The Coupon Experiment

Coupons...we see them everywhere. You can basically find a coupon for almost anything these days. They come in your mail, in your email box, together with your weekend newspapers..they are everywhere! However, how often do you cut/print them out and actually take them to the supermarket with you? I know that we don't :P

We decided to try something new (well, it's new to us :P) last weekend. With the terrible economy these days, saving a little here and there is a wise thing to do. So, we spent the whole afternoon sorting through coupons online as well as cutting them from the leaflets they slip into the weekend newspaper. Armed with an envelope full of coupons, we headed to do our grocery shopping.

The game plan was to only try and buy things that had store discounts or things that we had coupons for. We basically bought almost the same things as we would have bought without coupons. So, there wasn't much adjustment to our usual grocery list to accommodate the usage of coupons.

Once we were done, it was the moment of truth as we headed to the checkout counters. We would usually go to the self checkout counter, it's way faster and we get to bag the stuff the way we like :P After scanning in all the items, the usual automated voice would come on and say " do you have any coupons?" Usually we would press the NO button but today, today it's different! We have coupons, baby! Eat your heart out computer automated voice person! We have coupons today! :D It felt so good to see the total amount grow less and less as we scan in the coupons. This is our receipt..hahaha. Looks like we have enough food to feed an army or more! It says we bought a total of 40 items.

The total we spent on groceries before the discounts that day was $130.53. After deducting the discounts, we paid only $86.57. Yup, that's right! We saved $43.96 that day by just buying things that were on sale and using coupons!!! That is a LOT of money. It's not just a few dollars here and there. We saved almost 34% of the total bill! What a discovery :D I guess using coupons when you go grocery shopping really adds up. Guess who will be printing out more coupons the next time she goes grocery shopping? :P