The following video has been circulating around the internet for a while now, and every time I see it, I keep thinking that I really ought to write a blog post with my thoughts on it. I have another post on coupons in the works, but for now, I just want to share my perspective on the type of shopping shown here.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it right here. Email subscribers, you’ll either have to watch it on YouTube or click on the blue post title above. That will take you directly to my blog, where you can play the video.
For those of you who can’t watch the video, it’s about a mom who, by using coupons and rebates, feeds her family of 6 for $4/week.
On one hand, I can appreciate what this mom is doing. I don’t know the details of her life situation…maybe she hasn’t got much money to spend on groceries, and so this really is the best thing for her family. And it is great that she can give food from her stockpile to people who are hungry.
But on another, larger hand, I really don’t think this is a great way to feed a family.
Why?
Back when I had only 2 kids and my grocery stores were doubling $1 coupons, I used my fair share of them, and it is true that you can get a lot of items for free or for pennies by shopping sales and using doubled coupons.
The problem is that you can rarely get nutritious food for free or for pennies, and so relying solely on coupons to feed your family means that you will rarely eat fresh, unpackaged, unprocessed food.
Yes, you can get free toilet paper, free hair products, and free cleaning products. And food-wise, you can get free cereal, free crackers, free rice mixes, free canned meat, free pepperoni, and any number of other packaged food items.
However, you will rarely, if ever, get free fresh meat, dairy, or produce. I’ve been in the couponing world, and I know that pretty much the only coupons for these items are wine tag coupons (they’ll be for say, $1 off of any meat). These are the coupons that the $4/week shopper used to buy her scallops (in $1 increments, which would be enough to drive me crazy!).
You can get wine tag coupons without actually buying wine by participating in coupon trading/exchanging organizations, but it would be nigh onto impossible to get enough of these to provide sufficient real, fresh food for my family of 6.
Take just produce as an example.
Coupons are sometimes available for frozen vegetables, but they’re most often for the sort that come packaged with sauces. And there are coupons for canned vegetables and fruits, but most canned vegetables and fruits are kind of lacking in nutrition. Some frozen fruit coupons are available, but they’re rarely high enough in value to make the fruit free…it definitely couldn’t fit into a $4/week budget.
To put it simply, if you rely solely on coupons, you will not be eating produce unless it’s frozen, canned, or comes prepared in a package (like bagged lettuce or pre-sliced apple pieces). There simply is no way to obtain a raw tomato or a fresh mushroom for free at a grocery store by using coupons.
Then there’s the fact that the only coupons for meat are for processed, highly packaged meats.
And the fact that it’s nigh onto impossible to get eggs for free.
And the fact that milk coupons for anything but chocolate milk and half and half are exceedingly hard to come by.
I just can’t see any possible way to eat a balanced diet of real food on $4/week.
And we haven’t even taken into consideration the ridiculous amount of trash this type of coupon shopping produces. Coupons are primarily available for packaged foods, and the more packaged the food, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to get it for free.
There are few, if any coupons for large packages of raw nuts. But if you want to buy small packages of flavored nuts, you can do that for free.
The coupons for large containers of yogurt are few and far between (and you’d be hard pressed to get a free gallon of milk to make homemade yogurt), but you can get tiny containers of yogurt for free with nary a problem.
Want to eat pizza? You can’t get ingredients for free (except the tomato sauce and maybe the cheese), but you can get a plastic wrapped, cardboard encased frozen pizza for $0.00.
I’m a big fan of saving money, yes, but this is NOT the direction I want to go. I want to be in a place where we eat more fresh food, more local food, and more unpackaged food.
And coupons are not going to take me there.
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Have to totally agree with you here. I live in the same area as this woman and believe me, prices here are some of the highest in the country, surpassed only by New York and California, its a published fact. To accomplish a $4/week food budget on a consistent, regular basis, or even one week in fact, in my opinion, is impossible. A gallon of milk alone is $3; a pound of butter $1.99 on sale and a dozen eggs $1.49 on sale! Sure, you can get a loaf of white bread for .99, but REAL bread cost upwards of $3! (I make my own). And I shop at our lowest priced market, Market Basket (we don’t have Aldi’s here.) I use coupons and rebates for regular-use items and I can’t get my weekly bill under $80/week for me, husband and teenage daughter! Trust me, we are not eating steak every night, but we do load up on veggies, fruit and the like. I wish these people would stop popping up, it gives others false hope and expectations. Tell the truth – once a month or so, you must have to spend an extraodinary amount of money playing “catch-up”.
I guess it hadn’t occurred to me that she sometimes spends more, as she does say she spends $4/week on average (but maybe I’m just really trusting! lol). On a $4/week average budget, you can only buy foods that are free or cost pennies, and it’s really, really hard to buy nutritious food that way.
I ran across the same clip on Dave Ramsey’s site. I came to the same conclusion that you did…you can only get processed foods….not fresh veggies and fruits for free. I applaud her creativity but cannot fathom only feeding my family processed foods. Thank goodness for Aldi, we can get great deals on fresh fruits and veggies and now that the weather is nice we can start supplementing with veggies from the garden and farmers markets.
Amen. I love that Aldi makes fresh produce so affordable.
I am 100% in agreement with you on this! Thanks for posting!
AMEN SISTER!!
Ha ha Kelly beat me! I wanted to say AMEN! Way to go FRUGAL GIRL! Healthy is better than all those free processed foods unless of course you’re broke…
…God help us all.
Awesome post! You make your case about the problems with coupons really well. I completely agree with you. Thank you so much for writing this. I especially appreciate your support for locally produced foods.
There are some interesting reasons related to federal agricultural policy that vegetables are relatively expensive. (Well, I don’t think they’re expensive, but ag policy experts say that subsidies for commodities to create corn syrup and the like far outweigh subsidies for nutritious fruits and vegetables.)
