My sister Kari has turned out to be quite the coupon guru, and was always trying to persuade me to start couponing up in Denver. To be sure, I've heard all the merits (saving money, a mental challenge, it's fun, it's kind of like a game...) but with Joe's long hours I was never able to shop without all 3 kids in tow. 3 kids + couponing = torture. I did the best I could, which was price matching at Wal-Mart (which still saves a decent amount without running yourself to all the stores in town), but now that we're in Pueblo Kari is pretty convinced we will be able to combine forces and coupon like MAD ladies. We'll see.
Today was my introduction, and I think I made a couple mistakes.
1) I took all 3 kids, like I said I wouldn't do.
2) I didn't take Kari, which I definitely SHOULD do
We live 3 blocks from Safeway, though, and Kari and I got together yesterday to swap some coupons so I had 3 coupons to use. I figured I could just walk there with the kids, get my 3 items, save myself some cash and head home - SIMPLE! Well, I had one win, one neutral, and one loss.
Win: 10 KoolAid packs for $1 (an unexpected sale), plus I had "buy 10 get 5 free" coupon, so I got 15 KoolAid packets for 50 cents! WIN! Another win: we had a nice walk and picked up trash on the way.
Neutral: I swear it was Safeway that advertised string cheese as BOGO Free, but I didn't bring the ad with me and inside the store it WAS on sale but WAS NOT buy-one-get-one. So I used my coupon, plus the sale price, and it was a decent deal but not what I'd thought I'd get.
Loss: Random coupon to buy any beef product and get $3.00 off a Dr. Pepper 12-Pack, advertised to be $3.39. Sweet! The loss was that I didn't notice (with 3 kids in tow) that you had to buy FOUR 12-packs, and I only bought ONE, which they jacked the price up to $6.29. I considered heading back through the store and picking up 3 more, "return" the one and buy 4 for the sale price, then asking them to re-apply the coupon... but did I mention the 3 kids? Today was not that day to make my coupon case. So I paid pretty much the same as the sale price and wasted an awesome coupon. BOO! See why I need Kari with me? Next time!
Please excuse the mess, we live here.
2 comments:
When I coupon I always have to make a SUPER specific list. Store/food/brand/sale price/number to buy/if I have a coupon or not. And I never take the kids. TOO HARD!
Oh no!! I'm so sorry about the Dr P! That's terrible. I don't always make super specific lists but I definitely don't take the kids because I spend like, an extra hour in the aisles looking through my coupons to make sure I have the right deal. We'll get better as time goes on. I'm thinking we should make it our Wednesday tradition to do the ads/couponing and then maybe Friday nights or something for the shopping. Again, sorry I led you astray on the DP. :(
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