Help! I Lost My Coupon Organizer!

Myscha Theriault — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:53:07 +0000

This afternoon's trip to the grocery store started like any other. My list was made. My coupons were clipped and organized. The blue tooth was charged and ready to go, and my rock out tunes were cued up in the Jeep. Traffic wasn't obnoxious as I headed out before the holiday chaos geared up. Everything was coming up roses, really. Until about two aisles after my produce cruise, I realized my coupon file was missing.

I can honestly say this has never happened to me before. And this particular coupon organizer was not that different from any other I'd used before, other than I actually used a sturdier plastic accordion file rather than the paperboard variety. Apparently, Sweet Bay's shopping carts are designed for industrial strength, Amazon sized children, because that's how I lost the little bugger. Right through what would normally be the left leg hole for your average toddler.

After re-combing the aisles I'd walked through, and checking twice with the customer service desk, I finally had to accept reality. It was gone. And with it, several hundred dollars worth of savings, including some fantastic coupons my realtor arranged for me at the home hardware chain stores, several slamming spice coupons that only come out this time of year, and numerous other deals too great to mention. So what did I do?

I did what I suspect any other forty-ish woman in the middle of hormonal transition would do. After checking out with my grocery purchases, I checked the parking lot in a last ditch effort, swore like a sailor, drove my stick shift way more aggressively than necessary on the way home, and after unloading my purchases immediately mixed up a double on the vodka, extra tall white Russian. That's right. I took it like a man.

Why am I posting about this? Well for starters, I'm assuming I can't be the first alpha shopping spouse this has happened to. Secondly, I'm wondering if my fascination for streamlined small filing systems is what got me into this. Should I go back to the days of totable boxes, or consider some sort of notebook system? It's not like there are “coupon insurance” programs out there, and I realize that in comparison with everything else that's happened to us this year, this is low on the list of things to stress about.

But damn it, I really went out of my way this morning to get back on track with the coupon thing. I sorted, culled and went way beyond the call of duty to get ready for this shopping run. There's really no recovery plan for this, and in the end, I will just suck it up as always. In the meantime though, I can't help but think about all the other shoppers out there who put enormous amounts of effort into the coupon strategy and even order them online ahead of the game.

We're watching our pennies, but not on the financial edge. And if I was fighting back tears of frustration for the rest of my shopping session, what must people do when these coupons are critical to putting food on the table at all? And are there any alternative filing systems out there that are tougher to lose through the grocery cart openings, yet not so cumbersome as to be a burden? Talk to me. I'm clearly having to start from scratch, so incorporating new ideas into an existing system will not be an issue. Share a story, a strategy or coupon philosophy in general. I'm all ears. As usual, thanks in advance for sounding off.

Written by Myscha Theriault and published on Wise Bread. Read more articles from Wise Bread.