Stop Stereotyping Couponers: The Majority Frugally Shop the Outer Perimeters of the Grocery Store

There was yet another article about couponing, this time in “The New York Times Magazine,” (May 3, 2012) featuring the folks at Fabulously Frugal, and yet again, I’m astounded at how a topic like couponing can get people so riled up (read the comments, they are more entertaining than the actual article). Many of the misinformed comments that come after the article prejudge people who use coupons as unhealthy hoarders who are a burden to those who don’t use coupons.

NOT what I buy! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m not sure people were so fired up about couponing before that dang TLC show about extreme couponing came along. But every naysayer thinks that people who use coupons buy loads of junk food one step up from the fast food chains. (Oh, how I wish I could find out how many people who write negative comments about coupons frequent McDonald’s or other fast food establishments I wouldn’t be caught dead in… I’m sure more than a few…). Here’s the reality of most couponers (not those on television): we save money on non-grocery and grocery items using coupons, and so we can buy good meat and fresh produce. If I can get razors and toothpaste for free-ish using coupons, that money goes towards fruits and veggies. Most of us are not like the woman in Erie, Pennsylvania, featured on “Extreme Coouponing” who has a locked door to a special room in her basement filled with cookies and snacks, called “Mom’s Cookie Room.”

One Canadian blogger tried to explain her healthy couponing in this informative, helpful article–and then she was lambasted by a reader in the comments section–you may want to read her gracious reply to this reader. Another healthy couponing article by Shape Magazine listed Lean Pockets as a healthy food to buy with coupons. I would never be caught dead with a package of highly processed Lean Pockets in my house. The article also lists Yoplait yogurt, which I know is high in sugar. My take away from these articles: we all have different definitions of what eating healthy means for us–some of us prescribe to healthy-enough while others are more strict. We don’t have to agree with each other, but let’s have a healthy level of respect for one another.

Most of us have heard health advocates, such as the Mayo Clinic, say to avoid any inner aisles of grocery stores food. So, besides buying cereals, pasta, crackers and decent cookies (when I don’t make from scratch) inside the store perimeter, ingredients for tomato sauces, and always flour, sugars, oils and other baking and condiment needs, my own cart is filled with perimeter groceries. It is most definitely not filled with fruit roll-ups (tons of coupons for those) and the like!

Speaking of perimeter groceries, there ARE coupons and sales for those! You have to find the store in your area that holds the best perimeter sales. Thankfully, ShopRite has produce Super Coupons, and besides that, I’ve been able to use manufacturer’s coupons to buy almonds, raisins, protein bars, orange juice, cheeses, yogurts (favorite is Activa), organic eggs, organic milks…with coupons matched with sales! Maybe there are not coupons  and sales for all the items all the time, but most of the time, I’m able to frugally shop the perimeter of the grocery store.

Here’s a small sampling of recent purchases using coupons/sales at ShopRite for fresh/healthy foods:

• Sale: $1.29 a pound for organic apples
• Super Coupon ShopRite: whole pineapple $1.49
• Super Coupon ShopRite: broccoli or cauliflower .99 cents a lb.
• Coupon + Sale: Blue Diamond Almonds (not in perimeter but healthy) for $1.50 a can.
• There’s always BOGO sales on potatoes, carrots, and onions–which reminds me of the bags of baby organic carrots for $1.66 each on sale, no coupons needed.

Here is a short list of alternative coupons I used to get healthy items:

• Groupon to Whole Foods ($10 for $20 worth of items and I bought meat and poultry)
• Fairfield Coupon to Fountain of Youth ($9 for $20 worth of items in this organic store in Westport, and I plan to buy produce and/or meats)
• I use the coupon booklets from Whole Foods, as well. Sometimes you get amazing deals, as you can read about in one of our posts.
  

  I bought nine packages of antibiotic-free chicken drumsticks at Whole Foods because they were affordable at .99 cents a pound thanks to a 70% off sale. Good to know that even Whole Foods has super sales! Photo: TFF

It’s always possible to buy frugally around the perimeter using coupons and sales, or just sales. To all of the coupon critics: Buy frugally around the perimeter by simply reading the store’s sales flyers!

