This third week of my coupon challenge has revealed some interesting findings. I set out on this challenge to see whether it were possible to have a healthful diet while using coupons. The first week showed I realized tremendous savings as I stocked up on healthy dried goods. The second week showed I needed to buy only fresh foods to complement the dried foods in my pantry. This third week is showing that the use of coupons is almost unnecessary.
With a stockpile of healthy foods on hand bought with coupons, the need to use more coupons this week was slim and almost nonexistent. Only 1 item I bought was gotten with a coupon. Snapple 6 packs were on sale and I had a coupon for a dollar off. I bought the Snapple because I enjoy drinking them from time to time, not because I needed them or would use them in preparing an inexpensive meal.
In fact, though using coupons would save me money in the short term, the continual use of coupons for preparing meals would seem to suggest that I would spend more than I had to. Simply not being lazy about cooking meals from scratch probably saves about $20 to $30.
A good cookbook with recipes you can trust is an invaluable asset for people who want to save money and have a healthful diet. However, the two things to remember are:
1) The amount of time you will have each day (or each month or week) to prepare meals.
2) The availability of ingredients found in the cookbook recipes.
A star chef with a cookbook that includes meals with unrealistic prep time and/or expensive and hard-to-find ingredients will cause more frustration than help. For example, while I enjoy watching Bobby Flay and others on the Food Network, the recipes in one of the cookbooks of his I bought included too many ingredients that were hard for me to find. At the time, I needed a cooking resource that made use of common ingredients found in my own neighborhood grocery store.
Two good series I do enjoy are those by I Rachel Ray and Southern Living. The cooking and prep times on the recipes in these books fit my lifestyle, and the ingredients rarely include items that would be hard to find in an average grocery store.
It seems so far that coupons are unnecessary. Unless you use them weekly to stockpile, they provide only minimal savings. The key seems to be using coupons to set up a pantry and then making wise choices about cooking and food selection to ensure lasting savings.
SEE ALSO:
Coupons and Healthy Living
Week 1 -- Living Healthy with Coupons
Week 2 -- Living Healthy with Coupons
Week 4 -- Living Healthy with Coupons
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