Another thing? I doubt she spends $4 each week. I would bet on my grandmother’s grave that what was on TV was the most extreme she could manage. It’s unlikely she has store credit every week, or dollar off deli coupons. I also wonder if she trades or buys coupons and if those costs are included.
Even so, I agree with your basic point. If that’s what you can afford than big congrats to pulling that off. If you can afford more, please consider healthier food – it’s not a savings in the long run.
Yes! It has never made sense to me to get your grocery bill super low for bad nutrition. Why?
I must also point out that many of us live in areas where double couponing is non-existent. I find it frustrating for these “experts” to tell me how easy this all is when stores around here absolutely do NOT do this. And often, they won’t even allow two different coupons on a single item so your savings are highly limited right there. As far as I can see, you must live in a much larger city or township than I do to be able to practice these multiple coupon tips.
I don’t know of any retailer that allows multiple coupons on the same item, unless one is a store coupon and the other is a manufacturer’s coupon. Many stores do this. The store coupon will reduce the price of the item in the same way that a sale will, and if there is normally tax on the item, then you are taxed on the after-sale (after-coupon) price. Then the manufacturer’s coupon is applied.
On further reflection, I think your idea of “double couponing” is mistaken–it means that the coupon’s value is doubled, not that you can use 2 coupons on one item.
Actually, I meant both. I hear of double couponing where the face value of the coupon is doubled or occasionally, tripled, and in the second half of the paragraph I meant allowing two unrelated coupons on the same product. Thanks for pointing out my vague language, Emily!
I agree, we live on an impossibly tight budget, but we also raise a garden, get fruit from our trees and have hens to make sure that our family has access to healthy foods and only supplement with what we have to have at the grocery. I wasn’t able to view the video, but if this is the only way to feed their family, I completely understand.
Amen Sista! I am in complete agreement with you. I’d much rather fork out the dough for real food which tastes good….that packaged stuff tastes like plastic and cardboard. She may have a low grocery bill but wonder what the cost of medical care over the course of a lifetime will be due to bad nutrition?!
I always thought I was the odd woman out not using coupons to save, but I rarely buy anything that takes a coupon! I shop for fresh produce, dairy, meat, juices, staples like flour etc, and some canned goods….I figure I save more by just not buying convenience foods anyway.
Although, I did use a coupon recently for a $6.99 haircut at one of my favorite salons!
There are coupons for juice and canned goods (especially tomato products), and for nonfoods like shampoo, toilet paper, cleaning goods.
Yeah, most of the coupons I use are for non-food items.
There are also lots of coupons for dairy items and staples like flour (and juices and canned goods as a previous reply stated). Obviously, you do buy things that take coupons….you just weren’t aware.
I agree with you 100%. I have seen quite a few blogs where all they talk about is how to save money on everything, how to get free stuff etc. For these women nutrition doesn’t matter, some even prepare their meals on one day for one month and freezes them so that they can go coupon and freebie hunting ALL DAY for the rest of the month!!!! Also they don’t care if they actually use the product or not, just so long it’s free, violating the earth. Their kids will grow up while they are saving money, being deprived of their company and healthy food, sure you can buy a house but all they will remember is how spent your time on the computer or going berserk on the grocery isles, you will have no one to be with you but your computer and coupons!
Some women do freezer cooking as a way to provide better nutrition to their family, and have those home-cooked meals available in busy times when they might otherwise be tempted to eat processed foods or fast food. There are many good points to freezer cooking, and I don’t think most people who do it do so in order to spend all of their time shopping with coupons.
However, I do agree with a lot of your points and it is important to practice moderation in EVERYTHING that we do.
Some of us working moms do freezer cooking so we can have more time each day to spend with our families and make unproccessed meals for our family quickly each night. If I can spend 10-12 hours ONE DAY to make a month (or more) worth of meals, I don’t have to spend an hour (or more) EACH DAY doing it. Also I know there is always something healthy in the freezer and no one will stop at McDonalds b/c there is “nothing to eat”. And some of us you get things just because they are free donate more to women’s and homeless shelters than some could ever imagine doing. And some of us who buy free things, MAKE money on items so we can buy natural and organic products for our own family while still getting items to help those in need. Please think before you judge.
I completely agree with this article about not getting foods with adequate nutrition and I would rather spend more money on fresh food and natural and organic products. I admit I do get lots of free packaged items with coupons and sales, but most go into my “donate” box. But I still do find a lot of deals on good, natural, fresh items with my coupons- but never $4/week!
I completely agree. I use coupons for hba items, a few boxed cereals, and the occasional treat like candy or ice cream, but it would bother me to have a pantry that looked like hers.
Let me add my “Amen” to all the others. Plus, I want to shout “encore” to your post. It is high time that somebody said it as clearly as you have. I second what Belinda said – my town does not have double coupons. What she did – I can’t do in the grocery stores here. So I choose to eat low on the processing chain (bulk foods, fruits, vegetables, homemade yogurt, and minimal meat), local, and as organically grown as possible. I think I will trade my food bill for her health costs! There just aren’t the coupons out there for these foods. I sometimes have a coupon for yogurt to provide a new starter when I need it. The way I save money – buy sales and freeze. I am working on the garden but in New Mexico, it is tough. Thanks again for a GREAT post.
I agree with you. People don’t eat real food anymore. They may be spending $4 a week now but when everyone has high blood pressure and diabetes later in life, its not that much of a savings
Good points but I feel that I can’t judge her. I don’t know here real motives behind her shopping style. Of course, I don’t think she only pays $4/wk on groceries in total! I think this is mostly for show as I am sure she has to get other things but shops super cheaply. Anyway, as I said I don’t know where she is coming from or why she is doing this (the real underlining meaning) so I will not pass judgement. I am sure what you do or what I do as frugal may seem strange or un-nutritious or whatever by some. I feel this post is a bit preachy but that is just me.