~Marilyn, TFF

Is The Inside of Your Refrigerator Frugal Like Amy Dacyczyn’s (of The Tightwad Gazette)?

We love Amy Dacyczyn’s Tightwad Refrigerator, on page 262 of her first book, The Tightwad Gazette. TFF has decided to share a sampling of the rotating contents of our Frugal Refrigerators. Another time, we will share what’s in our Frugal Freezers!

Please share with us what’s in your frugal fridge!!

~Marilyn & Aimee, TFF

(Click on images to magnify.) Here’s the original and much appreciated Tightwad Refrigerator:

Marilyn’s Frugal “Every Drop & Crumb Counts” Fridge (click on image to magnify):

Aimee’s Frugal Foodie Fridge (click on image to magnify):

Why I Still (Sometimes) Love PriceRite

I’ve had sort of a love/hate relationship with PriceRite. Loved it when it opened, hate it now that prices are going up. But there are still a few things I go there to get that I can’t get a better deal on elsewhere. Or, should I say, the same products cost more at its sister store ShopRite…

These exact same groceries cost me $7.39 at PriceRite, and would have cost me $10.67 at ShopRite (assuming none of the items were on sale). It's worth the savings to go to PriceRite for items my family uses and loves when I'm in the area so I don't waste my savings on gas.

For example, I went there today to get my PriceRite staples: seltzer, Portuguese bread and honey pretzels. We drink a lot of seltzer in our house (in place of soda)–we add juice to seltzer, we drink it plain, we just love it. But the same bottles that go for .39 cents at PriceRite go for .50 cents at ShopRite (but they’ve been on sale for .33 cents a bottle at ShopRite, too). I’ve even found the seltzer for .25 cents a bottle at PriceRite when I hit it just right. My kids love the Chaves Portuguese bread, but it’s a full dollar more for the same exact package at ShopRite. The honey pretzels are $1.29 at PriceRite and normally $1.69 at ShopRite (but I’ve found them for sale for a buck a bag at ShopRite, too). So, though I don’t make it to PriceRite nearly as often as I used to, the store still has some expected, and some unexpected deals, enough to keep me going.~Marilyn, TFF

Join a Food Co-op and Eat Like Your Great-Grandmother…

…well, maybe not every great-grandmother. There’s a contrarian in every crowd. There’s always someone out there to say their grandmother or great-grandmother smoked and drank and lived to age 98. The point is that what and how they ate back then is not the same as what and how we eat today.  Heck, the processed food I ate as a kid is not the same as the processed food available today.  ( See my post on GMOs)

We have so much to learn from our grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Why? Growing up, they ate more freshly prepared foods than we do today. They snacked on raw fruit that was in-season and canned the extra. They prepared veggies they grew and cooked meat from their local farms. They bought in bulk, wasted nothing, and cooked from scratch. They enjoyed a simpler life of putting people before things.

Beautiful, affordable organic produce this week through my food co-op.

Eight years ago this month, when my middle child was six months old, we joined an organic and natural food buying group, called Mama’s Manna Food Co-op. That was the first step in this journey of a gazillion steps. In eight years and counting, I have discovered that cooking from scratch does not have to be a gourmet affair, nor does it have to take hours. Simple preparation nearly always yields the most delicious dishes. Most of all, cooking from scratch is always the frugal way to go.

Through the food co-op, fresh organic fruit and vegetables are available at prices comparable to conventional produce.  Organic grains, dried beans, flours, and nuts are available at frugal prices in bulk quantities, which equals less or reusable packaging. (Our great-grandmothers recycled before the word was invented!)

In addition to produce, anything you can buy at local stores, such as Mrs. Green’s, Fountain of Youth, and Whole Foods Market, is available through our co-op at a savings of at least 15% to 50%, and sometimes more.  If you are interested in joining our food co-op, please leave me your name and email address in the Comments Section at the end of this post.

I got Organic Short Grain Brown rice nearly 50% cheaper than packaged and Dr. Bronner's Lavender Castile Soap for 45% cheaper than in a lot of stores.

