Coupon Queen

My name is Gaft Girl and I have a problem. Deep breath. I love coupons. I have been known, on occasion, to buy multiple Sunday papers when there is a good coupon (case in point, last weekend. There was a $3 off a box of Luvs diapers. The $1.75 was totally worth it to get a second coupon). I also have my mother and grandmother save their coupons for me.

My second, perhaps more disturbing problem is this: I love to grocery shop. I'm serious. I love trying to get as many groceries for as little as possible (I never spend more than a $1 a serving for a meal). I spend hours (yes, plural) working on my list, scouring the grocery ads, and comparing prices. It is probably a disease. But I can feed my family of 3 for less than $200 a month and I probably have enough groceries in storage that we could go at least a month without buying anything but milk (of course, if we bought a cow.....).

Next to Sundays (new grocery ads), Wednesdays are my favorite day. Why? It is double coupon day, silly. Double coupon day ranks right up there with Nudie Magazine Day (Billy Madison), Christmas, and my birthday. It may even outrank Christmas and Nudie Magazine Day.

On what other day is it possible to exercise my coupon prowess? I get to chose the 5 coupons I want doubled (my suggestion is to pick the dollar coupons, but that's my humble opinion) and as long as I spend $25 they are doubled.

The key is to spend exactly $25, before coupons, and then after doubling and other coupons the weeks worth of groceries are down to $15 or so. Hooray. And never, ever shop on an empty stomach (a Chinese food buffet with Zennie Zou certainly nixed any emptiness I had in my stomach today!)

I must admit that today I didn't quite ring up at my usual $25 mark. My total was $40, which is the most I've spent on groceries in a long time. But, considering I have $12 off my next grocery order and a $10 mail in rebate, I think going over cost me less in the long run. Plus, I got to meet the worlds tallest man.

If I wasn't happily married, I would probably marry Rainbow Foods. Or Giant Eagle.