Well, I never. . .

When I first joined Hot Coupon World almost 4 years ago I was a couponing newbie and in reading all those posts there where somethings I said I'd never do. Some, I thought were just plain crazy, some I thought I wouldn't ever be capable of but I find myself doing several of these things now. I thought I'd share.

1. I'll never use a coupon binder.

I thought I'd never have access to enough coupons to need such a thing, never thought I'd be so organized or that I'd be brave enough to take it into the store with me! But now? I couldn't function without the blasted thing! It not only goes to the store with me, but pretty much everywhere else too! I never know when I'm going to stumbled onto an unexpected deal or want to share a coupon with a friend.
The binder is stuffed to the point of not closing properly and honestly I need to expand. As soon as I find a deal on pages I'll divide my current binder into two. One food and one non food. Actually I need to get a better handle on my tradeable coupons too, so I'd really like to have three binders!

2. I'll never have target prices.

In those early days of forum lurking I saw people post that they only bought X item if it was less that $X.xx. "That's crazy!" I thought. I'll never be at a place where I'm saying something is too expensive to buy right now!
*raises hand*
I'm guilty. I know it's on sale and there is a coupon for it, but it will be frozen foods month in a couple of weeks, the sale will be better and the coupon will still be good and who pays more than $X.xx for frozen veg anyway?!

3. I'll never be brave enough to stand up to the cashier if he/she challenges one of my coupons!

When I expect my bill to be $7.00 and it totals $25.00 you better believe I'm going to be finding out why. There is no reason to be rude but I will be firm. For example, recently I piggybacked two coupons:

coupon one - $2.00 off produce when you buy product X
coupon two - $0.75 off Product X

Even though there is a picture of product X on coupon one, coupon one is actually for $$ off produce, not product X so there is no reason both shouldn't be valid. But coupon two beeped, the cashier glanced at it, saw the picture and refused to accept it. I politely explained how the coupon was worded, she took a closer look and ending up accepting it. Coupons beep for no good reason sometimes and you have to know what your coupons are for and be prepared to stand up for yourself and explain the deal.

4. I'll never take more than one blinkie, booklet, or tearpad.

Taking more than one (or taking one at all if I wasn't going to use it that trip) felt like stealing at first. I got over that pretty fast. I don't take them all and I don't take more than I think I'll use or trade but I do take more than one these days.
PS I'm also taking those catalinas people walk off and leave at the self checkout line.

5. I'll never trade coupons, it's too complicated!

And I'll never have enough coupons to trade anyway. Yeah, not even gonna write a paragraph about that one. It's not as complicated as it looks.

6. I'll never have the guts to contact a company and ask for coupons. What if they turn me down?

This one got blown outta the water pretty fast too. In the last month and a half I've contacted over 300 companies/brands. The majority have sent coupons and some of those have been for free products. So what if they say no? I'm not going to be embarrassed. I'll never meet these people in person. It doesn't hurt to ask.

7. I'll never go to more than one grocery store in one day (or make more than one trip during the sale) to do my shopping.

Yeah, that ones gone too. I don't mind going to several places or going to a store several times as long as the deal outweighs the price of gas or I happen to be driving by anyway.

8. It doesn't matter how many coupons the store takes per trip. I'll never reach that number anyway.

Um, yeah, sure I won't. That would be why I have to go back several times during the sale :P


I guess I've learned to never say never. But I'm never going to be able to keep all those drug store rolling deals straight!

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