by Patrick Sills

Created on: October 12, 2008

We've all found ourselves in this situation at one time or another. You take a trip to the supermarket. After spending a half-hour or so shopping, you've successfully obtained all of the items written down on your list, and you're ready to check out. You wish you could go through the Express Lane, but you have way too many groceries in your cart. Besides, you want to write a check, and those lanes take cash only. You quickly scan the other checkout lanes and discover that each one has five people in line. After making a mental note to pick a different time other than Saturday afternoon to do your grocery shopping next time, you are resigned to choosing a lane that has the least amount of carts filled to the brim. Even then, there's always a chance that the high-school-aged kid operating the register just started yesterday and will hence have to call upon a manager to ask how to ring up your raw produce. Nevertheless, it's a gamble that must be taken. The person two carts ahead of you has some onions and potatoes, and you breathe a sigh of relief as you notice the cashier ringing the items up without so much as blinking an eye. All you have to hope for now is that a shift change won't occur before it's your turn. Or so you thought.

Instead, you soon discover that the person directly in front of you is the ever-dreaded coupon clipper. You patiently wait for the cashier to ring all of his or her groceries up, and then suddenly; like a mysterious car that appears out of a blind corner, they present 15 or 20 coupons. Now the employee has to subtract all of the discounts off the cart total. Next, an argument will ensue when the person discovers that the 10 cent discount on that can of Mandarin oranges is only good for the larger, 12-ounce size. He or she is hell-bent on saving that dime, so the person doing the bagging has to go back and exchange the item, even though it has a higher price. In worse situations yet, you will occasionally find one of these people who wait until they're in line before clipping their desired coupons.

Somehow, these people think they've beat the system by saving a couple of bucks on a $200 grocery bill. Life is far too short to waste time scouring slick Sunday paper ads to save a few pennies on groceries or household products. Besides, there is more than a good chance that the item in question has been artificially inflated in price to offset the coupons in the first place. Think of jewelry in discount stores such as Wal-Mart or K-Mart. They tell you that something like a necklace for $99.95 normally retails for $399.95, and that you are saving 75%. In reality, the necklace is actually only worth $99.95 to begin with. When it falls apart in less than six months, this becomes readily apparent.

Even in the current state of the economy, it is simply not worth the trouble to spend hours digging for coupons to save minimal amounts of money. Even when making major purchases on something like a car, I've seen people haggling over $50.00. If they realized that $50.00 will make a difference of about $1.20 on their monthly payment, would they bother? Somehow I doubt it.

Benjamin Franklin once said that a penny saved is a penny earned. That may be true, but my time is of far more value.

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