Crazy Coupon Lady

Welcome!  I have been a crazy coupon lady for several years now.  You know, the one with the big three-ring binder brimming with coupons perched atop her grocery cart.  Yep, that’s me.  I love saving money, and it has become a weekly challenge for me to see how little I can spend to feed my family.  And I’m not talking ramen noodles seven nights a week.  My goal is for them not to know the difference between what they eat now versus what they used to eat when I paid full price for the food.  

Let me give you a little background on myself.  Many, many years ago, when I was single with no responsibilities and more money than I needed, I was a grocery snob.  If I may be perfectly transparent, I would notice people buying the generic brand of anything and there would be a little reaction in my mind - I don’t really remember the exact sensation, but there was a stigma that I placed on any “no name” item.  Just writing this, I’m feeling a rush of shallowness - how embarrassing to admit!  

So much has changed since that time.  Marriage, children, becoming a stay-at-home mom, husband’s job moving to China without him, husband deciding to change careers and go back to school and the subsequent three and a half years of living on our savings.  Through that stretch of time while my husband was in school, we got to experience first-hand God’s loving faithfulness in so many areas of our lives.  Coupons were one of the tools He used to provide for us.  He hand-picked people to come into my life to educate me on how to best use them and to understand the cyclical nature of grocery store sales, then use that “system” to stockpile products when they are at their lowest price.  You may think it’s nuts to have a dozen containers of sour cream in your refrigerator, but hey, it was FREE, so now comes the challenge to figure out what to do with all of it!  

That situation is really the inspiration for this blog.  Many of you are probably coupon users, and some of you are likely employing varying degrees of the stockpiling method.  So what do you do with all those FREE No Yolks egg noodles you may have gotten last week at Harris Teeter? (Note:  I live in NC in an area that doesn’t have a grocery store on every corner, so since I have to drive a distance, I have chosen to make Harris Teeter my “store-of-choice”.  I know there are deals to be had at other stores, and if I lived closer, I would jump right on them, but for the most part what I write about will focus on those deals that I have found at Harris Teeter).  This is a picture of the groceries that my daughter and I bought that we, after the free milk coupons) were "paid" to buy.

My goal is to scour cookbooks and websites and maybe do a little kitchen experimentation of my own to come up with meals that you can make with the deals that  can be found at the grocery store on any given week.  What good is free or nearly free food if it sits in your refrigerator until it becomes a science project.  I will encourage you that if you have over-purchased your frugal food or have decided you don’t like an item you bought, please bring the items to the local food bank.  In this economy, there are many people in need of help and they would be blessed by your donation.

So, come on back from time to time to see how you can utilize what you have in your pantry, in order to make room for the next set of deals that come along!  Happy couponing!!