The Real Christmas Savings- Coupons
© Reginald Vickers
Coupons were a very important part of our household when I was growing up. In order for my Momma to feed three growing boys and one growing husband there were many times that coupons came to our rescue. My parents had a great way of meshing coupons with the menu for the following week. Every Saturday afternoon, Momma would clip and sort through the coupons while Pop would gleam over the grocery sales papers. Afterwards they would compare notes and determine what they would purchase the following week. Basically the only items Pop would buy when he went grocery shopping were those items that were on sale AND that had a coupon for it. It didn't matter how much we whined or beg to deviate from this plan, the groceries had to meet those criteria. Now this didn't bother me too much because I would even eat fried shoelaces if Momma cooked it. You see, Momma could make anything taste great! (Besides Momma made the best fried shoelaces you ever ate.) But there was one disadvantage to this shopping tactic. Pop would occasionally buy items we really didn't have any use for. Pop believed that if he found it on sale and Momma presented a coupon for it, it had to be bought. When Momma found a 5 cents off coupon for Pampers and Pop found them on sale, he bought them, even if we were 12, 15, and 18 years old. And someone was going to wear them. (I hated being the youngest.)
I have been using Internet coupons since I first began shopping over 4 years ago. But last year was the year that I decided to buy every Christmas gift by using Internet coupons (without buying any pampers). Once it was all over, I had saved well over $1000 on my Christmas shopping online, thanks to those Internet coupons.
I have a couple of great resources for all of your coupon needs. About 3 years ago I joined an eGroup list called Something4Nothing. When I became a member it was about 200 people strong, sharing the few bargains they found. Now the group has over 1000 members and last year in November and December alone they produced over 16,000 emails Something4Nothing-subscribe@egroups.com. Because this group is so large you must be referred by someone, so please tell them Reginald sent you.
