The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs- Stephanie Nelson

The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half: The Strategic Shopping Method Proven to Slash Food and Drugstore Costs by Stephanie Nelson

This book exists to sell a website http://www.couponmom.com/ . The website collects personal information then gives out online coupons. It is a trade off. I saved about $7 from the online printable coupons when I went shopping this week.

It also reminded me to check the grocery circular at my supermarket and my local drugstore while I was there. Money is tight so I tried it. I saved some more money at Walgreens on a few items like toilet paper and hand soap. Another $3.

While I was at the produce store, I got a few things which were cheaper at the produce store than the supermarket; yogurt, hummus, vegetables and fruit are cheaper at the local produce store than the supermarket. The reason it is this way is they don't spend as much on advertising and other things. The Coupon Mom book reminds you to comparison shop. There was probably a difference of another $10.

While I was at the supermarket, I bought a case of diet coke. It is cheaper than buying it from the vending machine at work. This probably saved me another $5 this week. The book reminds you to eat at home more. I have been packing a lunch starting last week. This probably saves me another $10 for the week.

I had a few coupons left over which I will keep in a folder for when I will need them.

There is nothing brilliant or new in this book other than the online printable coupons. I went shopping on Saturday so I did not get a chance to look at the coupons in the Sunday paper. This might have saved me a little bit more money. I saved $35 this week. I won't say it is half of my grocery bill, but I am just starting. It could add up to a decent amount of money over time. This is a solid guide on how to comparison shop and use coupons. There is a lot of hype in it, but it also has some good advice.

The real question is how much money is your time worth. It takes a little bit of effort to do this.

The book is easy to read. It has an index, basic charts, and lots of testimonials from people who have used her website. The testimonials are not that believable. There are also numerous shopping tips which are much more useful than the testimonials. For example, it is cheaper to buy spices and bulk dry goods from the produce store most of the time than the grocery store.

Stephanie Nelson has appeared on Oprah, CNN, and the Today Show. She comes across as practical and personable. There is something satisfying and practical about an Assistant Professor of Classics at Boston University writing about coupons.

Daily Thoughts 6/23/2010

Reading In The Forest, Oil On Canvas, 1880, Paris, Public Domain, Wikimedia, Eva Gonzales

Daily Thoughts 6/23/2010

I have been reading more of Coupon Mom's and looking at the website. There is a little bit of money to be saved, not a huge amount for the effort involved. The online coupons are kind of interesting. I don't buy most of this stuff.

This book is proving to be about much more than coupons. She describes the advantages and disadvantages of shopping at big box stores, supermarkets, discount stores, health food stores, wholesale clubs, and bare bones stores. I liked some of her ideas.

She reminds us that it is not good to buy giant packages of junk food from wholesalers, this leads to overconsumption and an unhealthy lifestyle. She also tells us that it is cheaper to buy fresh herbs and bulk food products like nuts from produce stores and healthfood stores than supermarkets. Stephanie Nelson follows the maxim that we must watch what we put into the refrigerator to make sure we are buying what we need, 15%-40% of food in refrigerators goes to waste in the United States.

The author tells us that it is cheaper to eat vegetarian on occassion. Vegetables, rice, and beans are cheaper than meats or cheeses. I am about half way through the book and am enjoying reading it. I have sent ten online coupons to my email inbox for things which I purchase regularly.

There is something different about writing about practical books. Most reviewers will not describe their experience using practical books; books on homeownership, power tools, carpentry, plumbing, personal finance, and other practical subjects are often not reviewed enough. Maybe, there isn't enough intellectual cachet in it.

Today has been quite busy. I have been working on a few things. The new display advertising for the playaways came in. We now have new bookmarks, signage, and posters for our playaways section and will soon have new packaging for the playaways. I also printed the Chick Lit bookmark today.

We are almost ready for the Adult Summer Reading in July and August http://www.summerreadingnys.org/. We just put together a banner for adult summer reading and I am working on creating a flyer for the events associated with the summer reading program. We have two author events in July, two brown bag book talks, and a literary tea planned so far.

One of my colleagues suggested a graphic novel, Rabbi Harvey vs. the Wisdom Kid, A Graphic Novel of Dueling Jewish Folktales In the Wild West by Steve Sheinkin. It came out in March 2010. Another book came in for me, Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, and Dave Freer. I especially like the writing of Dave Freer. I put in a request for a weird western graphic novel, Iron West by Doug TenNapel which I saw from this list http://www.morevikings.com/recs-and-rants/weird-west-reading-list/

On another thought, acccess to our library catalog will soon be available as an Iphone App http://www.sirsidynix.com/iphone/apps/bookmyne/

I finished reading The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills In Half by Stephanie Nelson. It has an old fashioned thriftiness to it. The author tells us she uses baking soda, vinegar, borax, and rubbing alcohol for her cleaning needs. She also makes a recommendation that you should grow your own vegetables, even using the term "victory garden". It has a homespun feel to it in parts even though it is very much touting coupons from major brands.

I started reading Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer, and Eric Flint. Each author has numerous fantasy novels to their name and a decent following of readers. They somehow mesh well writing this novel. This is the third novel in a series. The first two are The Shadow of the Lion and This Rough Magic. It is set in a medieval Europe filled with magic both black and white. The characters are drawn from historical figures like Madame Bathory, Prince Manfred, and Prince Vlad Duke of Valahia. It starts nicely, moving between Venice, the Carpathians, and the tents of the Golden horde.

Daily Thoughts 6/22/2010

Design on Page 123 of The Library by Andrew Lang, c1881

Daily Thoughts 6/22/2010

This morning I read some more of Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron on the train to work. The characters are quite interesting. There is plenty of tension in the story because the author includes bits on sexism, racism, and homophobia. She writes about peoples prejudices and fears and has some quite interesting conversations between characters. It may make some people uncomfortable, but it has a direct feeling to it missing from many other novels.

I put The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half by Stephanie Nelson on hold. I don't usually cut coupons, but I've noticed that food prices are rising and I think I might need to start doing this. It came in this afternoon for me to read with another book, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. The Last Lecture is a lecture by a college professor from Carnegie Mellon who was dying of terminal cancer. It was a bestseller.

There is a new teen novel which looks like quite interesting called Go Mutants! by Larry Doyle. Universal pictures has already bought the film rights. It is a mix of teen angst and aliens and monsters from 1950s B Movies. It sounds very good.

Today has been a day to schedule and arrange for programs. We are working on a Brown Bag Lunch book talk series that will be tied in with the Adult Summer Reading Program.

The shifting in the storage area is moving along very smoothly. Tomorrow, I think I'll ask to have the Chick Lit bookmarks printed.

I finished reading Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron. I enjoyed reading it a lot. I am not going to review it. It feels strange thinking about reviewing something that you have to read for a class. I also logged into the Readers Advisory 101 class for the first time. It is being presented by the RUSA (Reference and User Services Association) division of the American Library Association.

I have started The Coupon Mom's Guide to Cutting Your Grocery Bills In Half. It seems like a lot of hype. I have managed to find four online coupons so far to print. There are a few strategies in it to reduce grocery bills. This is the kind of book where the results you get from reading the book are what matters. It is a practical book. The only way to know whether it works is to try out what Stephanie Nelson practices.

I also donated $5 to keep the Ning Book Blogs network going. They need $500 in total to keep the network going for the year. I find it quite useful. They are using the Paypal donations system.