Instead of making a resolution this year to lose weight....how about making a deal with yourself to become healthier? In all aspects of your life...not just with a scale. This includes mental, spiritual, marital / relationships, and financial health. The list of stuff we could all be improving & tweaking goes on and on.
I mention becoming healthier in more ways than just physically losing weight because it's not food that made you fat. It's
what you do with food that got you into a bind with the scale. I could rattle on for hours about all of the reasons people hide behind their fat. After working as a Weight Watchers leader for several years, I've pretty much heard it all. I'll just focus on one of the many reasons
I did what
I did with food. It might shed some light on why I ramble on incessantly about couponing and saving money. It might even help you realize something about yourself you never thought of before. So, in the spirit of becoming healthier in 2010,
this blog post is all about money.
For me, stressing about money was dealt with by eating. Picture it. I'm sitting in my car all alone shoving 5 tacos, 2 beef meximelts, and a nachos supreme down my pie hole (washing it down with diet pop of course) all because my husband told me there's no money to spend...so of course my reaction was to take the few bucks I managed to scrounge together to Taco Bell & eat my feelings about the situation with an "I'll show you" attitude. I threw the wrappers and drink cup away before I left the parking lot. Oh, and I paid cash so he wouldn't know I spent any money (cash being spent didn't show up on the bank statement like a debit card purchase would have). Yes, I had a
very, very sick relationship with food. Even worse, I also had an even more difficult time dealing with facts. The fact was, we were so far in debt, there was no "end of the tunnel" much less a light at the end! For that blissful moment in the Taco Bell parking lot, I was happier. That always came crashing down, though. I'd have awful heartburn, or couldn't fit in my pants, or had to explain why there were taco shell crumbs all over the front seat of my car. The consequences of my behavior were exhausting. (You know the rest of the story already. I joined Weight Watchers, lost 80 pounds, changed an ass ton of behavoirs, have kept the weight off for almost 8 years.)
Part of becoming a healthier me...meant creating a healthier life monetarily speaking & a much healthier relationship with food in times of financial stress. Financial stress was a big, fat trigger for me when it came to emotional eating. I feel like I've gotten a fairly good grip on this over the past (almost) 9 years, but there's always room for improvement so I made a "resolution" last January 1st to kick it up a notch & crack down on our grocery budget.
We had a great start already when it came to digging ourselves out of debt. We've worked our asses off for
years to get credit card debt paid off, cars paid off, doing our BEST to not overspend for the month, etc. But there was a huge chunk of our budget taken out every single month for groceries. And by huge chunk...I mean HUGE. Our family of 4 averaged spending $1,200+ a month (ouch). That included everything (food, cleaners, shampoo, tampons, cat food, water softener salt, etc.). It made me sick to see how much we spent each month. We have to eat in order to live. It's not like I can just stop buying groceries, but to plop down $300+ a week for stuff we were going to crap out within a matter of hours after eating was slowly killing me. I just knew there had to be a better way to lower my spending, but kept falling into the mental trap that went a little something like this,
"I can't keep eating healthy & keeping off the 80 pounds I worked so hard to lose if I use COUPONS". Or like this,
"I hate Pantene so who cares if it's on sale & will cost me only 17 cents when I use a coupon?". (You have to say the word 'coupons' with a snotty tone in order to make it sound like me). I sucked it up & started hitting the coupons hot & heavy in 2009. Yes, I've even used brands I once hated.
When I first started couponing, I screwed up a lot. A LOT, a lot. Here are my top 10 screw ups:
- Throwing or giving away coupons I thought I did not need. (The items I think I don't need ALWAYS popped up as free somewhere along the way. I do not have a dog, but I can donate free dog food to The local food pantry or shelter. They're always in need!)
- Not being as willing to try new or different products as I should have been.
- Buying only 1 Sunday paper per week...or not buying a paper at all one week *gasp* (I normally buy 8 papers a week these days. That means I have 8 of each coupon to use. Man, can I stock up on stuff!)
