Coupons are a lot of Work!

I'm trying so hard to save money on our groceries. Like, REALLY hard.

The problem is that my kids love fruit. And because I feed them mostly organic, this adds up to some serious grocery bills!

Thankfully, we are getting some organic vegetables for free from Mark's amazing garden. But the kids don't eat most of this free bounty, so that doesn't help my bottom line that much. (Well, it helps my bottom line, but that is not really where I was going with this...)

I started getting coupons from my parents that they weren't using, and I got us our own subscription to the newspaper. So my collection of RedPlums and SourceSavers is well underway.

But the way to save money with coupons is to actually cut them out. To be even more excellent in the pursuit of savings would be to use these cut out coupons at a store where the item is on sale!! (Can you imagine??)

This is all well and good, and sounds so simple and easy. But let me illustrate how time consuming this becomes by outlining the steps in a numbered list.

1. Gather coupons from newspaper and collect each week's sales papers.

2. Go through old coupons to trash ones that have expired.

3. Throw away last week's sales papers.

4. Spread out coupon stash, new coupon inserts, and current sales papers all over the table.

5. Look through sales fliers for items on sale. I shop at Randalls, Target, HEB, and CVS.

6. Look through coupon box for existing coupons, or the new coupon inserts to see if you have one for the 'deal of the week' item. You can also look online for coupons and print them out.

7. Make a list for each store, and put the coupons you need in a separate pile.

8. At Target, you can use 'Target' coupons and manufacturer coupons, so that is one more mind-blowing step. Because now you have to see if you have the Target & Manufacturer coupons for an item, and if that makes it cheaper than a sale price + coupon somewhere else.

I feel like it's a good time to mention that yesterday, while I was doing these exact activities, Charlie dumped out his water glass and soaked three of my coupon inserts in the process. He got a stern talking to and the inserts got dabbed with paper towels and spread out all over the kitchen counter to dry.

I have done these activities and had tremendous success. Like 4 times.

Now, I have this huge collection of coupons and an irrational disinterest in purchasing groceries because I feel like I need to complete my research and couponing before I go anywhere.

Which is actually saving us loads of money.