I've Lost My Spark

I was a HEAVY couponer for a year and a half. By heavy I mean that I spent most of my Saturday clipping and organizing my coupons and then was at the store first thing Monday morning to try and get whatever I could after the Sunday rush. The girls did great with it at first and then Isa started to get really whiny about our Monday shopping. When she was in school Emmeline was more then happy to be carted around to several stores without much of a fight.

Then Extreme Couponers aired on TLC. It pretty much ruined couponing for people like me. It made people think that everyone could go buy 200 boxes of cereal for .12 cents. They wanted their share. This impacted me in the following ways. First it was really hard to find papers. People were going out and buying 40 papers. Silly. Second I had to deal with all the cranky cashiers that had to deal with pissy people who "saw this on TV" but had no idea what they were doing. Third companies have stopped distributing as many high value coupons. All these things combines has really killed my enjoyment of the whole thing.

I remember when I first started and would go get $100 worth of stuff (that I actually needed) for $10. Now I go and Spend $2 on stuff I don't need or use just so I don't feel like my coupons are going to waste. Of course in that process I am wasting gas and more importantly to me now, my time. This has resulted in my pretty much giving up on it. For now at least.