It is the end of week 2 of my coupon challenge, where I set out see if it is possible to maintain a healthy diet while using coupons. This week I found that I did not need to use any coupons at all to complete my grocery shopping. I had enough staples like rice, beans, canned tomatoes, and the like to be able to pull together healthy meals for a week with just a few fresh vegetables.
Vegetables themselves can be rather expensive, especially when you buy them out of season. At the start of my coupon challenge, I wrote that condition of the challenge would be that I was not going to run around to multiple grocery stores in search of the lowest prices. I have a favorite grocer with prices that I find reasonable; I stick with that store. However, buying vegetables from that grocer is not my preference.
The grocer I visit to buy my vegetables does require some driving to get to, but I usually try to plan it around another trip to make the gas expenditures worth it. On my last visit to vegetable store, I bought tomatoes, onions, green and red peppers, strawberries, bananas, and chili powder (which it turns out I did not need). The strawberries happened to be on sale for a dollar. They were not on my list but seemed to have a good price.
Results from the coupon challenge this week suggest that once a stockpile of staples is bought with coupons and stored, the grocery bill for subsequent weeks reduces even further. With only fresh vegetables and fruits needed to make a healthy meal, you avoid the regular expensive purchase of boxed goods.
All over the Internet, there are website authors touting how much money they saved each week buying packaged goods with coupons. They say things like, “I saved $35 on last grocery bill” while never detailing whether the items on that bill included anything that was actually worth eating. It would be a shame to find that these families lived exclusively on packaged goods.
Are you following along with my grocery challenge? What is your take on my results so far?
SEE ALSO:
Coupons and Healthy Living
Week 1 -- Living Healthy with Coupons
Week 3 -- Living Healthy with Coupons
Week 4 -- Living Healthy with Coupons
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