One of the few comics I still read is One Big Happy, by Rick Detorie. The kids, Joe & Ruthie, never grow up and never lose their innocence. Their parents are average parents of average means, trying to instill their values and manners in their kids. Who doesn’t do that anymore (or at least, tries to)?

Anyhow, this cartoon depicts much of my life - I have such a limited grocery budget for my family, and coupons are a vital part of it. I’d love more cash for groceries, but honestly, even if I had it, I’d still use coupons. I clip on a weekly basis and it takes me less than 30 minutes to get everything clipped (trimmed) and put in their appropriate sections of my organizer.

Just this week I had a big grocery-procurement trip and saved a near-record $100.18 on my total bill. The receipt told me that I'd saved 61% of my original bill, which was the highest percentage I've saved to-date with coupons. My highest dollar-amount saved has been $113.73, but that was less than the 61% saved this week. I keep a running total on the calculator on my phone, so I know what the bill will be (within a dollar of so for the taxable items in the cart) when I get to the checkout. I think the coolest part of this week's trip was knowing that as the scanned-total for the groceries approached the number in my calculator's memory, I had a little more than half of my cart left to scan. And what was left was, in essence, free - thanks to the coupons.

There are lots of objections to coupons which all seem to be recycled a bit. None are original and very few are true or accurate. Some people say “my time is too valuable to clip coupons.” When I can make an equivalent hourly wage of $50 via savings, coupon-use, and rebates, I think my time is too valuable NOT to clip coupons. Below are a few objections and how I approach the subject.

1) Does coupon clipping really save anymore than if you buy store brands?

A B S O L U T E L Y. I hope I’m not overstating the case, but I kind of mean to do exactly that. Here’s the deal: store brands are often made by companies that do the bottling/canning/packaging for name brand companies - on the same lines, in different boxes, and often with different quality of product. The stores pay less and then mark them up to *marginally* less than the national brand. Take a manufacturer's coupon for $.50 that gets doubled - already you’re saving $1 off of a product. When I pair that with that item that's on sale, I save big. A can of seasoned tomatoes, for example, might be on sale for $1.29 (29 oz can), with a $.70 reduction due to a doubled ($.35) coupon. for a total cost of $.59. The store brand of the same product is marked at $1.19. Is that $.60 worth saving? If you have unlimited income, probably not. But for my family? Absolutely.

2) Don’t you find that you buy stuff you really don’t need, just because you have a coupon?

Nope. I’m nothing if not disciplined. This comes from having to feed a family on a particularly tight budget. Lists, coupons, sales, deals, and nothing else.

3) Where would someone lay their hands on enough coupons to make a huge impact on their bill?

The local paper, organized and categorized. One store by us doubles $1 coupons every day. Do I save my $1 coupons for a trip up there? Heck yeah! And do I pair it with products that are already on sale up there? You betcha. It's worth the 25 minute drive & time in the store to be able to stock my pantry with things we'll use in the future and save that kind of money.

4) In regards to food shopping, it seems that you mainly see coupons for the highly processed, unnatural foods. Do you find that to be true?

This is actually one of the biggest fallacies about couponing - and it’s been around forever. Do I see coupons for Doritos and other processed foods? Very, very rarely. Do I see them for dairy products, salad products, cereal products, cooking products, baking goods, etc.? Every week! I almost never see coupons for soda, chips, and other "junky" things - I always see them for staples that are in my pantry, fridge, and freezer (canned beans, seasoned tomatoes, dairy products, frozen vegetables, etc.).

You don’t have to start big if you want to try couponing, but I could not make ends meet on our meager budget without doing it. As a single-income family who doesn’t even see the half-way mark on the “median income” in our area, it’s mandatory. We eat well, very healthy (I cook from scratch almost exclusively), and no one leaves the table hungry.

We're all looking for ways to "tighten our belts," as the expression goes - economists say one thing, the opposite thing three days later, and the end result is that no one knows very much about what our economy will do or how secure our jobs are. In Ann Arbor, we've been largely sheltered from the economic storms, but even in our fair city, companies are starting to make decisions that affect their employees' bottom lines. If we cannot get raises in pay from our employers, we can effectively give ourselves "raises" by spending less and doing more with the resources we have. Coupons are a very effective way of doing just that - and to my mind, worth the time and effort.

Sue is a home-educator, freelance information consultant, and writes regularly A Mother's Heart.

Image credit: Rick Detorie, "One Big Happy," Creators Syndicate