Empty Fridge?

How not to shop…

I once shopped with a neighbor/relative who had some car trouble and needed a ride to the store. She had a food stamp budget of $600 for the month for a household with 6 people. The youngest child was an infant whose needs were taken care of with the WIC program. The other three children were in school. They received free breakfast and lunch there through the week. The other adult in the house worked and ate out five days per week. This was a month where there were no vacations from school, so let’s tally up the meals she was going to prepare, shall we?

Dinner for 2 adults, 4 children x 31

Lunch for 2 adults, 4 children on weekends x 8

Breakfast for 2 adults, 4 children on weekends x 8

Lunch for herself and 1 infant on weekdays x 20

67 meals to prepare for. She’s got $9 per meal to spend here, which I think is awfully generous considering that 20 of these meals are just herself and a baby. One could spend $15 per dinner meal and still have $135 leftover for cereal and lunch meat and bread for breakfast and lunches and eat really, really well.

This family, however, did not eat really well. They did not even eat decent. To be honest, they often ran out of food and had ‘borrow’ things from my house, or spend more money on food.

The reason? My sister-in-law could not plan ahead. She bought crap. She lacked the ability to see that food was a necessity every.single.day. I joke with my kids when they tell me they are hungry. I sometimes respond, “Didn’t I just feed you yesterday?” They get to laugh along because they know they aren’t going to go without a meal. Some kids don’t get that joke because the adults in their world can’t plan past today.

You can easily assume that the house was void of food when the first of the month rolled around when we did this shopping. I didn’t use coupons back then, but I had a strict weekly budget (I didn’t have food stamps) and lived tightly within it.

The first stop in the store was at a display with Pepsi two-liter bottles for .59. This was quite a loss leader! The limit was 10, so I piled 10 into my cart. My sister-in-law looked horrified. For a brief moment I thought that maybe she had a much healthier household than mine, but then I remembered that in fact, drank Pepsi. I had looked after her children while she ran to buy some in the past, as well as picked up some for her when I ran to the store. She made Pepsi runs all the time. She placed one in her cart.

It was my turn to be horrified. One? Really? When I asked her if she’d read the sign that said .59, just to be sure. She nodded. I quickly explained that this was going to be like a 3-4 week Pepsi supply for our house.  I didn’t quite understand, but we moved on.

We walked down the cereal aisle and I was thrilled to find store brand cereal on sale for $1. One dollar per box! Oh, this was awesome! The limit was 10, so I bought 10. I had store brand crisp rice to make cereal bar treats, store brand chex to make snack mix, and several boxes of my son’s then-favorite, which were the generic version of Cocoa Puffs. I would be set on cereal for weeks to come, plus, I was a bag of marshmallows and a bag of pretzels away from a few low-cost treats.

My neighbor asked her six year old son which box of cereal he’d like. He chose Lucky Charms. She tossed one single box into the cart. Small box, not on sale, $3. I quietly pointed out to her that for the $3, she could get 3 boxes of the store brand Lucky Charms and have enough to last a while. She didn’t really say anything, but I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes at me behind my back. I took the mental note that not everyone appreciates the store brand. I can respect that, though I can’t wrap my mind around why, with this many children, there was only a single box of cereal in the cart anyhow. I knew that at best, her children could decimate this box within three mornings with carefully poured bowls. At worst, also known as reality, the children who would have to fend for themselves and this box would last about half as long as the latest Harry Potter DVD.

Did I mention our distance from the grocery store? We lived nearly ten miles out. I had no comprehension of her resistance to stock up. Really. I had a Lewis Black moment of pound-fisting inner rage, followed by a screwed up angry face, followed by the blank look of a total lack of understanding. I wanted to scream, “HELLO! You don’t have a car to drive currently so, um, this may be it for a while!” while swatting her with a rolled up sales ad.

I attempted to console my inner frustration by thinking that maybe I’d watch her stock up on frozen waffles or boxed pancake mix or even a loaf of bread for toast, but I didn’t see her buy any of that stuff. She did, however, grab two bags of Hostess mini doughnuts at $2.50/bag. I often went to a Hostess outlet store that was literally a three-minute drive from the store we stood in. I casually mentioned to her that I’d been planning to make a stop there this week anyhow, and asked if she’d ever been there. She said that she had. I mentioned that we could make a stop there after we left this store. Despite the $1/bag doughnuts that awaited us at the next store, she left the pricey ones in the cart.

