It is possible to waste — yes, waste — an entire afternoon trying to print coupons.
About a week ago, I found this great, long list of grocery coupons. It would be fantastic to save a bunch on groceries, especially as a one-income family at present. I’ve watched some of the “Extreme Couponing” episodes and been inspired by people who basically get their 17 carts-full for free — and though I am not interested in multiple-cart or multiple-transaction orders or a stockpile of hoarding proportions, I’d like to build a small pantry up. Small as in parts of a cupboard currently full of other junk.
So Sunday, I ran out to my parents’ house to print off some coupons — our printer was out of order. But when I went to start printing off my selected coupons, I found you have to download a program from most coupon sites. Decided I didn’t want to download a program onto my parents’ computer — not crazy about downloading one onto any computer!
I started putting some elbow grease into fixing our printer and, to make a long story slightly shorter, I tried twice unsuccessfully to install the printer software onto my computer and finally managed to get my husband’s to print a simple document.
Home printers are aggravating enough.
Coupon suppliers make printing coupons so complicated that you’ll probably never use their product. (You’ll have been a hit on their site and viewed the ads, which is where they make their real money.) I tried several times to download the coupon printing program onto my husband’s computer — each time it said cheerfully, “Your coupons are waiting on your printer.” Ha. I wish.
Why is it so difficult to display the coupon right on the site, so you can just print the page you’re looking at and be done with it? I just want to save 35 cents on a can of soup and $1 on two other things I might not have bought otherwise. At most, I thought I had contrived a way to use several coupons and get 10 Yoplait yogurts for half price — only if I bought 10.
For now I will have to appease myself with the thought of using my $5-off-your-bill coupon at Cub next week.
P.S. If the baby cooperates, my goal within the next week is to compare the prices of things I regularly buy at Cub to their prices next door at Target, when available. I know cereal is considerably cheaper — what other surprises are there, and how much could I save by shopping at more than one store each week? I know my mom has split her shopping up for as long as I can remember.
The Scrappy Homemaker 
I am right there with you! I try to do the coupon thing and to use the sales papers to guide my shopping. But by the time I drive between the stores and get the baby in and out of the car, even going to only two different stores I end up adding about an hour to my shopping trip. Not to mention how sick of shopping Elias is by the time we hit the second store. Blech! If you have a Super Walmart near by and if you’re not against shopping at WalMart, they will match the advertised price that other stores are offering (if theirs isn’t already better). Just tell the checker what the better deal is where and they will match the price right there. They will also accept coupons from other stores which is nice. I still go to another store for my meet and produce (it seems to be better at the “natural market”), but if nothing else, I feel like I’m saving money and time by sticking to one store for most of my groceries. As for coupons, I stick to the ones that come in the paper. Those feel like enough of a time-eater.
Yeah, I’m trying to decide whether to get a subscription to the metro paper. They have a deal right now for $1 a week for Sundays. But paying for coupons seems a little silly, too.