Am I the Only One … who clips coupons

By:  Donna Hale Chandler

I started shopping with coupons years ago, primarily at the grocery store. No matter now painstakingly I prepared for shopping day, I never seemed to be organized enough. I would spend hours scouring the newspapers for coupons. I’d sit at the dining room table with my scissors snipping away. Sometimes a page had coupons on both sides. This slowed down the process considerably, because then decisions had to be made. Which coupons were  the most important, or did I want 3 coupons from one side of the page and 4 coupons from the other side. It’s a process that takes time and talent.

Once in the grocery store it’s likely that I would discover that the money-saving slips of paper that I collected over the weeks were home on the kitchen counter. If I actually made it to the store with coupons in hand, they were never organized enough. I would be standing in the middle of the aisle trying to sort through these little scraps of different sized papers to find the ketchup coupon. Was it for Heinz or Hunts?

My ‘system’ was taking at least 1/2 day of my precious time off work. To make the shopping experience even more exciting, I’ve been known to accidently drop that wad of coupons on the floor. It’s amazing how far those little rascals can scatter and how difficult it is to pick that thin paper up from a sparkling clean smooth surface. I would notice other ladies whipping from aisle to aisle with their little plastic coupon holder attached to the handle of their cart and think, “Now there goes a Professional, for sure!”

Just minutes before the store manager was ready to accuse me of loitering because I’d been in his store so long, I would pull up to the check-out counter, unload my cart, and hand over the now sweaty, wrinkled coupons. With a slight frown the cashier usually handed back about half of them with an announcement, “These are expired.” I don’t know why this should make a grown woman hang her head in shame but it does. “Honest, Miss Cashier, I wasn’t trying to cheat the store out of 50 cents. I swear I wasn’t!”

These days, however, I am a member of the 21st century with my smartphone that is attached to my right hand at all times. Not only did I find the handy dandy Publix Shopping List App, I found their digital coupons. My scissors are now comfortably nestled in the Junk Drawer (a subject for another day). Before I head to the store, I go to the site, click on each coupon I want to use and a true blue miracle happens. All of those checked coupons suddenly appear on my Publix Shopping List — in the order of the aisles. It is a wonderful thing to behold for sure. Now perhaps a harried shopper will look over at me and think, “Now there goes a Professional for sure!”

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #354

About: Optimism

“Though frequently well hidden,
every negative also has a positive

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