Last week, I went to Harris Teeter for some after-vacation grocery shopping, and I had a freak-out moment in the freezer section.
See, it’s triples week. Which means any coupon up to 99 cents is tripled (unless it happens to be a “DO NOT DOUBLE OR TRIPLE” coupon, which a surprising number seem to be, at least the ones I find). Which means all the people who are really into couponing come out en masse. Now, I’ve been rather fascinated by the couponing movement lately. It can be a lot of fun. But there I was, walking by the frozen pizzas, and I’m watching these severe-looking women with carts brimming over with on-sale super-cheap foods, and I just felt a little panicked. There were groups of them, even, several ladies walking together with lists, fists clutching stacks of clipped coupons. And then there’s me, a couple printed coupons in hand, freaking out about—what? Growing up? Becoming too suburban?
Allow me to sincerely apologize for this, because I know several fantastic, non-severe, totally glamorous people who do the whole couponing thing. It seems to work well for them. And they save heaps of cash.
But there was something about watching the people in Harris Teeter that slightly terrified me. I don’t know if it’s my growing apprehension about how quickly thirty is coming, or anxiety over the mounting pressure to have kids, or the deep-seated worry that I may never ever live in a big city. Like, if I went there, if I really got into this whole couponing thing, that would mean something, that would signify something, something I’m just not ready for.
Behind me in the checkout lane was a woman in a faded black shirt, her hair pulled into a loose ponytail. A little boy was with her, and the lady had a couple coupons in her hand. She motioned to my cart and asked if organic milk was on sale (I had two half-gallons). Considering my earlier reaction to the other women in the store, I should have been disconcerted, but I wasn’t—something about this lady was comforting. She was just buying groceries. She was just doing life. Wondering if milk was on sale, not because she was obsessed with getting the lowest price, but because she drank organic milk. I smiled, told her it wasn’t, but mentioned that if she went to Stonyfield’s website, she could print out coupons. I’m not going to be one of those people who can get $500 worth of groceries for thirty bucks. But I can find a coupon for some organic milk. And that’s fine by me.
10 Comments
I had a flirtation with couponing when Seth and I were first settling down together in our own place. Something about it IS so grown-up and suburban. I do still use coupons from time to time, but I definitely don’t qualify as a couponer. My problem with them is that so often, they require you to buy two or more items before you can save any money. I also found I was feeling pressured to buy things I never buy just because I had a coupon for them. This is a phenomenon known as “splaving,” I have recently found out (spending in order to save). So using coupons, when they are just the right thing, is great, but spending a whole lot of energy just to use coupons is just too much work.
ok, so i totally fall in between the categories referenced here. i definitely freak when i see the ladies with full carts, linked together as they roll the aisles clutching their coupons with their arms in shop attack mode and eyes looking coupon crazy. but, because i don’t coupon shop in a group (i go solo, or with a 3 year old), i put my coupons in an envelope (and not clutched in my hand), i don’t buy what i won’t use (but i do buy lots of junk that i WILL eat), and i still buy non-sale organic milk (sometimes), i think i’m safe. right? or that’s what i’m telling myself even though i sit here staring at the 6 jugs of vegetable oil that i “bought” this week. sigh. i have a problem.
erin, you have verbalized feelings about couponing i didn’t even realize i had!! thanks to you, i’m suddenly aware of all my hidden, psychological fears, which i’ll happily add to my long-time, well-known phobia of all things complex and mathy.
Zea: splaving! What an interesting concept, and a funny word for it.
Hilary: But see, you’re one of the ones who seem to do couponing in style. I think the fact that I knew none of the ladies in Harris Teeter contributed to my freaking out, because there are so many people who seem to be brilliant about it. Like Audrey, I can’t imagine anyone accusing her of being unglamorous or too suburban. So clearly, there is something wrong with the part of my brain that might be a couponer… I will continue to greatly admire those who can breeze through a grocery store and pay a fraction of what the rest of us pay!
Katy: I also have a phobia of math. That’s another strike against couponing for me. All that adding. Mentally tripling the coupon’s value…trying to figure out what percentage I saved…oh, dear.
Saving money is all good and well, but if it takes over your whole life, when are you to do your living and just enjoy buying and cooking food? It’s like being vegan—it takes all your energy to figure out what to eat every day. No thank you!