Oh yes, like I said, I don’t know enough about her particular situation to be able to pass judgment on her. As I said at the beginning of this post, if this is all she can afford, then more power to her. At least her family is not going hungry.
And yes, nutritional ideas vary greatly, and we will never agree with everyone on the topic (I don’t claim to feed my family perfectly, that’s for sure!). However, I do think that most of us could agree that subsisting on cartfuls of boxed, processed food is not ideal.
And the basic point of my post is that this style of shopping is not for ME.
well spoken. a lot of the coupon clipping moms give frugality a bad name b/c of the obsession with getting the lowest prices. i think it is much more important to have nutritious food. if i happen to see a coupon for something i like (like sabra hummus!), sure i’ll use it, but my way to save is more focused on taking advantage of store specials and preventing food waste.
I’m all for saving money, I really am, but I have to wonder if it’s really worth the time she spends on looking for coupons, cutting them, making out her list, filling out rebate forms, etc. Honestly, I’d rather spend more money and have the time to myself than spend so much time every week searching for ways to save at the grocery store. But I guess it depends how much you think your time is worth (dollar-wise, I mean).
As a stay-at-home mom who doesn’t have a paying job, either outside or inside the home, I consider it part of my job (in addition to taking care of my kids, house, etc) to save money on groceries. I recently started seriously couponing, and decided it’s going to take a little bit of extra time to do the work of saving money. I don’t have the option to decide to spend more money instead of taking the time to save. I will not be able to get down to $4 a week (and my impression of the video is that is mostly food, not household supplies), but I am going to spend some time at my job of finding good deals to cut my bill back. I don’t go whole-hog on prepared food, but I don’t do all from scratch, either.
We do use coupons for many items, but there does need to be a balence since many of the good foods never have coupons! One of the best ways we’ve found to keep on budget with things like meat and fruit is by buying in bulk. I freeze our meat in meal size portions and that helps so much!
This week, for the first time I got my weekly groceries down to $97–which was a HUGE accomplishment! You may remember my previous post about being overwhelmed with the stacks of coupons, and how I was spending an average of $209 a week on groceries (once it was all added up in Quicken and averaged out). What I actually did was follow your lead, Kristen. I took a bunch of those boxes of packaged foods that I got for 50 cents or less back to the store. I also made a menu for the week. I went to three grocery stores to get my produce and some sale items; I bought the loss leaders. My big accomplishment was that I got a huge back of grapes, carrots, two packages of cheese, and tortillas at Safeway for $3.00! Woo hoo. And the other trick was I bought less. I realized we were a family very guilty of food waste. Well, it’s Thursday, and we still have plenty of good food to eat…all home cooked! And this week, my goal once again is to spend $100 or less. I know I can do it. THANK YOU! I love your website. It’s making a huge difference in my life! =)
Ohhh, that’s so lovely to hear! Yay you!!
It is amazing how we can get by on a lot less food than we think, isn’t it? I used to way overbuy for my family.
I am sorry but I do have to give this woman TOTAL prop’s. All I can say is WOWWEEE! Yes I do agree that they may not be eating much fresh, but I don’t think for a second they totally rely prepackaged goods. I wish SOME of her tatics would be tought to those on the welfare system (Food stamps) so they can learn to strech their limited resources to feed the family for a whole month and not go hungry.
If that’s the case, I wish they would have said so. On her website, she does claim to only spend $4/week on groceries on a regular basis.
I do think coupons are fine to use, and I think it’s fine to buy some packaged foods. I’m just not wanting to subsist on nothing but those products.
I’m not sure how feasible her practices would be for many people living in poverty. One thing that struck me watching it was that her savings were entirely contingent on her having access to many different grocery stores and the ability to get to them. For people who don’t have a car, or who share a car, or who live in the kind of “food deserts” so many poorer people in urban and rural areas live in, it would be nearly impossible to shop the way she does, even in a very modified way.
That is true. Inner-city grocery stores are probably not going to have great coupon promotions.
Are city farmer’s markets and the like only common in upscale parts of cities? I’ve never tried to go shopping in an urban area, so I’m fairly clueless about what things are like there. I do read blogs written by city dwellers who are always visiting markets, but it’s likely that they all live in nicer parts of their cities.
And yes, if you live way out in the country, couponing is not going to be a good option. Usually stores will only offer coupon doubling and such in an area where there’s pretty stiff competition between stores.
In my city there are farmer’s markets the chancy neighborhoods, although I’ll have to check the map to see if they’re in the worst ones. Also my jurisdiction allows farmer’s market sellers to accept state food stamps.
Oooh, that is a good idea (the farmers accepting food stamps).
I live on the west side of Detroit, which is the “better” side of the city. We’ve got two farmer’s markets, both of which you can get to via bus. (They just started one last fall on the campus where I work, right outside of the building I teach in, which was great. It also gives students coming from areas that don’t have a farmer’s market a chance to pick up fresh produce.) But we still don’t have a whole lot to choose from by way of grocery stores–although we have tons of liquor and convenience stores–and I know the situation in the east side is worse.
It seems like the kind of coupon shopping she does would require really stocking up on things when they’re on sale, and that’s not really possible, I don’t think, without a car. I realize most people have cars, but if we’re talking about getting by on groceries for the week on under $10, the people that would most benefit are the very poorest, who would be far more likely to not have a car. When you do your grocery shopping via public transportation or walking, you’re a lot more limited in what you can bring home. I can bring home 10 bottles of cranberry juice if it’s on a really good sale when we drive to the grocery store, but that’s not really possible if you’re walking or taking the bus. I did grocery shopping without a car for the first couple of years we lived in Michigan. It wasn’t that bad since it was just for me and my husband, but there were definitely limitations to how much I could bring home, and loading up on one item that happened to be at a great price wasn’t really an option.