- Not paying attention to what was really a rock bottom priced item. (I now have a goal of not wasting a coupon on something that's not going to work out to be *at least* 50% off in the long run, but I really try to narrow that down to a 75% savings.)
- Neglecting to compare coupon/sale prices to store brands. They are cheaper sometimes, but usually not when I'm sticking to my 50-75% off rule.
- Buying the biggest boxes of whatever I was there to get thinking bigger was better. (Bigger isn't always better. Take Cheerios for instance. The bigger boxes actually cost you more per ounce.)
- Never checking the clearance areas of my local stores. (They offer delightful bargains! I recently picked up 6 organic whole chickens for just $4.50 each over in the Kroger meat clearance area. They were dated to be sold no later than that day, but last forever in the freezer. Don't even get me started on day old bread section of the store. Or the razors that were on clearance for $3, 12 per pack, but I had a $2 off coupon. I got 2 packs of razors for a buck!)
- Stocking up on the good deals, but continuing to buy all the stuff we had always bought in the past. (That was me not putting the plan into motion! What the hell was I thinking???)
- Forgetting that Aldi's and Save A Lot have rockin' prices on staple type canned goods (tomatoes, beans, corn, green beans, etc.). I keep a list of Aldi's, Save A Lot, and Costco's canned good prices in my coupon binder for quick reference.
- Not reading the coupon! (Don't go by the picture on the coupon. They often times say "ANY", but my brain sees the picture of the vanilla kind instead of the chocolate we need/want, and I dismiss the coupon. Can it be doubled? Do I need to buy more than one of the product? Did I check the expiration date?) And to this one I also need to add, not understanding my local store's policies. Go to the customer service desk and ASK for a copy of their policy. Keep it in your binder. If you shop at Target, keep the copy with you as you shop because Target is the worst about not understanding their own policy.
But then, before I could blink an eye, I had gotten my rear in gear & I wasn't screwing up so much. I was actually saving money. We were consuming whatever was on sale that week (or what we had stashed away in the pantry), and no one died because we were using Arm & Hammer toothpaste instead of Crest. Or Dial soap instead of Irish Spring. Or Silk soy milk instead of 8th Cont. We had to learn to adapt to using what we bought on sale instead of always buying the same things just because they're familiar. You know what? It has actually been really fun! The kids love that we always have a variety of snacks on hand. We've found many new products that we never even knew about because we were so stuck in our ways of buying only what we knew. I discovered that getting a product for FREE with a coupon is way better than always buying the store brand that's not free. Honestly, I had no idea you could get things cheaper than store brands....much less for FREE. So I now make darn sure to have lots of coupons on hand at any given moment in order to stock up on the free (or as close to free as possible) stuff.
I also had to learn to fit the food we have on hand into my world of Points. That was a big, big, big deal. I consider this learning to live and eat in the real world, and not being a slave to a diet or a certain brand!
The money we've saved is amazing. I've taken our grocery budget from $200+ dollars a week (for our family of four) to just $60 a week on average! For us, that's a miracle in itself. There are some weeks I go over budget, but there have also been weeks I roll in under budget.
They key to using coupons is to stockpile all of the extra stuff you can get at rock bottom prices so you're not paying full price when you need that item. Like my grocery dry goods
(click here) . And my frozen veggie bargains from last week
(click here) . Many of these items were free or close to free. I also have tons of extra toiletries in the linen closet, and a year's worth of laundry supplies (which I paid $16.00 for total) stockpiled in my laundry room.
I have friends who are young, old, college students, single, widowed, wealthy, flat broke, childless, gay, straight, living in tiny one bedroom apartments doing this! Anyone can stockpile and save. You do not need to be a mommy with 8 kids to pull this off. Why would you WANT to give a store any more of your hard earned money than you have to? Anyway, to give you a little sample of the kinds of savings out there waiting for you, take a look at yesterday's trip to CVS. Keep in mind, this is just my CVS trip for the week. Not groceries.....