None of the local stores here (that I know of) have a triples week, and I wasn’t in the frozen foods aisle with you, but I don’t really understand the source of anxiety. Some people are couponers. Some people are not. Some people are suburban and frumpy. Some people are urban and glamorous. Some people partially fall into one or both of those categories. Some people fall into neither one at all. Why fret about your place in a nonexistent hierarchy? ::shrug:: I just don’t really identify with any of it. If I stumble upon a coupon for something I use, I clip it. And I even file it into a little plastic coupon file-folder. Sometimes I even clip a coupon for something that I don’t use regularly but would if I could afford to or that can satisfactorily substitute for something else I do use regularly. It looks very organized while shopping in the store, but I doubt anyone thinks I’m a paragon for suburbanites. Or perhaps they do, but what do I care? I don’t think it requires exorbitant energy. But then, I don’t think veganism requires excessive planning either; combining incomplete sources of protein to obtain a full complement of amino acids is very simple, and probably habitual for anyone who does it properly.
That’s just it–it’s not about couponing at all. There are plenty of people who defy the couponing stereotypes. So, that’s clearly not something to be concerned about. You’re absolutely right. And I don’t know if I can really explain what it was, even if I fully understand it yet, but the best I can do is that seeing those women in Harris Teeter was like seeing a flash of a possible path my life could take, and I think what I am really afraid of is losing my dreams, of settling down and settling for a life that is somehow less than what I have been hoping for.
Allow me to attempt an explanation. See, it seems like absolutely everyone I know is having babies. Which is wonderful. But, life seems to change in very fundamental ways when one has a baby, for obvious reasons.
Right now, I’m fairly focused on writing. I’m not really employed anywhere in the traditional sense. And I’m chasing after a dream that has a more than decent shot of never ever coming true. So, while this isn’t something I think about all the time, and this isn’t some grand source of anxiety in my life, it is something that is a part of what I’m doing, the ever-present reality of “this might not work.” And, yes, I know that it will be okay, that if one dream dies, another will come along, and so forth, but this is where I’m at.
Okay, so what does writing have to do with kids, and what do kids have to do with couponing? This is where I’m not sure if this will make any sense. But, there I am in Harris Teeter, and I think I have this flash of me in a number of years with a toddler and a baby and all my conversations are about cloth diapers and breastfeeding and cheerios and preschools and coupons and yard maintenance. (Not that there’s anything wrong with any of those topics, but go with me here.) And writing isn’t in that picture. We are in Wilmington. We’re not going to move or have any grand adventure. We’re focused on stability. Life is set. No change. No dreams. That’s it.
Melodramatic? Yes. Improbable? Sure. It isn’t a rational fear. Just like being afraid of spiders isn’t rational. The odds on actually being harmed by a spider are pretty laughable. And I know that whenever we do end up having kids, my life doesn’t have to be dominated by that completely, that I will retain my personality, that I can determine whether to give up on my dreams or not. But I think this better hits on what my gut reaction was about.
I still “coupon.” I still shop for sales. I don’t spend as much time on it as I once did, and I’m okay with only saving forty percent instead of more. That’s all fine and dandy. And I’m not intellectually worrying here about having kids or giving up on writing. It was more of just a gut reaction, a feeling.
Oh, Erin, you goose! As far as I can tell, if something is important to you, then it seems to be important to Jesse too; from an external perspective, I feel confident that you two will will have adventures and babies and whatever else you want to have together because you’ll support each other in attaining whatever it is. And as a fellow avid reader, let me point out that some of the grandest adventures I know about have been published in the pages of fiction! I’d even go so far as to point out that some of our most wildly successful contemporary authors are mothers of multiple children! (I’m thinking J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, etc., which you may or may not consider “literature,” but the point is that they’ve experienced the kind of success that enables them to have nonfictional adventures now–and who the heck knows where they find the time to write and travel and be mothers?)
You’re absolutely right–I will keep reminding myself of this! And who cares if Rowling and Meyer are taught in lit classes in fifty years. They’re paying the bills.
I understand what you were feeling while you were in the frozen foods aisle. I’m not anywhere near the position you’re in where the possibility of having kids and settling down is even, well, even a possibility. But I get that exact same feeling every time I’m in Oviedo, especially driving through my parents’ uber-suburban neighborhood (though my parents themselves aren’t terribly suburbanite). And that’s exactly why I moved to the city. Now when I’m back in Oviedo and I get that feeling it’s amplified, but not nearly as frequent. And I get to choose when I feel like subjecting myself to it, and can prepare myself, rather than having to face it on a daily basis just to get home.