I think this is a really good point. I live in London, England, and my husband and I do not have a car. About once every couple of months, we make a huge order online and get staples delivered. But on a weekly basis, we simply cannot buy more than we can carry home on our feet or the bus/tube. Also, a lot of city dwellers in Europe (and in the US as well) have smaller living spaces. There’s not as much room to store staples. We are very fortunate to have a relatively large kitchen with good storage, but our whole apartment is still only 600 sq. feet and we have no pantry (quite normal by British standards!). In our situation, her shopping tactics simply would not work!
Urban grocery shopping can vary. If you don’t have a car, you’ll generally be relegated to one of two things: walking to neighbourhood shops (I think in some areas they call them bodegas, but in the ghetto I live in they’re called “food stores” that sell very little real food, although some will be present; or very, very small overpriced grocers) or taking the bus to one of the larger supermarkets (where I live, I’m in the middle of where 2 supermarkets are; about 3-5 miles from either of them). The real food tends to be fairly inexpensive in those supermarkets; when I go to the one that’s more “in the thick of” the ghetto I live in the food is significantly cheaper than the same foods are priced at the supermarket that’s on the border of where I live and a gentrified area. You can easily get bulk pinto beans 2lb/dollar, fresh produce is inexpensive, particularly if you buy produce that’s in season (I often see, during citrus season, 18 pound bags of oranges for $3-4). I can buy 20 pound bags of white rice for $7-10, brown rice being more costly at ~$1/lb. So food you would need to cook is NOT expensive in the slightest in urban areas if you buy in season and in bulk.
I think the real issue is lack of knowledge of how to prepare homemade, nutritious foods. Not the cost of them. Because where I live the processed foods cost a lot more. But that also last a lot longer and don’t require much by way of preparation.
There are no farmer’s markets in my area of Houston. I do have to travel to the wealthier areas if I want to shop in farmer’s markets. But as far as I know, they’re on the bus lines for those who don’t have cars.
I totally agree too!
My only question is if she has a garden. Growing your own veggies is super cheap and if she does that then she could easily still have a nutritious meal on a budget. Or maybe a neighbor or friend who has one and gives her extras?
So true. Home-grown vegetables can be super cheap, and it doesn’t get much fresher than that!
I suppose info like that wouldn’t have been sensational enough for TV, though. lol
Well said! The sad part is that many families living (largely) on processed foods will be paying for their savings in medical bills down the road.
haha, this cracked me up. You are right of course.
I’m so happy that we’ve lowered our grocery bill, but its definitely not from eating packaged food. I use coupons some, but spend max of 10 minutes looking for them. Its just not on my list of priorities.
My mother and I had this exact conversation when this first came out! I am quite satisfied feeding my husband and I on about $30 a week. This is about to go up some though since the Farmer’s Market is opening on Saturday! I’m bursting with anticipation! I am wondering how she buys medications. I know these are items that you don’t buy often but I have gone in to the stores with a manufacturer’s coupon only to find the store brand is still cheaper after the manufacturer brand with the coupon. And good luck finding a store brand item coupon! Those CVS extrabucks she was talking about are great but I have never had a coupon for something completely free. They will have a coupon like $5 off your $15 purchase or $1 off a CVS brand item. Most of these coupons expire before I have the need to use them or I don’t even use the product.
I’m in the cynical category. I tend to think that what we saw in that clip was the result of months of coupon clipping and planning, and is not at all representative of what she does on a regular basis. I don’t doubt she saves a lot of money with coupons, but I’m skeptical of what we saw being anything like what happens each week at the store. If it were possible to spend $4/week on groceries using coupons, more people would be doing it. Even if most people (myself included) wouldn’t want to spend that much time clipping and browsing circulars and driving around to different stores and planning, there’d be a good number of people who were willing.
Just to add, I’d be interested to see, if the $4/week on grocery claim is true, how many meals her family eats at home. It’s possible that her kids eat both breakfast and lunch at school. Her husband might buy lunch out. They might skip breakfast, etc. I can’t imagine we’re talking about her having enough groceries for three meals and a couple of snacks for six for that little, even if those meals and snacks consisted entirely of prepackaged foods.
I do think it’s possible. I know back when I was doing the coupon thing and I had stores that did a lot of doubling, I could have gotten an incredible amount of food for very little money. I didn’t rely solely on my coupon items, though, so I always spent way more than $4/week. I bought milk, eggs, produce, and meat in addition to my free stuff.
I would have to say I’m a definite middle-grounder when it comes to coupons. When I moved to this area I was delighted to find that one of the grocery stores doubles coupons up to .50 as a policy, and occasionally runs “all coupons worth at least a dollar” promotions. So I feel as if coupons are definitely worth it for me. On an average trip, I would say I save between 30 and 40 percent. I have never been able to get over a 50 percent mark, probably because most of my purchases are for real food.
But for example, I use about one roll of paper towels a month, and when that .25 coupon is worth a dollar, I do feel like it’s free money. Also, as far as eggs, I may not be able to get them for free, but there are coupons for organic, cage free, “boutique” type eggs that, when doubled, bring them to the same price as the mass-produced pale yolk standard supermarket eggs, so I enjoy being able to buy those.
On the other hand, packaged processed food is like a nightmare to me, particularly one newish brand of “desk stable” pasta *shudder*! So even a coupon that would make that free is of no interest to me. And I also do not have the patience for those CVS coupons that I have to track from shopping trip to shopping trip. No thanks.
