I was at my son’s school last week, and during a discussion with two women there, I revealed that I’m a coupon nerd. (It’s ok, nerd is a term I wear proudly) I usually say that “Yeah, I’m really into couponing, you know those crazy women you see on tv who gets of stuff for free, well, that’s me. I’m one of them.”

The woman looked at me & said “Wow! I want to do that, how much do you save?”

I hate that question, How much do I save?

Calculating savings is always being discussed on the various coupon boards and everyone has their own method. Sometimes on the boards, as part of someone’s signature they’ll have “Saved $9400 so far this year!” which well, I think is a crock. While that person certainly may have gotten $9400 worth of stuff for free so far this year, I don’t think it honest to say she saved that much. To save that much, you would have to be willing to spend that much. I’m not spending $1000 on groceries per month, with or without coupons.

When discussing saving, couponers will ask “Do you base it on the sale price or full price, before coupons, after coupons, blah blah blah.” This is why, imo, none of those methods work. Best example I have is this Kelloggs cereal I purchased last spring.

Regular price for the cereal was 4.99-5.29 per box. On sale for 4 boxes for $10, or $2.50 each. I bought it in sets of 4. I had $1/1 coupons for almost every box I purchased, and for every group of 4, I was getting $7 in catalinas which I was rolling. I spent about $15 out of pocket for 52 boxes of cereal. When I got home & tallied up all 13, yes 13, of my receipts, I averaged $0.29 a box.

Great price, great deal. So what did I save? I guess you could say I saved $5 a box, since some of it was $5.29. But I would NEVER EVER pay $5.29 for a box of cereal. Ok, so maybe I saved $2.21, using the sale price. And then there’s this–I had several dozen boxes of cereal already in my basement stockpile, so I really didn’t need any cereal. So actually I spent $15 I didn’t really need to spend at that moment. So did I save anything, if I purchased something I didn’t need?

This is why I don’t try to calculate savings using any of those factors.

Here’s how I calculate savings-very simple. We set a weekly/monthly budget on what we want to spend on groceries/hba/alcohol/restaurants. Whatever we spend under that amount, the difference is what I’ve saved. You can’t save money you don’t have or don’t plan to spend.

Financial experts tell us that our food & stuff like that should equal about 9% of our income. I know ours is far less than that. I know that since 2006, when our first son was born, our grocery budget has not increased at all. We now have 4 people in the household, and even with the extra bodies, plus diapers, formula, inflation & increased food prices, I’ve been able to keep us at the same budget. And most weeks I come in under budget.

We could save more, but there’s a misconception about couponers–that we don’t splurge or indulge. We do. Yes, I’m frugal. But we’re also very picky about our lunch meat (will not eat the prepackaged stuff) and our produce (grocery store produce only in winter when there is no fresh market). And we save on the things we can, so we can splurge on the things we want. If I had to pay $5.29 for a box of cereal, that would mean much less $10/lb lunchmeat.

Most people are disappointed to learn that I spend $80-$100 a week on groceries. But even the folks from the TLC Extreme Couponers show will tell you–they don’t walk into the store every week, pay $3 and walk out with several carts of stuff. But any extreme couponer will also be able to give you a very long list of items we haven’t paid for in YEARS, nor do we plan to any time soon.

We go through five gallons of milk each week at about $3.50/gallon. Then there’s about $20 worth of deli lunch meat, $20-$25 worth of produce, add in just a little bit of meat (again, I’m picky about what cuts of meat we purchase) and especially at today’s grocery prices, it adds up to $80 very quickly. I also live in a state that controls milk prices, so it’s never ever on sale. I will not buy yogurt if it’s more than $0.50 per 6 oz cup, and that’s much less than what most people pay. Even at that price, I’m spending $14 a week on yogurt-we each eat one every day. So I’m sorry to disappoint those who think that each and every trip, I only spend a few bucks. I wish! (fwiw, I do know of a mom who sets her ANNUAL grocery budget at $800, for a family of four, if you’re interested, I can direct you to her blog)

I have a huge stock pile of non-perishables that I estimate I’ve paid $0.05-$0.10 on the dollar for. All our health/beauty items, cleaning & paper products, dry goods. When I see freebie deals and really cheap stuff, I stock up. That’s the stuff I don’t usually have to purchase at the grocery store during a normal weekly trip.