Extreme Coupons

I know what your thinking… Nope it isn’t that TV show at all. 100 years ago, my gram was widowed with 2 growing boys at home. My mom, an aunt and an uncle were already married and another aunt had already moved out. So here was my gram left to raise these 2 growing boys and sometimes me. She was one of the most resource full people I have ever known.

She would take the boys on the back roads and look for bottles in the ditches. She would go to yard sales and then sell her findings to art dealers. Books would be bought cheaply at one place and sold some where else. This is all before it was common place. And way before EBay and the like.

See green stamps and things like it created store loyalty. But coupons created brand loyalty. Or so they thought?!? Gram, would cut any coupons that she could get her hands on. She would use as many as she could afford to. She raised those boys and was able to still take me with her. Of course I helped all that I could. It was fun being with Gram!!!

Fast forward about 20 years. I started using coupons not long after Grim and I got married. I remember going to Kroger once a month, coupons in hand. We would have over $300 worth of food, 2+ cartful's, for less then $80. One time I had a receipt that was over 6 feet long. The cashiers and customers hated to see me in the store. The managers on the other hand loved me. Why, I’m not sure, but they did! They would even open a special lane for me. LOL! Try getting that type of service nowadays! I kind of got away from coupons as the deals became less and less.

The reason why I have regaled you with this story is because I didn’t go shopping for razors, shampoo, soap, toothpaste and the like for over 8 months. And within the last couple of weeks we have been slowly running out of things. Friday I went shopping to stock back up on what we needed. I was absolutely shocked at the prices.

Sunday I went and bought 2 papers and compared them with the deals on line. I went to CVS and got:

2~Oral B toothbrushes

2~Aussie flex hold hairspray

1~Gillette Men’s razor

1~4 pack refill kit for the razor.

With coupons and ECB’s it cost $9.96…. But I got $9 in ECB’s for a future visit. So in reality I only spent .96 cents. Not a bad haul for the first time back in the big time!

There were a couple of other items that I had to pass on. The Coppertone was almost $11@ and the head and shoulders was buy both a shampoo and conditioner and get the same free. It would have been like $32 and only getting like $9 or $10 back. Not worth it for things that I don’t normally use anyways.

I have garden tales to tell but that will have to wait for another post!

Gotta Run,

Yart