As Linda Watson says in her book, Wildly Affordable Organic: All on $5 a Day or Less, it’s easy to think that the words “organic” and “sustainable” are code words for “too expensive.”  How much is your health worth?  To help you budget, download the “Dirty Dozen and Clean 15” list. 

Consider this: North American food culture has seen a steady decline in recent generations, characterized by a dangerous slide away from nutritious and locally-grown whole foods, and toward cheap, highly processed “convenience foods.” The reason is simple: we were enticed by low prices and short-term convenience, and misinformed about nutrition and the inevitable long-term health consequences of our choices. This has been called our “Fast Food Nation,” and it’s put us on course for a shorter life expectancy, and a lower quality of life. (taken from “Real Food for Real Kids”)

If you can, allocate more of the family budget toward fresh food. Look at it as a health care investment – as local Square Foot Gardening teacher and health coach Amie Hall has said in one of her free library workshops, “Get food from the farm, not the pharmacy.”

By using coupons on non-perishable items, refusing to buy material stuff, reusing the stuff we have, reducing waste and recycling as much as possible, you can save hundreds of dollars each year; money you can invest toward a sustainable, healthy and happy long life…so that you may live to be a great-grandmother or great-grandfather.

~Aimee, TFF

How to Save Money on Milk

Anderson Cooper’s recent show features money-saving families that live comfortably in tiny houses, stopped shopping for a month, and more.

I’ve always loved Anderson Cooper, but now I just adore him! He aired a recent show on saving money, and many clips can be seen at this link.

But this one clip — I just love. It’s about how one family saves money on milk using a quick, simple trick–add water. (I do this with juice, and you know, I never even thought of doing this practical trick with whole milk! Not only that, there are endless posts from other blogs and sites about this trick, yet I never tried it.) The way the dad describes why and how he learned this is quite endearing.

Update: Just bought a gallon of whole milk at Trader Joe’s. I poured a half gallon into a pitcher. I filled the milk jug and the pitcher up with cold water and had my husband taste the milk with added water. He loved it. Couldn’t tell the difference. He’s sold. Tomorrow morning….we’ll see what the kids say, and I don’t think they’ll notice.

Another update: My kids didn’t know the difference this morning when they had their cereal. Success! (Or, maybe they were just half asleep…)

Yet another update: A month later, and we are still successfully stretching our milk with excellent results!

Not enough milk for breakfast? Here’s a simple trick. It works even with reduced fat milk.

(disclaimer — one day TFF will figure out how to embed videos into our posts, but for now, click on the links above to do directly to the videos.)

~Marilyn, TFF

Can This Reluctant Gardener Learn to Save Money By Growing Vegetables?

Last year I was the lucky recipient of a cherry tomato harvest from Aimee’s garden. (Tasteless cherry tomatoes go for $2.50 [on sale] and up per package at stores.) My family loves them, eats them for snacks, on sandwiches, in salads—it’s one of their favorite foods. I’m ready to start growing my own cherry tomatoes, but it’s not going to be easy for me.

Hoping this is my future...my own cherry tomatoes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I know, growing cherry tomatoes is easy. Easy for whom? Not for me, as I wrote in an article for AOL about my black thumb-itis. I was able to grow wildflowers a blue moon ago, not anymore. I kill every plant given to me. A neighbor’s tomato plant gifted to us – dead.  (We have plenty of sun, we water, but no success.) I’m willing to start small—again—with a container garden. Aimee has seeds for me. There are free seed packs at our library. I even ordered a tomato plant from my son’s track-and-field school fundraiser (…and I never order expensive fundraiser stuff, so I must be serious…). If I’m successful, maybe, just maybe, I’ll move up to a square-foot garden. And, maybe add lettuce to my garden. Gulp.

Another Goal for a Reluctant Gardener:

Composting: I went to a talk at our library in March on “How to Start a Vegetable Garden,” and though most of this basic talk went over my head, the presenter and long-time gardener, Eric Frisk, said something that made me want to compost. He said he started composting ages ago because he was just too cheap to buy dirt. Well, I’m cheap, too! So, now I want to compost for free dirt. Aimee is also my inspiration because she is guiding me on how to start composting to save on garbage and, yes, get my free dirt.

~Marilyn, TFF