I decided I could no longer butt in and just let her shop without my scrutiny. Box upon box of snack crackers, bags of chips, tubs of ice cream, Lunchables. One dozen bakery made chocolate chip cookies for $5.99! $7/lb. deli meat. $6/lb. deli cheese. Cans of aerosol cheese flavored product at $4 a whack, in 4 different flavors. Nothing really tops a cheez cracker like a fake bacon flavored cheese turd out of a can. Yum. She spent more on fake cheese than I spent on meat to last for 3 weeks.

At the checkout I allowed myself to glance over her loot: I saw one pound of hamburger and one package of hot dogs. I tried to hide the quizzed look on my face because I regularly had her children over for dinner and I knew that one pound of hot dogs was just enough for the kids, if the adults weren’t eating. And one itty bitty pound of hamburger? WTF are you going to do with that for 7 people over the course of  a month? No flour, no sugar, no cans of vegetables, no frozen vegetables, no fresh fruit, no canned fruit, no family sized cans of soup, no pasta, no rice, no chicken, no buns… I couldn’t see any food staple item. Seriously, I couldn’t make a single meal of out what she’d bought, unless you chop up hot dogs real small and make a bun out of cheezy crackers and serve with a side of ice cream. That might make a mighty fine meal on Friday, but what will you eat the rest of the week?

The total at the checkout was over $400. Two carts, and nothing to prepare a single meal. After we loaded up my van and unloaded it all into her kitchen, she glanced at the clock and picked up the phone and told her husband to bring home a pizza for dinner.

Lo and behold, two weeks after eating their fill of crackers and ice cream, the inevitable knock on my door came … not for a cup of sugar, but asking if we had an extra loaf of bread to spare. I was also asked on several occasions for a quick ride down the street to the store where she could pick up a 2 liter of Pepsi (for $1.89) and a cold deli sandwich that was allowed on food stamps so that she could eat lunch. The $10 she spent on a single lunch would be enough to buy an entire pound of deli meat, a week’s worth of gourmet crusty french rolls and toppings to last an entire week.

I remember this shopping trip well because it was a huge inspiration for me of how not to shop. Ever.

She is an extreme case, but I think we can all learn something here. Her lack of planning was extreme and her spending was far out of control.

Grocery Shopping Basics…

1. Determine the length of time you are shopping for. Are you grocery shopping for a week? For a month? For a day or two?

2. Plan meals.

Make a list of what you would like to make for the period of time you are shopping for. This doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to have a 3 course meal each night. It’s okay to have a soup and sandwich night, but you can’t do that if there’s no soup or sandwich items in the house.

3. Make a list of ingredients.

It sounds elementary, but if you want to have hot dogs on Wednesday, write down everything you need to have a hot dog meal. Buns, mustard, sauce, relish, chips on the side, raw veggies, etc.

4. Take inventory.

Open your refrigerator, freezer and pantry and cross any items off your list of ingredients that you have. Be sure to check for common ingredients like condiments, eggs, butter and milk.

Ask yourself, beyond meals, what do you need? Are you making lunches for the kids to send to school? Do you drink coffee every morning? Need to replenish a bowl of fruit for quick snacks? Is it your turn to bring in a passing dish for a potluck at work? Determine what you need and add this to your list. If you want to control your grocery spending, you really want to avoid extra trips to the store. For this same reason, you want to avoid making unrealistic declarations like, “No snacks this week!” Be realistic. If you almost always have a dish of ice cream on movie night, then buy the ice cream.

5. Go to store and buy items from your list. Avoid putting anything into your cart unless it has a purpose.

If you don’t have these basics down pat, you can’t lower your grocery spending over time, even with coupons. It’s impossible.

Meal Planning…

My favorite recipe site is www.allrecipes.com. I love the rating system so you can get an idea of what the recipe is like by reading the reviews. Also, there seems to be a lot of food company recipes on the site as well. I find results from Campbell’s, Kraft, magazines, and, professionals and everyday cooks.

Another great resource is http://www.supercook.com. You tell Supercook what you have, and it displays recipes for you to explore.