What a wonderful post! You totally hit the nail on the head with some of my biggest issues with the mega coupon clipping crowd. Yes you can “save” a lot if you are willing to purchase a significant amount of processed food, carry multiple subscritptions to your Sunday paper (I doubt that cost is figured in), stack coupons, develop and maintain a system for organizing hundreds of coupons, plan and break your shopping into multiple transactions, donating ‘extras’ to charity, etc., but that is so not for me! I am a big advocate of shopping the grocery specials and planning our meals around the meat and produce that is on sale, which on its own saves a substantial amount (plus helps me with meal ideas!) and working to reduce food waste (we still have a long way to go on that one!). I believe it was just yesterday when you said that (I’m paraphrasing…) to you frugality isn’t about spending the least amount of money possible, it is about making the best spending decisions for your family. I totally agree!
I agree, you’re not really saving when you eat processed foods. My grocery budget is really small, too, anjd unfortunately, most of the foods we eat aren’t foods that come with a coupon. Sometimes I get coupons for flour, sugar, juice, cereal, and frozen fruit, but never for fresh fruits and vegetables.
Honestly, if your food budget is that meager, I would apply for food stamps. I have two cousins on food stamps and it buys a lot of fresh food for their children. Not to start a firestorm of controversy, but I think every child should be entitled to fresh healthy food.
Sometimes your budget is very small because you choose to make it so, in order to save for other things. I’m currently trying to pinch pennies, but we just bought a large entertainment center. There are activities that I sometimes don’t go to that offer financial assistance, but I don’t ask because of our income level. We wouldn’t qualify for food stamps, either. We’re just trying to be frugal in some ways so that we can afford other things (Kristen’s new camera body comes to mind as an example of this).
I would HOPE that Kristen didn’t deprive her children of fresh foods in order to finance her new camera body. (and I feel like I can say with some certainty that it didn’t).
Priorities are different for all people, but for us, we made the decision that our families health and happiness come before any material possession. For us that means that I stay at home with our little ones, and we forego the purchase of nicer things a lot of times. We’re okay with that. I don’t think it’s okay to scrimp on groceries to save up for material possessions. For us, the necessities of life come first.
Oh goodness, no! The money for my camera body came solely from “extra” money…like money that was given to me at Christmas, birthday gift money, money from some photography jobs, and so on. Our grocery budget has been untouched by this, and our diets unchanged.
I would never, ever in a million years deprive my children of fresh food in order to get a camera upgrade. I like taking pictures, yes, but not as much as I like my children! lol
No, I never said that Kristen doesn’t feed her children well in order to buy something for herself. Everyone needs material possessions, whether it’s a car, clothing, or whatever. Most of my frugality (and coupon use) is so that we can save for replacing things when they wear out. We do occasionally save up for something we want, as well, such as our entertainment center. But that in no way tells you that I do not feed my children well. You can’t define my grocery shopping by your definition of scrimping. Does scrimping on groceries mean saving money? Is it not ok to save money on groceries? Do I have to pay full price? Do I have to buy what you buy?
Huh? I think Frugal Liz was just saying that she doesn’t use tons of coupons because they aren’t available for fresh fruits and vegetables…not because she doesn’t buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
Thanks for clarifying =)
Thank You!!! This blog post states exactly what I have been thinking when I look at coupons and these “coupon queens”. As a registered dietitian, I would much rather save money cooking food for my family from scratch. Maybe it isn’t as cheap, but what I serve my family is so much more healthy and better for the environment. Thanks, Kristen!
I tried the coupon thing here in Canada one grocery shop to get things we regularly use. I found that I ended up spending more then i regularly do because most of the coupons were for different brands then I normally use. I was able to get a few things free but over all… Not worth it. And I only used the coupons on toilotries. I don’t do much proccessed foods.
I’m the oddball, but I do think coupons work really well. Okay, perhaps not $4/week well but I hate to see people put off them by being told there do not exist coupons for healthy stuff. That is just not true any longer. You can do very well, and trim your grocery spending, while still eating real food. Milk was free last week for example. Regular, plain, white milk. You got 2 gal free at my store for buying Kraft items, including chunks of cheese, which we do use, cream cheese, some varieties of crackers and so other items on the list that we don’t eat. Buy the cheese (with the coupons) and get 2 gal of milk free. Pretty good deal. There are occasionally wine tags to enable free produce, but I have to agree those are darn rare. We just buy that stuff.
There are now plenty of organic coupons for 100% organic juice with no sugar, organic canned tomatoes, organic frozen veggies with no sauce, on and on. On the eggs, people with coupons got them free at my store about a month ago. Big tubs of yogurt? Yes, those too. Coupons for several brands of the big tubs came out this month.
Don’t get me wrong – I love your blog, but had to post on this one. You don’t have to be for or against coupons. It is not so black/white anymore at all on the coupons. Heck you can even get coupons for Ball jars and pectin, etc., to help save on canning your own organic garden fruit and produce! Don’t throw out the whole system just because there are a lot of junk food coupons. Sort through and pick out what those that actually fit your family’s diet and consumption habits. Or write to the companies you buy from and ask for some coupons. Then just buy those and save some. Or don’t use coupons at all if your personal time/money equation says it isn’t worth it. Each of us needs to find of our groove. This woman in the video has found hers. Good for her. I don’t see what she eats every single day, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt for putting herself out there for criticism. And those that don’t coupon? That is great too.
Admittedly, a middle ground blog post probably won’t get as much traffic.
But again I hate to see someone who has never used coupons perhaps turned off with the impression there are never any healthy ones. There are indeed healthy ones (produce, eggs, soymilk, organics, etc), but I totally agree with you they aren’t the majority. Like everything else in life, take what you can use and keep moving on. 
I guess I did come off kind of black and white, huh? I should have finished my other post about coupons first and then published this one so that you all have a better idea of where I’m coming from. lol I suppose that one might get less traffic, but traffic is not my main goal here…I just write about whatever I happen to be thinking about or doing, or whatever I think will be helpful to my readers.
I do use coupons, and I have absolutely nothing against the way that YOU are using coupons. What bothered me about this woman’s style of shopping and what makes me sure that it’s not for me is that she claims to consistently only spend $4/week by ONLY buying things that are free or that cost pennies. As you acknowledged, in order to eat things like fresh produce, you have to just pay out of pocket for those.
