Confessions of a Reformed Coupon-a-phobe

Hello,
My name is Shane. And, I’m a couponaphobe. The first step is admitting you have a problem.

My Story

When my wife and I first began trying to get control of our money we knew that we had to become more frugal. We created our budget, punched in all the numbers, and then went into shock. It was bad, and the only way to get out of it was to cut, cut, cut. So, we cut. We cut every imaginable expense.

Without fail, the one expense category that we always had issues with was that of the groceries. My wife has Celiac Disease. Ingesting gluten does some terrible things to her intestines and, untreated, it could kill her. So, she eats a totally gluten free diet. Unlike some, our food bill will not shrink to nothing. For instance, a loaf of bread costs about $7. Small bag of spaghetti noodles? $4.

So, cutting our grocery bill has always been top priority, since it commands such a high portion of our budget. Buying things on sale helps, but in order to cut it to the extreme, we had to use coupons. My wife became a coupon queen. She’s got one of those accordian expanding coupon sorters that she carries around in her purse every where she goes. She’s on a coupon train and regularly gets large envelopes full of coupons. I’ve seen priority mail flat rate envelopes used because the weight would cause it to cost more to ship it any other way. She’s great at it.

This is where the confession part comes in. It embarrassed me. At first, I was even embarrassed to be with her when she would use coupons. They slow things up, and everybody stares as the teller tries to figure out how to enter them in. I didn’t like it at all. And, if her using them when I was with wasn’t bad enough, she’d send me with a list and some coupons to the store. I would do whatever I could to get out of going. And, when I did go, I would “forget” that I had them with me.

The Recovery

It seems like there is a 12-step program for just about anything, these days. Unfortunately, for me, there isn’t one for the coupon averse. We’re on our own. We’re left to our own devices. Twisting and writhing while we wait for the teller to recall the price of something that needed to be written on the coupon. I’m fairly certain that it’s some strange manifestation of a “guy thing”. Some testosterone fueled allergy to a device that we perceive as being entirely of the feminine persuasion.

When my wife first started her couponing, the savings weren’t all that great. A few bucks here and there. But, as she got better and started getting the large envelopes, the savings grew. The “you saved” section of the receipts grew to double digits. Suddenly, the savings were huge.

And that’s when my recovery began.

It started in two parts. The first was the reiteration of a saying that Dave Ramsey likes to use. “Live like no-one else, so that you can live like no-one else.” What he means by it, is that you should make every possible sacrifice you can in order to pay your debt away so that you can live a debt free life that very few live. The second part came when my wife quit her job, forcing us to cut back even further. I realized that I needed do my part wherever I could to save money and keep us within the bounds of our budget.

To this day, I still have a hard time using coupons when I am shopping alone. I still feel very awkward walking down the aisle with a list, filing through the coupons to determine what size package I need to get to be able to use the coupon. I can still feel the stares as the teller rings the coupons through. But, I do use them. And, I am recovering. Slowly, I can feel the tendrils of fear pulling back and releasing me to save.

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Shane Ede is the brains behind Beating Broke, where he writes about breaking the chains of debt and “Beating Broke”. You can follow Beating Broke on twitter @beatingbroke.

{Heather’s Note: Shane & I agreed to a guest post exchange as part of the Yakezie challenge. When I sent him my Are Coupons Really Worth It? article, I had no idea he would respond with a bit of a rebuttal! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.}