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This video from Good Morning America leaves me stunned.

I am not stunned over the total; I think give any coupon person a stack of inserts, a printer ready to go, a stack of grocery ads and unlimited time and eventually they’d all be able to come up with one transaction like this. It might mean a cart full of Perrier water, Dulcolax and glucose meters, but it’ll be large, impressive, and free.

I was stunned because the transaction went through without a hitch.

Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve been on a quest for The Perfect Receipt. I’d like to be able to demonstrate the way I shop for people who may need a little visual help to understand. Unfortunately, I never have a perfect transaction.

From the shelves being bare, or a catalina coupon not printing, missing or erroneous shelf tags, to a nasty employee, I rarely walk out of a place like Meijer feeling happy and satisfied. Usually when my husband catches me looking over a receipt, he only asks, “How did they fuck you over this week?”

Yesterday I had a great Meijer day. Everything I wanted was in stock. I didn’t wait in line very long. My cashier was friendly. When my coupons didn’t scan, and the store ones rarely do, the cashier put them through without throwing an accusation at me, without sucking in her lips, shaking her head, rolling her eyes or slamming on the register keys hard. She even told me to have a good day. I was so confused it took me a moment to return the well wishes and the sincere smile.

I was so taken aback by the experience that I got half way out the door before I realized that I was missing one Catalina coupon I’d expected for the cheese I’d bought. I went to the service desk and I found yet another happy employee.

At this point, I was juggling the possibilities in my head:

A) There had been a holiday lunch in the back room and someone spiked the punch…

B) Seasonal help was told that if they were friendly enough they’d get to keep their jobs, and they showed a machine with lots of shiny buttons and blinking lights that they called a Smile-O-Meter and really sold them on the idea that it monitored their job performance…

C) Aliens had invaded and their sinister plan used the grocery store distribution chain to spread their evildoing, and this midwest one stop shopping center was ground zero, the infiltration had begun…

D) There was a hidden camera somewhere and I could expect a pie in the face at any moment…

E) One of those lobsters had broken through it’s rubber band handcuffs that had been infected with a virus that caused smiling and happiness, and he’d managed to spread his happy venom throughout the store… or E2) Employees were given a mandatory flu shot that was prepared by Rasta Reefer guys with dreadlocks who added a little happy ya mon…

(You get the picture.)

For once, I got in my car and Meijer didn’t ruin my day. I decided to march right back in and complete a second transaction just to push my luck. I encountered a third happy employee, who, from the non-blinking constipated look on her face was totally a pod person. Anyway, that one worked out well too.

When I got home, well, that’s when I noticed the check cashing fee that I was charged for in error.

Foiled again! Once again, I have a receipt that requires an explanation. I am trying to make this look easy and simple, and this is what the One Cent Mom did on GMA, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

I hereby declare Shenanigans on this video. Shenanigans! They must have called out some pasty kid from a tech lab somewhere who has actually torn apart the register with his bare hands, knows codes that no one else knows, is intimate with the working knowledge of how everything works and says things like, “Everyone knows you can’t use a code 472 if you’ve depressed the Shift KTI key (spittle) what are you, some kind of (insert obscure reference to dumb guy in some video game you’ve never heard of here)?” They must have taken that kid and given him all the free Red Bull and Twizzlers he wanted, gave him some prep time to study the store policies to handle this transaction and I think someone lied to him and told him that girls would like him if he did everything right.

If you watch the look on the lady’s face, you’ll see she was nervous. It wasn’t because she didn’t know what the total was going to be. It was because she had expected that cashier to stop at any moment and accuse her of something or call over a manager to read some fine print, or pull a box of cereal out to make sure it was the 15.3 ounce box and not the 15.6 ounce box, etc., etc.

I don’t doubt the legitimacy of this transaction, I just think there was probably a little pow-wow between store and shopper and camera before this lady just happily bounced through the checkout.

As for the $4 per week for a family of 6, I don’t know how she does it. I am not worthy! She’s not a mere coupon Queen. No, no, no, she’s above being a mortal royal, she’s a coupon Goddess. Someday I wish to get more for free than just fiber supplements and hearing aid batteries, and be just like her.

