Couponing? Worth the hassle?

During one of my recent weekly play dates, my friend told me about this show, "Extreme Couponing".  Yeah, I had seen the previews on t.v.  Was I interested?  Not too much.  But after talking to her and hearing about how some of these self-proclaimed nut-jobs save hundreds - even thousands - of dollars on their grocery bills, I have to admit I was intrigued.

I received my first Chicago Tribune this past Sunday and I decided to give this couponing thing a try.  NO, I am not crazy about coupons; I've always felt they were a lot of work for pennies off my bill.  In the past, I had been embarrassed to hand over a slip of paper to save a quarter or two.  Somehow, though, I was never embarrassed to save $5 off a restaurant bill or 20% off my clothing purchase with an in-store "coupon".  I think it's because I never really viewed them the same as the grocery store type. If I save a buck or two, ok.  But if the hassle of clipping coupons doesn't add up to the money saved, it simply isn't worth it for me.

So I went through the newspaper, clipping whatever there was available.  Who knew when (or if) I would need eye drops or a free dental exam!?!  Well, I'm glad I did this!  In the morning I coupled coupons with store sales and some price matching and saved $9.  Then, on our way to dinner, my husband decided to stop and get... no joke... eye drops! LOL.  There was another $2 saved.  At dinner, we used yet another coupon that took $20 off the bill.  Day 1 of couponing and we saved $31.  Not bad, I think.

Thursday was day 2 and I used a coupon for a local restaurant that saved us $15.

Now it's Friday and I plan to head out to some more stores to pick up the last of our Easter essentials.  I'm prepared, again, with coupons and sales papers.  We'll see how this turns out.  What I do know is that if it becomes more of a pain-in-the-you-know-what than it is a benefit, it'll be bye-bye coupons.  Otherwise, I think I can handle saving a few bucks here and there.  Especially since it cost me $90 to fill my gas tank this morning.  Perhaps I can recoup that money from the savings these coupons bring.