And I do agree that there are coupons for larger tubs of yogurt, but I’ve never in my life seen a deal where I could get those for free or for pennies. I’ve seen tons of deals where I could get free individually packaged yogurt, though.
In a nutshell, I do like to use coupons to save money. I am not at all interested in subsisting solely on items I’m able to get free or for pennies, simply because that would so severely limit the healthy options available to me.
Oh, and I totally admire you for being willing to take a more minority opinion here…it takes guts to do that when most of the comments lean in the other direction.
I also wanted to add that, generally speaking, I do have a very “live and let live” approach to frugality (as I explained in my “You don’t have to make yogurt” post). I don’t particularly care that this mom feeds her family piles of packaged food. But, I don’t have to want to do that myself.
I have found couponhs to be very beneficial in allowing us to get most of our household items (diapers, soaps, oral care, hair care, etc.) for free or pennies, which allows me to have more freedom in spending our budget on groceries. Our budget is pretty tight, so for me it’s not a matter of paring down my $600 groceries/household bill, it is a matter of making our available $175-$200/month be sufficient for providing all of our groceries and household needs, and since January it has been working quite well
I think we need to keep in mind that this is just one of those sensational news stories that is meant to get people’s interest but isn’t really all that important. We should also keep in mind that I bet they are using a bit of flexibility with the truth here. I live in MA as well, and groceries are EXPENSIVE here. I can’t imagine, even with coupons, you could ever sustain a $4/week budget.
I highly doubt this story is really going to make viewers who are currently eating healthy stop and say “WOW – If I use coupons I can get all those groceries for cheap. Better start eating all processed foods!”. I highly doubt this story is going to make ANYONE substantially change their grocery habits. It’s just a cute little news story. If she can feed her family on $4/week, more power to her. It’s not really going to influence me one way or the other.
Yes, TV does tend toward the sensational. A story titled “Mom of 4 feeds her family for $100/week” isn’t nearly as attention-grabbing. lol
Your comment about influence has me thinking about the blogosphere, and the responsibilities we bloggers have in terms of influencing our readers. I can’t quite put my thoughts into words yet, though…I’ll have to ponder this some more.
Are you sure? I seem to remember a recent clip about that….
Ok, you do have me there. lol But I don’t think my story has sparked controversial blog posts. =P
I completely agree with you on this one. I’ve started shopping at a local store which owns all its own farms. The best part, they sell very little processed food. Since I’ve been shopping there, we’ve cut down the amount of processed food we eat by about 80% while still spending about the same amount I was before. This week, I’m off to get boneless skinless chicken for $1.99 a lb, no hormones, no antibiotics.
I know I’m spending more than a penny a week for groceries, but I can feel good about what my husband and I eat. I do use coupons for some things, like paper products, cat food, cleaning supplies and some of the staples we use, but I’m not willing to compromise what we put in our bodies just to save a buck anymore.
I echo a lot of your commenters sentiments, but the one question that always nags at me when I see these huge volumes of groceries for mere dollars is “what if everyone did this?” How would stores, employees and farmers survive and more importantly, thrive? I am a firm believer in fair prices. There is DEFINITELY a place for coupons and specials; however, I like to think that when I part with my money it is helping others aside from me. We have the ability to positively affect change with our money. If more people purchased responsibly produced food then a larger market would be created to fill that need. Prices become more reasonable, less trash is produced, local businesses are supported and ultimately the food is healthier. I love that you create a space for this type of discussion in a gentle non-judgmental way and I hope my comments are taken as such too!
I’ve thought about this on and off as well…about what happens to a grocery store when I buy loss leaders but don’t purchase anything else (the goal with a loss leader is to get me in the store and then tempt me to buy lots of other stuff). If I only buy loss leaders, they are losing money on me.
I think this concern is mostly hypothetical, as the odds of a majority of the population going this crazy with couponing is low, plus most people don’t just buy loss leaders. And if that did happen, manufacturers and stores would pull back on the deals. In some ways, I’ve seen that happen with coupons…back in 2002, the coupon deals/rebates and such were better than they are now, and I think that’s because more people are using coupons now.
It’s an interesting thing to think about, and I’d love to hear thoughts from someone more knowledgeable than me on this topic.
Honestly, I’d love to see all food prices come down–and stop all of the couponing, loss leaders, etc. Then, everyone would be able to have a balanced table filled with affordable food.
Meet Aldi. lol That’s kind of how they function…no fuss, no frills, and lots of low prices. I love their model.
I wish we had an Aldi near me.
Just to add, Giant food especially is CONSTANTLY tinkering with the prices. A gallon of milk has cost as low as $2.75 and now it’s almost $4. It’s the same with almost everything I buy. Sometimes, I get annoyed and just REFUSE to buy a particular item until the price comes down.
I have those same thoughts. Especially when I see so many people misusing coupons and bending ethics to save money. A lot of people ask about whether the stores get reimbursed. I have seen many blog posts, etc. about stores getting reimbursed so couponers shouldn’t worry about them losing money. What about the manufacturers? I know people tend to think they are the big, bad, nameless companies, but manufacturers are going under so often, even the bigger ones, and they lose money on the extreme couponers, especially if coupons are misused.
When I see stories like this I always think of it as a hobby for these families. Just like a hobby they are spending lots of time at it and having fun. Or they consider it a job. Either way its not for me. I just try to shop fast and spend my time doing other things I enjoy more.
Not that I don’t use coupons because I will if its something I’m already buying. I just don’t let a coupon make me buy. For example I shop at Sams and they have some kind of electronic coupons which I never look at. I don’t think it would make me pick it up but you never know. But if I buy something and see I got the discount that is a happy surprise.