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I work in the customer service industry and I ask  people for their email addresses on a regular basis. Many refuse to give them to me because they don’t want to be ‘spammed.’ (Oddly enough, in most positions I’ve held to ask this, I further ask for other sensitive information which people give without question… social security numbers, credit card numbers, etc.) Human behavior is strange!

I welcome spam! Well, legitimate spam, that is.

If I shop somewhere, I sign up for the newsletter, the email list, and I always check yes next to the box asking if it’s OK to be contacted with future information about sales, coupons, etc.

Just this week I received in my inbox a $4/20 coupon for Rite-Aid, a $15/$50 coupon for Fashion Bug, and announcement of new coupons for Healthy Choice, Glade, and Robitussin, just to name a few.

I’ve had one email address for over a decade and I use this for everything. I’m talking free samples, registering for websites for free catalogs, etc. This is a basic yahoo web-based freebie account and I might get 50 actual spam a day from it, which go directly to my spam box without me ever having to view them.

I get approximately 20 emails per day from places I’ve registered at. Rarely do I get a newsletter that doesn’t have some kind of discount or coupon associated with it. Thumbing through this mail really isn’t a huge waste of my time. It takes a few moments at best. The best part about yahoo mail is, if you don’t open email from someone consistently, eventually it automatically gets trashed for you.

If you are afraid to fill up your mailbox, or if getting spam is your biggest pet peeve, I advise you to open an email account just for ‘junk.’ You just never know when this may come in handy. Some stores are famous for sending out store coupons to email addresses and you won’t get them in the store. They may be $5/$25 purchase or better, which can be used to get some spectacular deals!

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The items we spend the most money on are necessity items.

Directly, you just spend more. If you need shampoo this week, you need it. You aren’t going to go all week without it to see if you can save $1 the next week on your favorite brand. This is just going to happen with certain things. There are thousands of items at the grocery store, it is inevitable that you’ll pay full price for something you need.

Indirectly, there’s that $26 trip to get milk. How many times have you purposely went into a certain grocery store because you remember the ad and that store had the cheapest milk in town that week, only to come home with a few bags of other things? It happens all the time. It’s so easy to impulse shop for something for dinner, or to pick up some snacks, or even grab a magazine at the checkout. Seriously, I am cheap and I know that the true cost of running out of toilet paper is $20.

I don’t pay full price for much of anything because I can afford to wait for a spectacular sale. I currently have no less than 12 bottles of body wash in my linen pantry. I won’t buy it at full price as there’s no need. I won’t even buy it on a sale price because there’s no need. Now, if it goes on sale and there’s a coupon, and I can pick it up for .75 or less per bottle? Now we’re talking. I may add 3-4 when I find it at that price and add them to the linen closet.

One mistake people tend to make when they have a lot of something is to feel the need to find a use for it. I think this is what happened to our family when I used to shop a lot at Sam’s Club. I found a great deal on bacon there. I calculated it out to be a 6 month supply with about a 30% savings. Nice, huh?

Pre-Sam’s Club case-o-bacon purchase, I made bacon once a week with a breakfast dinner. Post-Sam’s Club case-o-bacon purchase, we were spiraling toward coronaries; bacon atop our burgers, breakfast as a dinner meal, brunch on Sunday, real bacon bits on salad night, real bacon crumbles on our home made pizza, turkey club sandwiches, bacon because tomatoes were ripe. Yum!

Before I knew it, my 6 month supply of bacon was gone in 2 months. I realized no savings because I was out the money I spent, plus I had nothing left in the freezer and if I wanted it for meals, I’d have to buy it again. Not to mention that it would take months of eating oatmeal to lower our cholesterol.

I was like a kid with a Halloween bucket who’d happily eaten candy for days, joyfully, happily, reveling in my ultimate candy abundance who all of a sudden reaches in and finds the only things left are those 3 peanut butter kisses and a peppermint.

To realize savings, you must think of your stockpile as an investment. You must be moderate. And you must be practical.

I can use myself as an example today. This week, I am not going to the grocery store. I don’t have to. There is not one thing we need this week from the store. From toilet paper to pasta sauce, we have it. I can choose to go to pick up a few deals, and maybe I’ll do this. I don’t have to, however, and that is the ultimate convenience.

