I like to think of myself as a frugal shopper. I look at the sale circulars, subscribe to “deal” websites, and clip coupons. Going to the store is not a simple task for me, because I will actually read the “unit price” labels on the shelves and evaluate my options. I have felt the thrill of saving almost $100 in one trip to the grocery store by adding coupons to store specials. I’ve even watched a couple of episodes of “Extreme Couponing.” It’s obvious some people can really make coupons work for them.

I’m not one of them.

Compared to these people, I’m a very lazy shopper. My epic trip to the store was exhilarating- but exhausting, especially when I got home and had to figure out where to put all the extra stuff I’d had to buy to get the deals (you know, “save $2 on 3 boxes of blah-blah”). On my next trip to the store, I actually looked at shelf labels for products that I’d essentially ignored, thinking them inferior: store brands. In my mind, store brands equaled the white generic boxes from my childhood. The few of those my family tried did indeed turn out to be inferior; the toilet paper was thin and almost sandpaper, the crackers were pretty much the same, and the mac & cheese….well, I prefer to keep that memory blocked. Read More→