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Christian, Homeschooling Mom of 2, Photography Lover, Southerner, Blogger, Encourager, and Prayer Warrior. I love sweet tea, my Nikon, cooking, & traveling.
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
Social Saturday: Guest Blogger, The Jenny Pincher
12:00 AM | 
Posted by
Meghan
I had an epiphinany toward the end of 2009. I was a major coupon-aholic and had a stockpile from here to kingdom come with enough food, beauty supplies and toilet paper to support a small army for a year or more. Who cares if I’m a single person! If I could get it for free, I got it, and oh was I good at it. If you want to see some of my shopping trips, click here
I was laid off from two jobs- in a row- from 2008-2009 so I got really good and using coupons to find the best deals. I would scour the forums and my favorite money saving websites to come up with the best deals. It was exhilarating to walk out of a store legitimately spending pennies, and having a full sack of items.
Towards the end of 2009, I started taking a good look at what I was buying. I was getting ready to move and I was looking at my ever growing stockpile. I had started to notice most of the things I was buying were packaged and processed foods that definitely were not doing anything to improve my health. I felt bad more than I felt good. I started to pay attention to my body and realized I felt good about 1 week out of the month, and good for me meant I wasn’t a raging hormone basket case. Most of the time I was irritable, had a hard time concentrating and still, at the age of 31, had PMS symptoms like a teenager. This was unacceptable. I knew something had to change.
I made some changes to my diet. I cut out soda, which was so hard for me! I was a one Mt. Dew a day kind of girl; it was like losing an old friend! I stopped eating all the boxed processed foods and started cooking from scratch. Since I was moving, I didn’t have a lot of time for couponing anyway so it seemed like a reasonable alternative.
It was during this time that I realized how much I really loved cooking! I could control what was going into the food I made and I loved it. I started shopping at the farmers market every week. I bought free range chicken and eggs and beef from a local farmer. I never knew how good “real” chicken could taste! I don’t mean the mushy grocery store kind. There is a big difference between free range chicken and chicken coming from large processing facilities. It’s worth trying.
I really started thinking about this over the past month. I did have a twinge of mixed feelings about no longer couponing. It was a huge game for me to play and I loved finding the best deals! I know most people will say cooking from scratch takes up too much time. I look at it the other way. Clipping coupons and running around to the various stores each week took up a lot of my time. It was stressful because I had to deal with traffic, crowded stores and wondering if I was going to get pushback from the store clerk about using so many coupons. Cooking from scratch does not take up any more time for me than if I was running around town to find the best deals. Not only is it healthier, it’s much less stressful!
I’m still always on the lookout for the best deals but I no longer spend my time clipping coupons to buy processed foods or things that I don’t need just because I had a coupon. Most of the ingredients I buy, like flour & sugar, don’t have coupons. Especially if you buy the generic brands like I do.
I know some of you will not agree with this post and that’s ok. It took me a while to get here and realize this is right for me. I know it’s not going to be the solution for everyone. I’m not knocking using coupons! If there are coupons for things I buy regularly, of course I’m going to use it! I just don’t have that ever growing stockpile of processed foods which seemed to make up the bulk of my coupon deals.
Think about the food that you normally buy. Is there one thing you could stop buying in a box that you could make yourself from scratch? You might be surprised that cooking from scratch is really not that hard. Here are some of my favorite sites to get you started:
Cook For Good http://www.cookforgood.com/
Hillbilly Housewife http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/
The Family Homestead http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com/
Pioneer Woman http://thepioneerwoman.com/
Smitten Kitchen http://smittenkitchen.com/
Jenny Kerr is a consultant, blogger and social media junkie. She spends most of her time reading, gardening and trying new recipes. Jenny is passionate about helping people save money and blogs about it on her site http://thejennypincher.com . As a former bank executive, she learned the importance of teaching people how to properly budget their money. From that experience, Jenny developed and taught her “Basics of Budgeting” course throughout the St. Louis area. Jenny has two cats and tries to live a simple life. You can find her on twitter @TheJennyPincher and on Facebook by searching for The Jenny Pincher.
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1 comments:
umm..so on this journey myself! And thank you for validating my suspicion that coupon clipping and deal chasing has GOT to be JUST AS time consuming as cooking REAL food!! GREAT great great post! Love it :)
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