Clipping Coupons

Nine days without power helped create the cleanest fridge I’ve had since move in day over five years ago. That is the best optimistic spin I could put on losing everything from apples, mayonnaise and mustard, to zucchini. I didn’t even trust the ice. One sweaty morning was spent tossing the entire fridge content, removing the shelves and drawers and ice bin and scrubbing it all in sinks of stored water. In a glorious air conditioned house cleaning Sunday afternoon event, the fridge got a sparkly once over with me and Mr. Clean. It was almost sinful to add food to such a pretty sight. We must eat; I must shop, so off to Food Lion I went.

Before I left, I spent a few minutes tossing expired coupons and gathering those that might be relevant from a stack of wrinkled Sunday inserts. I walked the isles, exchanging smiles and stories of the Great Outage of 2012 as I stopped to flip through my stack of savings. I shopped smart, added items on sale, grabbed great values combined with clipped savings. There was neither an isle unseen nor a space to be found in the cart by the time I hit the frozen foods. I packed on those frozen veggies, carefully balanced Ben & Jerry and traveled to the checkout.

The cashier couldn’t clear the belt fast enough for me to pile on the purchases. I refilled the cart with the bagged groceries while pulling the remaining produce from the childless seat. Whew, that’s it. Scan my MVP card, swipe the debit and wait. The total came to $300.89. The discount card savings started rolling… “You saved $44.61 using your MVP card!” The coupon scanning, beep, boop, beep. Final total $239.23. Savings of $61.66- SCORE!

Get out there, clip some coupons people!