As a mother of two little girls and a wife of a husband who was laid off for the majority of last year, couponing was a natural resource to feed our family and save a buck. I had began my couponing endeavors in September of 2009, more for fun than anything, and by April of 2010 my new found hobby had become a necessity. I've enjoyed collecting coupons from several people and the newspaper and printing online coupons to ensure savings of at least 50% on all shopping trips just to make ends meet.
Life before babies equated to my husband and I spending money frivolously, having fun and not really thinking about the consequences. We were living the American Dream. It was common place for us to spend between $200 - $300 on a single shopping trip. I saw women in lines using coupons and thought they were cheap and simply had too much time on their hands. But as the Coupon Diva on Extreme Couponing would say, "Honey, you ain't never been broke enough to coupon!" She was right, I was living in a fantasy world that would soon come crumbling down. By January of 2008 I was pregnant and expecting a beautiful baby girl, at this point we started slowing down our spending quite a bit, but couponing was still out of the question. On August 28, 2008our beautiful daughter was born four weeks early and we resorted to credit cards to buy the little things we didn't have that we thought we HAD to have for a new baby.
The next year went pretty smoothly, but we became increasingly conscious of our spending and in September of 2009 we decided it was time to start paying off our American Dream (debt) in anyway possible. We met with a financial planner and he told us about "The Grocery Game" in passing. I was intrigued and promptly Googled it the very next day. I learned about the world of couponing, the shift in thinking, and my couponing craze began. The next month my husband was laid off of his commercial plumbing job for 8 weeks before being called back to work for several months before yet another round of layoffs which led to the end of his plumbing career.
I was pregnant, had a small toddler, a husband and myself to feed on a very meger budget. The girl that once spent upwards of $300 a week on groceries had a budget of $100 per week (and that was being generous). This is when I put my couponing skills to the test. Using the online database and my coupons, I was able to ensure that my family had plenty of food in the cupboards at all times, despite the lack of income we were accustom to.
Thankfully, my husband now has a fabulous job working for the Ball Corp. making as much as he did before, I'm still teaching and we have two beautiful daughters. Despite having the ability to spend full price on groceries, I feel like I'd be crazy to actually spend that kind of cash when I could get at least 50% off (on a bad trip) and upwards to 101% off (on an extremely good trip). I'm not an extreme couponer, I'm a mom. I find good deals, I stock up on them, I use coupons to get the deals, but I don't buy 1,000 products.
I find it funny how in the past month since Extreme Couponing has aired how popular the concept of couponing has become. Couponing is TRENDY! Who would've thought? It'll be interesting to see if people will find the thrill in couponing that I have found or if it'll just be a fad waiting to expire with the rest of the coupons they printed in the moment.
