In defense of couponing -- although I agree there's a lot of processed food out there and I won't argue with any of the points made. I think using coupons varies person to person. For me -- I do try to eat healthy, but I do use coupons. For an example of things I have bought in the last two weeks: Keep in mind, these are things I cook with and I use.
Perdue ground turkey 1.99/lb - 0.35 coupon (doubled)
Pillsbury Whole Wheat Flour on sale 5lb 1.50 - 0.35 coupon (doubled)
Birds Eye Steamfresh Veggies 1.00 -0.50 coupon =.50; since stores have brocolli and other veggies pretty expensive out of season I do this. During the summer I either grow fresh veggies (have seeds poking up now) or visit the farmer's market
Soymilk 1.79 on sale -1.00 coupon
No Salt Tomatoes/tomato sauce 0.60 a can on sale -.40 coupon =.20 each
Old fashioned quaker oats 1.00 on sale -0.50 coupon doubled =Free
Rotini Whole Wheat Pasta 1.00-B1G1 Free coupon =0.50 each
Yogurt 0.50 each with a coupon, sorry I can't remember the exact amount =.20 each
Recently lots of free dog and cat food coupons
Toiletries (shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc) can be gotten often free or near free.
No, I can't get coupons for fish, some can, but I can't - I'm limited by what's available for everyone else around here. So, I buy fish and meat often full price (occassionally can get perdue/tyson coupons but rarely and only use when on a great sale). A lot of my whole grain cereal, oatmeal, quinoa, whole grain flour, yeast I can get pretty cheap. Same with soymilk. I make a lot of our own breads, pizza dough, etc. Frozen veggies can be gotten pretty inexpensively. Same with dog food/cat food/toiletries, cleaning supplies and some over the counter medicines. Also applies to low-fat cheeses and canned or dried beans.
I don't use coupons if the "generic" is less than the name brand, I buy generic.
I am not saying couponing is great for everything, but it has helped really get my costs down.
For instance, I can never use coupons with brown rice. We have a great asian store around the corner where a big bag of brown rice is really cheap. I'll never beat that using coupons and won't waste my time trying. If you live somewhere where you can get bulk whole wheat flour cheap it wouldn't make sense to use coupons to buy it in the grocery store.
My strategy on using coupons is that I have a set of items I cook with generally. I keep a list of those. Whenever they are on sale with a coupon very cheap I stock up. If I need something not on sale, I'll go with whatever brand works out to be the cheapest/do without.
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