Over the weekend I decided that I was going to dip my toes into the crazy world of extreme couponing and see what that was all about. Okay, so it was really more like moderate couponing, since I only went to one store and didn’t come home with 50 of any one product. Because let’s face it, I live in an apartment with no extra storage, where would I put 50 tubes of toothpaste? Not to mention, wouldn’t most of them go bad before you had a chance to use them? How much toothpaste can one person go through? I think these thoughts should have been my first clue that I am not a “couponer.” I don’t know if that’s how they refer to themselves, but it sounds good to me.

At any rate, I sat down and strategized. Instead of figuring out my meals for the week and then shopping accordingly, like I usually do, I looked at what was on sale. I painstakingly looked through what was on sale and what coupons there were. Is that something that I normally buy? Is it something that I occasionally buy? Is it something that I never buy, but could find a use for? I made lists, I wrote down prices, compared savings between products and made note of quantity limitations. Then I divided and conquered. After all, I had two coupons that would get me $20 off of a $75 purchase. So I needed two trips that would add up to $75 each so that I could save $40.

Then I hit the store, and despite the fact that I had a very detailed list, my trip took twice as long as normal. I became that crazy person climbing into the freezer to the get to the stuff in the back because the product that I had a coupon for wasn’t on display in the front. I was the person triple checking between the package sizes on the shelf and what I had put on my list, “Damnit! My coupon doesn’t cover the 10 oz, I need the 13 oz, where is the 13 oz!” At one point, I actually asked an employee if they had a particular size in the back because they were out on the shelf. I’m pretty sure when he turned around to go check he rolled his eyes at me. I don’t blame him. I would have rolled my eyes too, because I’m pretty sure I had that manic, “But I have to save 30 cents” look on my face.

That’s when the manic took on a whole new level; they were out of one of the things on my list. Which of course meant that my calculations would now be off, because I had added everything up to reach the golden $75 mark. I’d given myself a little bit of a cushion, but I couldn’t remember how big of a cushion, and after all I was supposed to be buying six of this particular product so that was gonna take a chunk out of my total. I was paralyzed, I was standing in the store paralyzed trying to decide if I should just double up on something else on my list, or if I should start going through the aisles until I found something else on sale that would be an equivalent price, or should I just chance it and hope that it all worked out okay at the register and not be forced to scramble to find something really quick to make up the difference of $4 that I would inevitably be short of my $75 mark. Argh!!!!!!!

I have never been so stressed grocery shopping in my entire life. It was ridiculous. It was beyond ridiculous. By the time that I made it to the register and watched as the dollars fell away with each new coupon I realized that I wasn’t even enjoying it. Usually I think it’s very fun when I swipe my Vons card and watch as the amount goes down. But this time all of the fun was gone, because I had already done the math and I knew how much it was going to go down. I got some satisfaction from the fact that I actually made a dollar on one product, but beyond that I was just glad that it was over and I hoped that everything would fit in the kitchen.

All in all, I saved right around 50% off of my groceries. Like I said, moderate couponing. But if I really look at it and calculate in how much extra time I spent preparing for my grocery shopping trip, and how much extra time it took to do the grocery shopping – remember two trips on top of the extra time to get the exact right products – I’m pretty sure I actually paid about 125% for my groceries. I work freelance, so all of that time that I spent I could have been working and making money. Huh. I think I’ll be sticking to normal grocery shopping from now on.