Saturday, July 20, 2013

This Coupon Girl: Why I Do It

Unless you know me really well, you may not know my little secret...I totally coupon. Now before you imagine me with 100 boxes of cereal stocked in my home, please know it is not like that at all. I stock up on what we use to a small degree and anything that we do not use, I give away to friends, family or a food pantry. And before you imagine that I hold up the line at the grocery store, just know that I have my coupon stash ready to go and I always apologize to the person behind me as well as the cashier just in case they are not all jazzed up about my coupon stack. But you know what? I have never had one person get impatient with me. If anything, they love watching the price go down as the cashier scans the coupons. Everyone is always amazed and it just tickles me:) I have had many moments where I call Jason laughing about what random people say to me about my coupon skills. 

 So how did I learn the art of couponing? A few years ago while living in Nashville, one of my dear friends in our bible study told us about couponing. I was like "oh yeah, I am great at couponing". Um...wrong. Just because you cut coupons and use them if you happen to buy that product is NOT couponing. That is just crazy and a waste of time. And that is what I used to do. Until I learned and now I just love the game. 

Some people may think of coupons as silly, a time waster, embarrassing etc. and that is okay.They are the people I want to make sure I apologize to before I scan all  my coupons because they will probably not care for my little game or how much I am about to save. But if you are one of those people, I hope you will think of why people may take the time to coupon:) Jason and I want to be smart about saving money and I hope we will always be no matter how much God may choose to bless us. We want so much to do well with what He has already given us which is why I coupon and Jason is my #1 fan. I want to stretch our budget to make our finances go farther. We want to save, tithe, give, pay off our debt, sponsor our precious World Vision child (Nery from Guatemala...see below:) as well as do the things we love. And we are NOT going to get there by spending but NOT stretching.
Seriously the cutest child on the planet. If you are interested in sponsoring a child from World Vision, let me know! I have a forever friend who is a child ambassador for this amazing organization. 

How does it all add up? You have to change the way you think. You have to buy the things you need and use when they are on sale, not when you need them. If you run to the store when you need something, you will pay full price and not to mention the stress of being without something until you get it. Or you can buy the things you need at 50%-75% off and just be ready for when you do use them. You are going to buy the things you need and want no matter what so why not buy those things when they are on sale? I call this " stock up and save". Another perk is buying food on sale with your coupons and making your weekly menu from what you already have versus making a huge list of things you need and then going out to buy it all...full price and full of stress. Eventually, your bottom line for your grocery budget will get smaller and smaller because you are only going to buy a few things that are on sale that you can use your coupons towards and then of course the things you need that you will always need, coupon or not. 

So yes, I am passionate about saving and being a good steward of what God has entrusted us to. I seriously have husbands of friends ask me to teach their wives how to coupon and I have lots of friends always ask so I figured I might as well share via blog. It may not be a new recipe but I KNOW Mamou would be proud and that is all that matters.  I have taught so many friends about how to coupon and I truly cannot contain my excitement when I share how to do this and then the light bulb comes on. I just love it! My little sister has said before that she is going to walk into my classroom one day and I will be in the middle of teaching my students about how to coupon and I will have them cutting coupons out with their little scissors. Ha! Hmmm...maybe as an economic lesson one day?:)




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