I think coupons work because people buy more than they need and stores sell more. If it didn’t work we wouldn’t see so many coupons. There are coupons for everything now. I’ve seen people go and buy $50 to get $10 off and sometimes they are looking for extra stuff to make that $50. Which reminds me of the way rebates work now. I hate how you get it in credit. What happen to me getting a check to put in the bank. I don’t want credit I want a refund. I had a coupon for free paper, only it wasn’t free. I had to buy it for $5 then get a store coupon. I didn’t get it because not only did I not need it but that was not free to me. Sorry got side tracked.LOL
We recently got a $100 rebate for our new laptop, and it came in the form of a debit card. My husband took it to the bank, cashed it & then deposited it in our checking account. So you don’t ~have~ to use that rebate credit in the form that it was given to you (well, unless it’s a store credit, that’s different).
Thanks Emily, that is good to know. I never thought of just taking it to the bank, it always just seems like such a hassle. What I usually do is not base my purchase on a rebate. If its real close I just get the one without a rebate and save myself the problems of keeping up with it. Last time I got a rebate I had to call about and mess with it wasting time. I wonder why I thought it was such a good idea to make the purchase.
In the case of our laptop (which replaced an ancient brick of a laptop that kept overheating), I accidentally threw away the box before dh could send in the rebate (he needed the upc or something from the box). He decided to try anyway, using the receipt and all other info we had (I think there was a registration/ID number on the paperwork), and told the company (Asus) that we had accidentally thrown away the box. They still gave us the rebate.
This is extreme. My foray into couponing has definitely reduced because it caused me to shop recreationally and to buy things just because I had a coupon. I do know how to get deals but why am I hoarding all this stuff? I just went through my stash and I realized that I had more stuff than I need, than anyone needs, especially in the bathroom. I think I just like buying stuff, having stuff. More stuff, more packaging more waste. It is not good. There has got to be a better way to save money.
FOr me, I don’t hoard the extra items, I love being able to get the items for my family AND have a TON of things leftover to donate to local shelters which really need personal care items…all for less than the cost of buying items for my family alone.
What annoys me about such folks is why does she have 4 children? If she in fact needs to feed her family on $4/week or something that cheap (and no judgment about this – we’ve all been in situations where we need to save $$$s on food), why did she choose to have 4 children? How will she pay for the escalating costs of having children as they grow older if she is having a hard time feeding the entire family right now. I just don’t get it.
I would venture to guess that she doesn’t NEED to feed her family on $4/week. It’s probably just what she prefers to do.
And she probably figures that feeding her family for so little frees up money for other family/child related expenses.
I’m certainly not one to get on my high horse about people having four children (ahem!), especially since I know for certain that sometimes children happen to come along despite, um, prevention efforts (have I introduced you to Zoe?? lol).
So yeah, the four kids part doesn’t bother me at all. Her way is just not the way I prefer to feed my four kids.
Per my post above…if $4 is all she has to feed four children, she should apply for food stamps. Then, she could afford fresh food to keep her children healthy. Otherwise, it’s probably a sport…and who knows where she’s spending her “surplus.”
Just because someone spends $4/week on food doesn’t mean that’s all they have and that they aren’t feeding their kids well (or that they need food stamps). As for your last statement, what are you trying to imply? Do you have any grounds for your implications?
Hi. Let me first begin by saying that I really like reading about your baking tips, etc. However, I personally use coupons to pay for almost all of the food that my family eats. While I agree that you cannot always get nutritional foods for very cheap when using coupons it does allow one to pay for food that they might now otherwise be able to afford therefore leaving them more wiggle room in their budget for the pricier items such as fruits and more healthful items. I often get steamed vegetables for free at my local store. Often times we would not be eating them at all if I could not do this. Vegetables can be quite expensive and when you only have one income every penny counts. I’ve gotten free regular milk before too – its rare but not impossible. I’ve purchased whole wheat pasta on several occasions for $.25 or less a box. I’ve got a fridge drawer full of 2% reduced fat kraft cheese that I paid less than .50 a bag for. I’ve bought organic pasta sauce for .75 a jar. I do have a garden that will yield me some fruits and vegetables in the upcoming harvest so that will save me even more money.
If stores did not want you to take advantage of the deals then they would never have sales. Just because some people take the time to clip coupons and save money shouldn’t be seen as something negative it should be seen as something empowering. I regularly save 75% on my grocery bills.There have been times that I have saved 92%. Say what you will but I am a happy couponer! That being said couponing is not for everyone but I actually enjoy saving my family lots of money.
Denise, I agree with you about the “wiggle room”. You can’t sustain a family on processed foods alone, but if using coupons allows you to spend less on the processed food part of your grocery order, there is more money freed up to buy healthy, fresh foods like meats and produce.
She sailed right through the produce aisle. She did not even glance at anything. So sad to me. When I saw her storage pantry I was shocked. While it would obviously have to be filled with mostly over packaged and highly processed food products what struck me most was the quantity. There is no way her family of six could consume all of that in a year even. These things all have expiration dates and the quality will diminish over time. Much of this will eventually get wasted. Nothing was said about a regular donation to food pantries. They called it her stash but I call it gluttony.
I’m pretty sure she said that she gives stuff away all the time to people who need it, so I don’t think waste or gluttony is a concern. And most of the stuff in that pantry has a really long shelf life anyways.
I’m not a fan of this shopping style, obviously, but I don’t think she’s keeping everything for herself.
I just think it would take way too much time to do this. I mentioned this to my regular grocery clerks and they all think people pretty much have to “cheat” (for example w/ expired coupons) to walk away with such a small grocery bill, and it doesn’t happen very often. I don’t like all the packaging, I don’t like the unhealthy food, I don’t like the coupon trading stuff, and being all imbued with Midwestern values, lol, I generally don’t like the idea of getting something for nothing. I dig my coupons…I spend 20 minutes every Sunday and they save me $15-$20 a week on my grocery bill for things that we need, but in the end I know I am paying a reasonable price for the things I’m buying.
