Couponing is a slippery slope.
There. I said it. As a former couponing fanatic, I will admit that couponing is not all its cracked up to be. They trick you into spending money on products you normally wouldn't buy just because you can get it at a good price. But ultimately, the generic tastes just as good as the name brand (the brand isn't better, you are just paying for the commercials, you know) and it's cheaper! However, I do use coupons on two occasions.
1. When it means I can get the name brand for cheaper than the generic or...
2. If its for a product I already buy.
For example: Every. Single. Time. a Gain $2.00 off coupon is in the ads, I clip it and buy it. With three children and a construction working husband, I can never have too much laundry soap.
Recently there was a string of amazing coupons in the Sunday paper and I knew what I needed to do - pass the children off on the hubby and head to Walmart for some serious shopping.
Here's what I purchased:
2 boxes Puff tissues, 2 Suave body washes, 3 shave gels, 2 Herbel Essence shampoos, 2 Herbal Essence conditioners, 2 Tresemme Shampoos, 2 Tresemme Conditioners, 1 - 100 ounce Gain laundry soap, 2 - 75 ounce Tide, and large refill hand soap.
I had coupons for every single item here except the Equate brand hand soap but that's okay because I take hand washing very seriously and I needed it whether I had a coupon or not. Before coupons the grand total for this purchase was.... $82.04! OUCH! But laundry soap is $10 a jug around here and I got three of them!
After coupons, the total dropped to.... $52.54. And with the Walmart savings catcher app, I saved another $3.94 bringing it down to $48.60.
WOW! That's a 40% savings on items I needed (body wash, tissues, laundry soap) and stockpiled a little on items that run out quite quickly around here (I have GOT to talk to that 8 year old about how much shampoo and conditioner to use). So maybe, just maybe couponing isn't all too bad. When you know how to do it.
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