Robert W. Sarnoff
Even though I shop for only Mr. Cottage and I, there are times I spend almost as much on groceries as I did when the boys lived at home. For years, I've used coupons as a way to help save money, and it usually paid off. That is until recently. This past Sunday we had a stack of coupon inserts in the newspaper, but when I finished going through all of them, I only found about four that I could use. I'm sure you've noticed what I've been noticing for awhile now. Instead of getting so much off the price of an item, now you have to buy 2, 3 and sometimes even four items of a certain product in order to use the coupon. Case in point...
Mr. Cottage loves Claussen's pickles, but in case you've never bought them, they need to be refrigerated and they have an expiration date. If we bought two big jars of these, we would probably end up throwing some away before we could use it up. I just bought Prego today, but I bought the largest size they offer because it's more economical than buying the three they're offering for the $1 off. I think you get the point.
If you have a large family, like we use to have, then I would be able to use more coupons, but as it is now, more and more companies are requiring you to buy more of their products in order to save a bit of money. Personally, I wish all the companies would eliminate coupons all together. It's a waste of paper, it's time consuming to go through everything and cut out what you want or need, and then the stores themselves have all the coupons that they've received from their customers to deal with. Just lower prices occasionally for the shoppers, just like the stores are doing for us right now and include the coupon savings in that price. Sounds good to me!
I used to be more of a coupon girl, but we eat less "normal" food now, so I rarely use them. I hadn't noticed they had changed their ways. Bummer.
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