Frugality...

I once read an entire blog post about the difference between being cheap and being frugal. The writer defined being cheap as basically buying the lowest quality stuff you could find in order to spend the least amount of money. Being frugal, she said, was finding a way to pay the least amount of money for the highest quality items or for an excellent quantity/combination of items. And I have come to agree with this lady with all my heart. Let me give you an example:

Think about how much it costs to buy milk. Milk in my area is 2.99 per gallon and we have a 2% food tax, so three gallons of milk cost $9.15. Keeping that number in your mind, look at this list of things I bought from Harris Teeter yesterday using a combination of rain checks and their triple coupon event.

4 1-lb bags of Mahatma white rice
2 boxes Quaker 100-calorie granola bars
2 6-packs White Houseapplesauce
8 1-lb packages of Land-o-Lakes butter quarters
2 bottles Kraft bbq sauce
6 64-count containers Huggies wipes
4 boxes frozen Eggo waffles
2 donuts (for a Mommy/Sissy snack) and yes,
3 gallons of milk

And for this haul, I paid a grand total of $8.98.

Couponing for me is honestly a bit like a game and sometimes I go a little overboard (yesterday was the 5th trip I'd made to Harris Teeter in a week), but if you think about the amount of money one can normally spend just on a "quick trip" to the grocery store (or Wal-Mart, which is a black hole for my money!) I really feel like this helps me do my part to be a good steward of my husband's income. I don't work, so I will gladly spend my time on a "hobby" that allows us to have the best quality of just about anything for next to nothing. And the fever is spreading--I have ladies at church who ask me often when I plan to teach a coupon class because I've shared with them some of the deals I've gotten; and there's an e-mail in my inbox right now asking for my secrets. If this post sounds like a brag, it probably is because I like to do things well...but I am happiest about the fact that I do not have to spend all of my life settling for below-average groceries and generic products simply because we're a single-income family. :D