You can’t “cheat” with an expired coupon – the register just won’t take it! I have been couponing for about 9 months now and I never, ever “cheat.” My grocery receipt shows usually 75% savings or higher. I spend 3-5 hours a week on couponing, but I have saved my family TONS of money and my husband says it is well worth my time (it enables me to stay at home with my kids!). I have used coupons to buy things we could never afford before, such as Silk Soy milk, whole grain pastas and tortillas, whole grain baked crackers, etc. Yes, some of what I buy is processed and sometimes I use coupons to buy ice cream, but I highly doubt that all you coupon-naysayers NEVER buy processed foods or unhealthy foods like desserts. Maybe this woman doesn’t get her family the well-rounded diet you think she should, but please quit bashing all couponers.
Thank you so much for posting this! Couponing has cut my grocery bill in half, but you are right, it can only go so far. I am not going to feed my family a bunch of processed foods. Either you pay for healthy foods now, or you pay for a bunch of doctor bills in the future!
I have to admit when they showed the pantry in this woman’s home I shuddered. Stacks and stacks of indiviually packaged ‘easy mac’ with neon orange cheese powder. I have recently begun using coupons to lower my expenses but thus far my strategy has been to meal plan around healthy fresh produce, meat, seafood and then spend 20 or 30 mins trying to dig up coupons for things like ketchup, tiolet paper, the occasional snack like pretzels etc. I make sure to not buy packaged things I would not have purchased before starting up on coupons.
I feel like people doing the “all my groceries are nearly free!” thing are just a distraction from the balance you *can* achieve with coupons, and puts a lot of people off from even having a quick go to save some money. A lot of the common reactions to this are either feeling like coupons are only for junk food (we get soy milk, shampoo/conditioner, soap, cat food etc with them), or that it takes so much time to do it in the first place, it’s not really worth it. I put about 15 minutes into couponing per week – I take the booklet and a post it note, go through it, write all the coupons of interest on the front with the expiry date and whack it in a folder. When it’s time for grocery shopping, they’re easy to look up.
The important thing is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Anything bought with coupons should be secondary to your meat/fruit/vegetable budget. But a lot of people either can’t or won’t think logically about their budgets, which is why you end up with the extremes of people spending too much or not enough.
Great post! Good comments too!
Absolutely. I take a middle of the road approach to coupons…I use them some, but don’t invest a ton of time or effort into using them. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
Thank you- Thank you- Thank-you!!! I am so glad to hear a voice for quality and the environment, over cheap and easy. i have looked at coupons and seen nothing that we would eat, and while my grocery bill is higher than yours, I really don’t mind because THIS is NOT where I want to scrimp and save. Thanks- Jennifer
Hmm, while spending $4 per week IS extremely impressive, am I off my rocker to conclude this woman has a serious shopping addiction??? By the looks of her pantry, and the time she spends each week planning and clipping, it’s as if she needs her “fix” of free things she doesn’t even need.
This woman needs help, not handouts.
Amazed as I am of how much money she saved, I completely agree with you Kristen. I am a working mother but I still make the effort to feed my family of 5 fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and dairy. I refuse to buy prepacked convenience foods for the family not only because of the lack of nutrition but also because of all the harmful artifical preservatives and ingredients. Even in California I manage to feed my family for about $100 a week because fresh produce and staples like rice, beans, flour still cost a lot less than the pre-made, pre-packaged convinience foods.
Oh! I would like to add that even though we don’t have an Aldi’s in California
I do seek out the supermarkets that sell their produce for much, much less like Superior and Vallarta.
I agree! Most coupons are for processed yucky foods. However, there are some good coupons out there too if you know where to find them – like Tropicana OJ, Earthbound Farm organic produce (one of the very few produce coupons I’ve been able to find!), Greek yogurt, Egglands Eggs, etc. Mambo Sprouts is a great place to get coupons for a lot of all natural and organic foods and also try going to the brand name’s website and sometimes you can get coupons there.
I am so glad I am not in line behind her !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!………..lol.
I think I’d be picking her brain if I were behind her. Actually I’d like to be behind her for 5-6 trips so I could get a good idea of what she buys on average. I do some couponing and check for loss leaders but I’m sure there’s room for me to spend less and be smarter about purchases.
Here here! I agree totally!
There ARE ways to eat frugally and healthfully–as you’ve shown, it’s easy to make bread and yogurt and many other things for pennies on the dollar it would cost to purchase these items. You can grow a garden and have an abudance of fresh fruits and vegies during the growing season, home canned, frozen and dried fruits and vegies during the winter–it costs very little. You can buy raw ingredients and make healthy foods often for a fraction of the cost of processed foods. You can stretch expensive ingredients. You can buy in bulk and save (I’m not necessarily talking about Costco-sized items–I mean bins where you can purchase exactly the amount you need and you don’t pay for packaging or fancy labels). No excess sodium and high fructose corn syrup–plenty of fiber and vitamins.
Anyone who has time to collect all those coupons and plan out shopping like that has time for these other strategies.
Totally agree. Another sad thing I have found after being around the blogging/couponing world for a few months, is that a lot of the extreme savers really bend ethics to get those savings. So, compromising health and integrity to save money is not something I’m interested in.
I totally agree with you! I have cut my grocery bill drastically, but have decided NOT to scrimp when it comes to fresh veggies and good, healthy food. You’ll make up the difference and pay for it later with doctor’s visits!!
There are just some things worth paying for, and good healthy organic food is one of them. I have started doing as much from scratch as possible, using your whole wheat bread recipe (delicious!) and homemade yogurt recipe. We own and operate a hunting ranch so all of our meat we kill and process ourselves. I also buy fresh, local eggs.
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