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I’ve struggled writing this entry for my website for some time. It’s very important to me that I explain the concept of stockpiling correctly because this is vital for longer-term savings. It’s important to me that I get it right, that I make it easy to understand. Also, I don’t know how others shop and I’m worried that everyone that will find their way to my site will already know how to stock up and that this will read like an article to tell the difference between a triangle and a circle.

Stockpiling is an easy enough concept for anyone who lives near a Meijer. For years, Meijer has run an excellent store brand sale that was super awesome. One could pick up boxes of mac and cheese 4/$1, canned veggies 4/$1, store brand pastas (spaghettio types) 4/$1, boxes of plain pasta 4/$1, etc., etc.

Wouldn’t it be great if the price was low every week? It can be!

As this sale would approach in the fall I would stretch what we bought at the last store brand sale to last because the prices were simply unbeatable. People at Meijer would have overflowing carts with cans and boxes and fill their pantries cheap. And the best part is, Meijer brand is excellent. There are a few places around town where I find the off brand, well, off.

The math is pretty simple. On average, you were saving 50% or better. If you only bought a single can of green beans for .25, you saved .25 or more that week. If you happen to use a can of green beans every week in a certain recipe for a meal your family loves, by buying several cases at 50% off or better, your savings multiply.

You use 1 can per week. 1 can x 52 weeks/year = 52 cans.

If you buy 52 cans through the year at regular price, (52 cans x .57 (regular price) = $29.64) you’ll spend $29.64.

If you buy 52 cans when they are 50% off or better, (52 cans x .25 = $13) you’ll spend $13 for the year’s worth of canned green beans.

It makes sense to stock up when you find the lowest price like this and enjoy that same savings each and every week. For the year, you’ll have saved $16.64.

$16.64 may not sound like much over the course of a year, but multiply that by the 2 cans of corn, the can of carrots, and the 3 cans of peas you put in your famous casserole dishes and now you’re talking ($16.64 x 6 different cans) $98.84 for the year.

Now, it’s starting to look like real money saved.

This is what stockpiling to save money is all about. We all do it to some extent. Some believe that the price of gas goes up on the weekends or on holidays, so they will faithfully fill up their tank on Tuesdays. Some see the price of gas look a little lower than it did last week, and so they’ll stop to top off the tank even though they don’t really need to yet.

The trick is to buy enough that you’ll make it to the next sale.

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Yesterday I went to Meijer and was very excited to find .55 peelie coupons on these little Hungry Jack instant mashed potato pouches. Regular price is just .99, so I paid just .44 for each pouch. I picked up 4 of them. There are 4 servings to a pouch, so it’s a mere .11/serving which I congratulated myself upon. I saved over 50%! Often regular potatoes offer up a lower price, however, these boxed potatoes have a shelf life in years for your pantry, i.e. why I like to buy them when I can find them cheap.

I was happy with the purchase until I checked out this on Sam’s Club website. 3.24 pounds (65 servings) for a mere $5.48. That works out to .08 per serving. That’s not a sale price or anything either, just Sam’s Club pricing. I could stock my pantry for the next 18-24 months and I can buy it all in one shot. No coupon clipping necessary, no waiting for the store sale price, no worries about limitations on coupon doubling,  etc.

I’ve always been hesitant when it comes to warehouse or club type shopping because it’s overwhelming. It’s not easy to comparison shop because the package sizes are unique. I can easily calculate that a 25 bag of sugar for $15 is comparably $3 per 5 pounds, which is how I normally buy sugar, which is how I think of sugar in terms of cost.

I require a Sherpa-Shopping-Guide with killer math skills to determine whether or not $9.99 is a good price for 128 single rolls of double ply toilet tissue, 75 sheets per roll, when normally I spend around $7 for 12 mega rolls of triple ply, quilted, sliver-free paper when I find it on sale.

My vision of a Shopping-Sherpa. He would carry all the items, push the cart, do all required maths for required comparisons, and wisely nod yes or no for each potential purchase.

I am almost certain that given enough time and inclination the fine folks of NASA could figure out the cost-per-wipe, but even as a bargain hunter, I am lazy. I think for myself and for many others the decision to buy the 9.99 pallet of toilet paper would require these probing questions:

Do I need toilet paper?

Do I have 9.99?

(For advanced users) Do I have a place to store 128 rolls?

