2/2/2011 Changin’ My Name from….

I'm changin' my name from Queen of Cheap to Queen of Grocery Shopping! Actually they could be seen as one and the same so I guess I’ll keep it the old way,

Today Bob and I did a major, major grocery shopping as we were out of everything! I’m tellin’ ya the cupboards were bare and the freezer shelves were empty!

Of late I have turned into quite the Coupon Queen. Bob and i watched a TV show one evening about these coupon queens, and yes, kings who are saving a fortune at the grocery store. So I have been getting the Sunday paper, getting and swapping coupon booklets from neighbors and creating quite a coupon stash.

So it’s the first Wednesday of the month which means Senior Citizen Day at Fry’s. In this particular store it means anyone 55 and over qualifies for that status. Now this is Bob’s first trip to a grocery store on the day when 10% discount is given. Dare I say it will be his last?

He pushes the cart and I thumb through the envelopes of coupons which of course are all separated according to category. The store is so crowded and Bob gets frustrated that the little silver haired ladies won’t get out of his way. It took us quite awhile to get through the aisles and to pick out what we wanted for the next month. Yep, we’re shopping for the month. Of course we’ll have to get fresh veggies, milk, bread, beer and Pepsi’s throughout the month but frozen goods, meat and whatever canned and paper goods we need are being bought today.

So we take our two carts that we now have and get in line to check out. Normally, Bob would go the truck while I did this part. Now, I did stock up on some things because they were on sale and I had coupons. I wouldn’t usually be buying three containers of mustard but I got them for nineteen cents a piece so it would be foolish on my part not to stock up. I also scored four free tubes of Colgate toothpaste due to them being on sale and again I had coupons.

I load the conveyor belt and Bob stood at the end of the counter watching the numbers rack up. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when he saw our total was $542.78! I hadn’t put my customer rewards card number through yet and when I did everything that was on sale started being deducted and I could see the color starting to come back into his face. Then I showed my license to prove my age, thank you dear lady for carding me, and another 10% came off. I could visibly see him breathing again. Then I handed over my thick stack of coupons. Our final total for two carts, enough for twenty eight meals, lots of paper products and snacks was $304.45.

We’re by no means ready for our own segment on the couponing show but I think we did pretty darn good.