What $5 will get you – Couponer vs. non-couponer

  This purchase was from a while back and I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while.  I have been “extreme” couponing, or however you want to describe it, for over two years now (well…2 and half to be exact) and I guess in the midst of it all, I forgot how much stuff really costs.  And how very little an amount as small as $5.00 can actually get you if you don’t use coupons.

For example, in this picture is the items I got from a small trip to Publix (yes, Publix, the expensive grocery store!)

Cost to me for these four items (excluding tax because it varies wildly around the country) was $3.93.  Yes, $3.93 for the “expensive” mac&cheese, peanut butter and two cans of chunk chicken.   And this wasn’t even that “extreme” of a trip.  The peanut butter was on sale and I had a coupon.  The other items weren’t on sale but I had store and manufacturer coupons to stack and both were expiring and I decided that even without a sale, with stacked coupons it was  agood price.

So, there’s my $3.93 worth of groceries.  Not even a full $5.00.

For the NON-couponer that walked in there with $5.00, do you know how many of the above items THEY would be able to get?

TWO.

These two items cost $4.64, which was as close as I could get to $5.00 without going over.

So for $.71 less I got TWICE as much with my coupons as the average person could get without.

For the non-couponer, all the items I purchased would cost them $8.68.

Now do you see the savings from couponing?