Yes, for the record, I have lugged home large quantities of goods without any thought to where I’d actually put them up until I pulled into my own driveway. I am pretty sure I am not alone here.

This potato incident is troubling me. This week I’ve taken a notebook and toured both GFS and Sam’s Club to get price ideas. It appears that for many baking basics, bulk is cheaper.

I used to shop at Sam’s Club years ago, however, I never bought many practical items there. Cases of individually wrapped frozen entrees. Supersized bags of cheese puffs. A gross of corn dogs. I barely justified the cost of membership because while I saved on what I bought, but what I bought were not necessity items.

I am considering a Sam’s Club membership. I do believe my will is much stronger these days and I give myself credit for not walking out of there with an impulsed shopped $42 worth of Twizzlers.

What instant potatoes has reminded me this week is that to get a great deal, one must constantly re-evaluate their shopping and buying habits.

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5.  Sheer added profit. If my weekly grocery budget is $50, the store will get my $50 each and every week. If I use just 1 $1 coupon each week to stretch my budget and still spend $50 each week, that’s +$52 WIN for the store over a year’s time. Multiply, baby. It’s a lot of money for nuthin’.

4. Priceless word of mouth marketing. The only thing better than getting a great deal is telling others about it. I am quite new at this blogging bit and so far I look over it and wonder if it seems legit enough or like one big perpetual advertisement spot for Meijer and General Mills. Very few people in this world get all twitterpated at the sheer thought of Chex Mix going on sale for .99 making it free with coupons. The store should recognize this and be more coupon friendly than they are in a lot of cases! They should advertise the deal I am getting right in the circular. Aren’t loss leaders a proven marketing strategy for grocery stores?

3. Reimbursement. It’s written on each and every coupon, full reimbursement plus .08 for handling.

2. Increased discretionary spending. Not everyone is as cheap as I am. Many who save $5 with coupons can easily justify a more discretionary item within their purchase. It’s easy to throw in a tub of your favorite ice cream at full retail price or a top shelf liquor to celebrate your wise spending otherwise.

1. Loyalty is cheap and cost effective. Saving money makes people feel good. Welcome my money and my coupons and save me an additional 2% on my grocery order this week and you’ll be my first stop next week. Save me money consistently and I have little reason to even look at another store’s ad.

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Cashier training manual?

Not everyone is as enthusiastic about getting a great deal with coupons, I’ve learned. I’ve had more than my fair share of run-ins withcashiers whose mouths get sucked into a thin, tight,  disapproving line on their face as they watch my total fall farther and farther down to a dollar or two. Total buzzkill.

I have seriously low expectations when it comes to customer service. I don’t expect friendly, or upbeat. I don’t expect anyone to make eye contact with me, or ask me how I am today, or even comment on the weather.  I am content to not be treated like a criminal.

I think what I see is a collision between lack of proper training and harsh, absolute consequences to the cashiers, both/either poor management.

Store policy at Meijer, for example, seems to depend on who is at the helm of the register. I had a run in recently with a cashier who claimed to have been a cashier for over 20 years (that was her way of condemning me for questioning her authoritae) whom I proved wrong. The sad part was that I spoke to a store manager – not a shift manager, not an employee trainer, but a bonafide, drove-the-Benz-to-work-got-my-picture-on-the-wall-store-manager, whom I had to explain coupon bar codes to.  The short of story is that any coupon bar code that starts with a ’5,’ will double through any register programmed to double coupons, while the ones that start with a ’9′ do not. Most coupons read, “Do Not Double or Triple” across the top. However, most are coded with the magic 5 that allow it. The cashier in question manually entered my coupons so that they would not double and told me I was trying to commit fraud by asking her to scan them. She thought my total was going too low and ‘wasn’t going to let me get away with it.’ The store manager was impressed by this little tidbit of information.

If the woman who manages the store doesn’t know how coupons work, how can I as a customer expect that any of the staff has been trained on they work?

This was not the first time I was accused of fraud, and unfortunately, it won’t be my last. It’s frustrating and it angers me and  I want to roll up the sales ad and beat the  shit out of the cashier with it, but I have a tremendous amount of personal restraint.

