Clipping Coupons

Today I'm sitting here, at my desk (which we House Wives do more than you'd think), clipping the coupons I just printed off my myriad coupon and savings sites this morning. This is seriously a 45-minute task, done between switching loads of laundry and reprimanding a barking dog. I'm thinking back on a conversation with a girlfriend yesterday about grocery shopping that resulted in a terrific epiphany - grocery shopping is my JOB now. Whereas before, when I was working full-time, I would slap together an approximation of what I thought we'd like to eat that week and usually fail miserably at my telepathic food-sense, after which I'd hand the list and some cash to my assistant(!) and she'd actually do the shopping and put away the groceries. It was heavenly for someone like me, who finds the options at the grocery store and the pressure to make the right decisions about what to feed myself and my husband a huge anxiety trigger. 

Now I spend at least two hours a week perusing the sale flyer for my local grocery store, looking at what's on special, comparing that to the recipes in my dog-eared and food-stained cookbooks and epicurious.com, planning detailed menus of lunches and leftover dinners for Tony and myself, all the while dutifully checking my coupon keeper for coupons that correspond to the sale items and other ingredients we'll need for the week. I go so far as to list what we'll be eating and then what Tony gets in his lunch the next day, so I don't forget what to cook or pack. There are post-it notes strewn from one end of the counter to the other by the time I'm finished. 

When I actually get to the grocery store (always on a Tuesday, because that's when the meat gets marked down - it disturbs me to no end that I actually know that), I'm the crazy one with multiple lists, the coupon keeper, a calculator and a pen tucked behind my ear. The cashier actually said to me this week, "I bet you've got some coupons, too, don'tcha?" when I reached the checkout lane and plunked my overflowing coupon keeper next to the debit-card reader. I've become the woman I always mocked, the one who spends 15 minutes in front of the pasta sauce, comparing ounces with prices and coupons while a line of desperate, harried women trying to squeeze in their grocery shopping on a 20-minute lunch break forms behind me.

It becomes a competition, really. How much money can I save? If I combine this weekly special with the coupons I have, can I actually get the grocery store to pay ME to take the cereal off their hands? Will I have storage space for the four boxes of cereal and four more of granola bars that will save me $3 each if I buy in bulk or will I have to start storing things in the oven? I know we wanted grapes this week, but clementines are on sale, so I guess we'll go for Vitamin C over antioxidants. And even though we already have two loaves of bread in the freezer and it's all we can do to eat half of a loaf a week, I think I'll go ahead and get two more, because I'm not sure how long this buy-one-get-one free special will last and I really like this brand. 

When I was at couple's counseling yesterday after my grocery-saving expedition (I saved $41 on $135 worth of groceries between my store card and my coupons - a new record!), the therapist and I came to the conclusion that I've merely applied the same perfectionist tendencies to my grocery shopping that I used to in my work life. Sincerely, if keeping the house - and that includes the shopping and cooking - is my job now, my full-time occupation, I better be good at it. Since I'm terrible at cleaning and a bit of a clutterbug, I better focus on the areas at which I can be successful. So shopping it is! 

At some point, it became a moral good for me, too. I don't earn money now, so I have to save it. The $41 I saved at the grocery store allowed me to buy some household goods at IKEA. Next week, I can get my hair cut with the savings, and so on.  It removes some of the guilt that a person like me, who is used to earning her own money and not having to worry about buying a muffin tin or getting a manicure, feels at basically just being a drain on the household income instead of a support. 

Plus, who doesn't like sticking it to the man? The Consumer Price Index shows food and beverage prices rising at 4.7% over the last 12 months, while overall prices only increased .2%. I regard the 20% I save on each trip to the grocery store as my own personal stimulus package.

 

But now I have to get back to my pile of coupons. Only six more days until I venture into the wilds of Kroger again, and I need to re-supply.