Round 1: Impatient Mom vs Coupons

 

I love a deal…I mean LOVE a REAL deal! So four years ago (almost exactly) after my husband lost his job I decided I needed to try something different for my grocery budget. I had always believed Wal-Mart was a good deal and coupons just couldn’t get me the product as cheaply as Wal-Mart's generic price so why bother with the hassle.  But a fellow homeschooler mentioned all the deals she was getting by using The Grocery Game website and I decided to give it a shot.

I signed up for my free trial, picked up a newspaper (this is a story in and of itself!) and Monday morning I went to clipping. By early evening I had all my coupons clipped and had fixed up my grocery lists for Food Lion and CVS.

At that time I had a 7 yr. old, 5yr old, almost 2 yr. old, and a 6 month old (what.was.I.thinking?) so I loaded them up and headed to the nearest town, about 25 minutes away. We went through CVS with no trouble but by the time we got to Food Lion the kids were a little restless (already!). I made it through Food Lion, checked out, and as I pulled the buggy towards me to turn it towards the door, my 2 year old, who was standing in the buggy (one of those high buggy’s…not a deep one like Wal-Mart…this is a big no-no! Don’t let your kids stand in the buggy) fell out backwards on to his head on the cement floor. He started crying(screaming) and I started crying…things just really went downhill from there. We didn’t have insurance, couldn’t call my husband because we no longer had a cell phone, I was still a bit emotional over the job loss, all my groceries were going bad as I waited for the ice pack a bag boy was supposed to be getting…it was a bad evening.

At that moment I decided this just wasn’t worth the trouble. I laid my coupons aside and didn’t think twice about it. Until…

(Check back for Round 2)