Emily and I have a confession to make to our readers.....we just experienced some
"COUPON BURNOUT!"
Since Thanksgiving time until about last week Emily and I didn't go on a shopping trip that included coupons. Did your mouths just drop? Honestly Emily and I we were just plain tired of grocery shopping, printing off online coupons, planning our menus and pulling our coupons out of the newspaper. Neither one of us could motivate the other and we were just so busy with the holidays and our little ones we couldn't find the drive to start using coupons. I think we were enjoying our break so much that we didn't even think about coupons until our husbands started pointing out the amount of money it was costing us to NOT use coupons.
This last week I told myself that I just needed to jump right back in. So, I started off by actually pulling the coupons out of the paper from (you aren't going to believe this) NOVEMBER! It took some work sorting through my mess, but I finally had things organized enough that I could start shopping again. I sorted through the grocery smarts lists, planned my menu, cleaned out my fridge, and made my way to the store and found myself GASP-enjoying using coupons again. The fact that I spent half of what I had been spending at the store and came home with 3x the amount of stuff definitely made my "coupon trip" exciting.
I remembered how I felt after I learned about using coupons for the first time at the store. Coupons were all I could think about, in fact I often time dreamed about how wonderful coupons were. I told everyone I knew about how wonderful coupons were. That was the whole reason I started this blog!
So, since we love sharing our coupon experiences with you, we thought we would share with you some tips to remember if you ever go through your own "Coupon Burnout".
- Don't stop your newspaper from coming each week- Despite the fact that I wasn't using coupons each week, now that I am using them again I am grateful that I have the coupons I need to save money at the store.
- Pull the coupons OUT of the newspaper- Sometimes a insert can be missing and unfortunately if it is one from November there is nothing the newspaper can do about it. If I had realized it was missing that week, the newspaper company would have brought me my missing insert, but to know it is missing I would have to actually take the paper out of that plastic bag.
- Be sure to use up some of your stockpile on your coupon break- I loved being able to shop from my pantry when I didn't want to go the store. I was able to use up a some of those items that were collecting dust so that I could make room for the stuff I would be buying in the future.
- Everyone deserves a little break, so don't feel guilty about taking one- Using coupons is a lifestyle and sometimes there are seasons in our lives when that lifestyle doesn't meet our needs. In fact that is exactly why I needed a little coupons break. Using coupons just wasn't fitting into my schedule. I had some family things come up that just seemed so my bigger to me than using coupons. I am over that bump and am ready to start saving at the store again. Of course, I feel bad that I wasted so much money that could have been saved by using coupons, but it also helped me to appreciate the value of a coupon.
Have any of you ever experienced a "Coupon Burnout"? If so, why do you think you burned out and how did you get back into the swing of things?
7 comments:
LOVE LOVE LOVE that you posted this!! Thanks for helping me to feel a little more normal and a LOT less inadequate...borderline FAILURE.
Oh my goodness, thank you for this post. I couldn't do it anymore around thanksgiving. The thought of not only fighting people at the grocery store for good deals and good deals for christmas items, I thought I was going to throw my binder at someone. I have found that in order to get the good deals, you have to be at the store when they open. I can't take my 3 year old and 2 year old to the store with me at 6:00am when it is 19 degrees outside.(my husband leaves for work at 5:00 so leaving them home with him is not an option) So for now, we are using our pantry storage, saving money and are incredibly grateful for the coupon efforts from this last summer.
I've just been getting back into things too! We've just been living off our stockpile and getting fresh stuff when needed. I'm glad I'm not the only one who needs a break!
yes thank you for posting! when all you feel like you hear on frugal blogs are the amazing frugal bloggers getting "all" the deals sometimes I feel like I just can't do this like "they" do...even though what I am doing is great and works for me. So thanks for being so honesty and encouraging. No reason to kill ourselves off for a few good deals right? :) at the expense of our sanity as mothers especially right?! :p
I have had it for a while...I miss albies!!!! That's the whole thing. Honestly, I am NOT saving what I used to and it takes more than one store to get the same amount that I got at Albertsons. I'm so frustrated and ready to cancel my subscriptions. Really, most of the things on sale are not what my family eats. I do get things like my toiletries and stuff like that but I don't see myself paying for as many papers as I am for much longer if things don't pick up soon at one store. Any suggestions?
I've just been really frustrated with all the stores being out of the "coupon" items. And especially with all the albertsons changing to many different stores it's been hard to find things... but two weeks ago I got back on track and it has really paid off.
Thank you for this post! It's nice to know there are other ladies who experienced coupon burnout during the past couple months!!
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