{$68.01 worth of stuff....for just $10.15! It really should have been $5.15, but I screwed up a little. No matter what, this is still an incredible savings!}
{This razor is something I normally wouldn't purchase, but I noticed it was on sale for $4.99 this week, and I happened to have a $4 off coupon. That made it .99 cents. That's a GREAT deal for a 5 blade razor. Plus, I earned $4 in "CVS bucks" that I can use during my next transaction - good towards pretty much anything other than prescriptions, alcohol or smokes. They basically paid me $3 to buy this razor. COOLNESS!}
{These were all on sale for .99 each, and I happened to have $1.00 off coupons for each one. That means they cost me NOTHING!}
I work well with percentages. My brain really digs them for some sick reason. So I make sure to figure out what the percentage saved for every single shopping trip. Wondering how to find your savings percentage? Some stores state the percentage (like Kroger), but most do not (like stupid Wal-Fart). The math is really simple. Check it out...
1. You'll need your original price total. Meaning, the price of your grocery total BEFORE using coupons. So add up the amount you saved with the amount you spent:
- 57.86 (saved) + 10.15 (spent) = 68.01 (original total)
2. Divide amount saved by your original price total:
- 57.86 (saved) ÷ 68.01 (original total) = 0.8507572 (savings percentage before making it user friendly)
3. Then, move decimal to the right two spots for your user friendly savings percentage:
- 0.8507572 ..... would end up being 85%
Hot damn....I saved 85% for stuff I actually
need (or will need in the near future)!!! It would have been even better had I remembered to cash in the extra $5 CVS "bucks" in my hand, but I was so focused on everything else going on...I forgot. Slap on the hand for me. I'm still new to "CVS'ing". I'll get the hang of it soon enough. The cashier said it was too late, that she couldn't void the sale. Sigh.
Why do I have a feeling she was telling me a fib? Anyway, I'll save that $5 for next week's couponing adventures.
My fabulous husband created an Excel program for me to track all of my spending / savings. It's too cool for words. I've used it the past few weeks with great success, but I'm not "officially starting anything" with the Excel thing until next week (to kick off the new year with a bang!). I'll be sure to post updates throughout the year to let you know how it's going. We're saving for a big trip to Disney World next December, so the grand total saved will actually be put towards a trip to the happiest place on earth. :)
If you need to learn a few pointers on couponing, please go ask the experts. They know their stuff. Visit the following web sites I love to stalk each week:
http://www.thegrocerygame.com/ (This one is the mothership for me. It requires paid membership, $10 every 8 weeks, but it's a big cheat sheet of stuff on sale & which coupon to use to get the best price. It's the only paid service I use for coupons, other than buying weekly newspapers. Yes, it's worth every penny. Yes, I need this list. It saves me
hours and hours of searching this stuff down on my own. Time is money, honey. If you sign up, please use my email address for the "who sent you" part of registration so I can get credit. My address is: thewwchick at gmail dot com.)
http://www.couponmom.com/ (This is #2 in my book. I use it to find all the Target & CVS deals for the week.)
http://www.momsbyheart.net/ (Great info on CVS & how the ECB - extra care bucks - work.)
http://www.hip2save.com/ (This is a new one for me, but she has great tips & cute videos to get you started!)
http://www.shortcuts.com/ (You can load coupons right onto your Kroger Plus card! The savings is automatically taken off your bill. No paper coupons needed for this one. Gotta love that.)
http://www.coupons.com/ (Printable coupons are out there. I have a list a mile long of places to print coupons. I usually always stick with coupons.com, and have noticed most of the other place, if not all of them, use the same database for printables. Only print what you need so you're not wasting printer ink.)
My point to this whole blog post is...start breaking things down & figure out what got you to the point of being overweight in the first place. Take the bull by the horns and do something about it. Otherwise, all of your weight loss efforts are worthless. You'll gain it back in the blink of an eye if you're not dealing with what got you to Point A to begin with. Personally, Point B (being at my goal weight) is a way happier place to be. I'd like to stay here. So that means getting a grip on what drove me Point A (AKA: Taco Bell, Burger King, Hot 'N Now, any Mexican restaurant that crossed my path, etc.). Have a healthier 2010!
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