” 

By the time he gets to his fourth or fifth helping I’m putting the food away and he’s wailing, with sauce dripping down his chin and noodles bobbing at the corners of his mouth,

“But I’m starving, Mom!” 

All I can do is stare at him, trying to figure out where it all goes.

When he’s done his stomach isn’t protruding, his eyeballs aren’t popping out, he’s not waddling away from the table. He looks just like he did before! I think he’s hollow.  All the food just flows into his arms and legs – maybe that’s where all those six-year-old decisions come from –

his brain is full of spaghetti noodles!

Anyway, I love the idea of couponing. I love walking out of a store knowing I got the deal of the day! But, I’ll stick to the websites that tell me what the deals are AND the online coupons.

However, until I am convinced that I really and truly can save more with coupons than I can making most things from scratch,

(using humongous pots and pans that you could use for a baby crib) 

I will continue to be the non-couponing coupon shopper, who coupons on special occasions for extremely spectacular deals.

I may not save as much money as the next person, but I have more time with my kids this way, and more time to edit and work on my writing, and even a little time for writing silly blog posts! 😛