Couponing

There's been a lot about couponing in the media lately. After reading this article on slate.com, plus coming across Frugalista, a couponing blog associated with the Chicago Tribune, I was inspired to give it a try. I've curtailed our grocery spending a bit this year, but we still spend vastly more on groceries than the couponers I've been reading about. The Frugalista spends only $80 per week, and claims to buy organic fruits and vegetables! Plus she has two kids! It's amazing.

The problem is that most coupons are for the very most processed grocery products, which I don't usually buy. For my first couponing expedition, I found a deal on Kellogg's cereal at Target. The cereal was on sale, and if you also used Target coupons and manufacturer's coupons, you could get the cereal for practically nothing. I screwed up a little bit by handing the cashier the wrong coupon, but still, I got two boxes of corn flakes, a box of blueberry Special K, and a box of Smart Start for a little more than a dollar a box.

On arriving home, I discovered that the cereals contain high fructose corn syrup, plus other ingredients I find objectionable such as artificial coloring. Ugh. Mike said he was fine with eating Kellogg's cereal, and I've had some of the Smart Start, but overall I'm bummed out by it. Mike and I both like oatmeal, which is our standard cheap breakfast. According to my calculations, cheap quick oats cost about $.10 per serving. The 4 boxes of cereal have about 56 servings total, and cost maybe $5, so that's about $.09 per serving. Plus, I add stuff to my oatmeal, like raisins and chopped apple and maple syrup and milk. So yeah, the Kellogg's are a slight savings, but maybe not good enough to justify the crap ingredients. Not that cheap store-brand oats are exactly a high-quality ingredient, but at least they are plain.

For my second foray into couponing this morning, I went for a Catalina deal. If you buy $30 worth of a certain array of products at Jewel/Osco, you get a $15 coupon good for any future order of groceries. The Catalina-eligible products include Progresso soups (no vegetarian varieties), Scott paper towels, Betty Crocker cake mixes, Hamburger Helper, instant Knorr noodle and rice boxes, Breyer ice cream, Yoplait yogurt, Chex Mix snacks, Ragu, Wish Bone salad dressing, etc. None of these I particularly wanted, but I came up with a list of things that might come in handy:

Yoplait Grande plain yogurt
Scott paper towels
Gold Medal flour
Yoplait Yo Plus
Breyers natural vanilla ice cream
Ragu
Kleenex

Since most of these items are also on sale, it could be a very sweet deal, or even a moneymaker with judiciously used manufacturer coupons. Here's how my deal played out.

4 Scott paper towels @ 1.99 ea
Helmann's mayonnaise 3.39
2 Breyer's ice cream @ 5.99 ea
Gold Medal flour 3.79
3 Kleenex @1.29

This totals 30.99. Minus 11.90 of "preferred savings" (i.e., the items were on sale if you had a Jewel card) and one manufacturer coupon for .50 off Kleenex, plus tax: a grand total of $19.67. And then, I got $15.00 in Catalina coupons, which I immediately used on groceries I actually wanted. So the bottom line is I got that stuff for $4.67; not bad. Absolutely none of it I would have bought today out of necessity, but it's all stuff we will use. In fact, we usually buy Veganaise, Whole Foods brand ice cream, recycled paper towels if any, and whole wheat flour, but those things are incompatible with Catalina couponing, of course.

I had planned to buy some Yoplait yogurt, but they didn't have the big tubs of plain yogurt, and the Yo Plus packs contain gelatin. I also couldn't bring myself to buy Ragu. It's so gross, very high in sodium, sugar, and soybean oil. At least the varieties that qualify for this spectacular deal. There is some organic Ragu that I didn't examine too closely, as it doesn't qualify for the deal.

So, $15 Catalinas in hand, I went to buy my real groceries. If I would have bought just $15 worth of stuff and got it free, this might seem impressive, but I bought a lot of stuff. Here's what I got:

huge cylinder of store brand oats
2 big cans Hunt diced tomato
Organic Valley soy milk 1/2 gallon
Org. Valley 2% milk 1/2 gallon
brown sugar
2.25 lb. 8 o' Clock Bean Coffee ($11.49)
2 packs whole wheat spaghetti
Mountain High plain yogurt quart
organic ketchup
Barefoot sauvignon blanc (to use for cooking wine, $5.99)
big jar Smuckers natural peanut butter ($4.55)
5 lb. granny smith apples
2 lb. mushrooms
collard greens

Using my $15 catalinas, plus a couple coupons, all said and done it cost $39.78. My grand total for the day's shopping, $59.45. Not too bad, considering the "big ticket" items I got -- coffee, wine, peanut butter.

I think the verb "couponing" is amusing.