I have learned that one way to get great customer service is to walk into a store with a notepad, or clipboard, or a binder with pen in hand and examine things on the shelf carefully. I found this out by trial and error when I first started to coupon shop. I realized that the longer I took to shop, and the more I shuffled through my notes and added to them with my pen, the more people come up and ask, “Are you finding everything OK?” They think you are on official business, or possibly a mystery shopper. (Mystery shoppers are not obvious like this, FTR.)

I further realized that with pen and paper in hand, should someone ask you that question, and you take a peek at their name tag (squint at it a little, if you don’t think they noticed,) and jot a note down, whatever it is you ask for, they’ll probably even find. In September, there was a store sale on juice pouches and with my coupons they were going to work out to be just .69 vs. $2.87 full retail price. When I found the shelf empty, I parked my cart and started going through my hand-written notes and thumbing through my coupons. The most friendly employee showed up after a while, and after looking at her name tag for a brief second, she hightailed it to the stock room to find me some juice. Truth is, I was looking at her name tag because I almost always fill out the feedback slips and like to mention good/bad employees by name.

Pity is, you can only do this on occasion, because eventually most of the cashiers and such start recognizing you as one of those dreadful coupon ladies.

It’s not all bad.  I’ve been high-fived at Kroger by cashiers, twice! There’s actually a position at the cosmetics counter held at Walgreen’s that gets a spiff of sales from her register, and this woman doesn’t care if you have coupons. She’ll dig some up from her own personal stash if she thinks that’s what it will take for you to bump her pay by a dollar, she’ll do it happily!

Stark contrast from the witch who runs the regular register who sighs deep when she sees me coming toward her with full basket! Pity that many managers don’t seem concerned with this sort of feedback. Maybe this is because they already know that I’ll take the abuse to save a few bucks… cos I totally will.

All we can do is shoppers – coupon shoppers or otherwise, is to vote with our wallets and shop elsewhere, or give the stores feedback good and bad.

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My husband Derek is frugal. I think most people can learn to become frugal. He rarely impulse buys. He compares the cost vs. quality to calculate value. His buying decisions make sense. For him, shopping is a means to an end.
Man needs boots. Man shops for boots. Man finds brand and style that fit, are comfortable, and sturdy for man. When man needs boots next year, man buys the same pair. Boots are no longer an issue. Boots, once a problem, now solved.

He knows what he wants, he knows where he can get it, and he knows which brand offers consistent quality. He doesn’t waste time later fixing stuff that ain’t broke. Reasonable, eh?

Not I.

I think of shopping as more of an adventure. It is my goal to spend less at nearly all costs. The difference between cheap and frugal is, I will go without rather than full price. I went 15 years without winter bootsand 7 years without a winter coat, and I live in Michigan.

Some ask me to teach them how to shop. Most lose interest once they find out how much work I actually put into it. I think it is possible to help someone to spend than they currently are, especially if they aren’t putting
much effort into it. I think it’s possible to help people lower their grocery budgets or to make small changes and come out money ahead.

Cheap cannot be taught. It’s something one is born with, period. I feel pained to buy something at full price. When I walk into any store, I don’t look at price tags as an absolute; they are all suggested retail prices. I’d rather take the gamble waiting for a markdown, and possibly lose the item I was interested in.

I mean this for everything, clothes, shoes, groceries.  Last year Michael’s had some really cute stoneware mini bread loaf pans and coffee cups for $1 all holiday season, painted with snowmen. I wanted the loaf pans, and I really needed the coffee cups because I owned none. We visit Michael’s nearly every week and I carefully watched after the holiday at the falling clearance prices. 30% off? Pshaw. 40%? Pfft. 50%? Now, we’re getting closer! At 60% I had to take a visual inventory. The store still had several racks. I made a pretty safe gamble and waited it out even longer. 60% came and went. At 75% off, I happily filled my cart with cups and pans to my cheapskate heart’s delight! Every morning when I drink my coffee I feel calm and content knowing that I only paid a quarter for my coffee cup. THAT is what being cheap is like. I saw, I observed, I waited, and I pounced in for the kill. True bargain hunting!

Conversely, had I spent $1 for my cup and then later found them on the rack at even 50% off, I’d feel scorned – every.single.morning.

Cheap is an emotion. Frugal is a lifestyle. I am here to share my cheapskate adventures with you!

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