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I made a decision today that now changes a nearly lifelong habit.
As a little boy - after my parents' divorce - we were poor. We had lost our house (well, I had lost my house - since what ever little bit of equity might have been in a two-year old newly built home was divvied up in a divorce settlement). After about four or five months of living at my grandparents', we moved into a townhouse apartment. A few years later, it was time to start giving me an allowance. Chores was one way (emptying the dishwasher, helping with laundry, taking out the trash, etc.). Another way was ingenious and began a long-lived habit.
My mother decided - most likely in an effort to teach me the value of money in addition to helping our grocery bill - that I could make additional allowance money but cutting out coupons for her to use at the market... but only for things that she was going to buy anyway. I received the face value of the coupon as part of my allowance.
While today that would mean minimally 35 cents here or 50 cents there. Sometimes a 75 cent-ers or a $1 as well. Until recently, Ralph's would offer double coupons - which I'm sure I would have benefitted from! But back in my allowance days, coupons were only 5 cents or 7 cents. I think 10 cents was the max. I don't recall any higher, but there may have been. I could sometimes persuade my Mom to buy a more expensive brand if my coupon reduced it to the same or less than her normal brand.
When I moved out on my own, coupons became the norm for me. I would cut them and save them in a envelope that I would bring to the store with me.
When I moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago, it turned into such a big thing for me. I upgraded to a 5x8 file box with section dividers. My Mom would mail me coupons from the Philadelphia area as I had discovered that oft times they would be higher amounts than my LA versions. 50/75 Cents were the norm. $1 coupons were frequent. Double coupons was the norm - along with occasional Triple Coupon days! - and I could increase savings by only buying itms when they were on sale AND with a coupon. I could save over 60% off my total grocery bill on each trip.
There were times when Ralph's (my store of choice due mainly to their Double-Coupons Everyday policy) would have store coupons in their circulars or mailers - and their policy allowed for use of both store coupons and manufacturer coupons at the same time!
Sometimes the use of my coupons resulted in me saving more than the cost of the item. I'd actually make money by taking an item home! I'd go through the store circulars and figure out where to shop for the best savings. I'd go between Von's and Ralph's and a produce market. Mambo Sprouts was coupon booklet that I received in the mail with lots of healthy and natural and organic brands. These were added to my arsenal of savings as well.
These were truly halcyon days for grocery savings.
It all began to crumble during a major five-month long supermarket strike during the Winter of 2003/4. My couponing was curtailed and I ended up shopping at Trader Joe's (a non-striking market) most of the time. I fell in love with them, but with few national brands, coupons had no place.
When the strike ended, things were never quite the same.
Ralph's quietly altered their Double-Coupon Policy to limit savings to no more than $1 savings per coupon. A 75 cents off coupon would only 'double' an additional 25 cents to cap it at $1. Huge change that they simply added as fine print, while still advertising Double Coupons Everyday!
I got healthier and started eating better. Gone were most national brands giving Trader Joe's more of my business and leaving fewer and fewer coupons worth being cut by me.
Flash forward to today. I shop at Ralph's less than once a month - except for a quick trip in for their store brand Non-Dairy Creamer. The Mambo Sprouts mailer has ceased production. Ralph's Double-Coupon Policy has quietly disappeared altogether. To add insult to injury, coupon face values have dropped down into 25/35/50 Cent ranges again.
This morning's Sunday paper yielded no new coupons being cut out. A look through my (now 18-year old) coupon box revealed a handful of expired coupons from last month and a total of about 12 left - all due to expire by December 31, 2012.
There is no reason to continue.
So, mark the date. After nearly four decades - 80% of my life - the Couponer that began as a young boy, is putting his scissors away, stashing the old beige box in the back room, and calling it a day.
Breakfast Cereal. Those two words conjure up memories for many of us.
Which did I discover first? Was it the sugary sweet crunchy morsels or the cartoon icons? Probably the icons. Back in those pre-cable days, Saturday Morning meant one thing. Cartoons and lots of them! They'd start at 6AM on the three networks - ABC, CBS, and NBC - and continue until Noon.
And they were a big deal. The networks would launch their Saturday Morning line-ups with Friday Night Primetime Specials in September, juts before the Fall Season of Saturday Morning (this is NOT a joke, that's what they did). Usually hosted by current sitcom stars, they'd introduce us to their new shows and characters as well as remind us of our returning friends and what changes to expect.
But I digress - that must be a topic for another blog. Interspersed amongst my favorite Saturday Morning TV friends, were other animated friends... sometimes even in their own ongoing adventures.
Capt. Crunch and his Crew were always trying to allude Jean Le Feet the Pirate. It looked and felt like the cartoons I watched (and it should have... being animated by Jay Ward Productions - makers of "Rocky & Bullwinkle" and "George of the Jungle").
There was the (again animated by Jay Ward) battle between Quaker's characters Quisp (the alien) and Quake (a miner). A contest over whose cereal was more popular was held (via the commercials, with Quisp eventually winning). Interestingly the only difference between the two cereals was the shape of the product and the character on the box.
Kellogg's had their own group of friends; Toucan Sam (Froot Loops), the funny trio of elves known as Snap, Crackle and Pop (Rice Krispies), Tusky the Elephant (Cocoa Krispies), the ultra hip and cool sweater-clad Sugar Bear (Super Sugar Crisps) and of course, Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes).
General Mills had Lucky the Leprechaun (Lucky Charms), Sonny the Cuckoo Bird (Cocoa Puffs) and the Trix Rabbit (who got his own contest wherein we voted to see if the admonishment, "Silly Rabbit, Trix are for kids." should be lifted). I don't recall if he was ever allowed to eat a bowl.
There were others of course, Fred and Barney for Post Pebbles (both Fruity and Cocoa - nearly identical to Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies), the King Vitamin, the Cookie Crisp Thief, the Clown for Kaboom! (the only kids cerael with 100% of all vitamins and minerals - and most chemically sweet taste ever!), The Monster Squad (Frankenberry, Boo-berry, Count Chocula, Fruit Brute [the werewolf] and the Yummy Mummy).
Anyway, cereal used to come with great 'prizes' (as we called them) inside or prizes that you could send away for with box tops. My favorites (natch) were the records that were on the back of the box. There were round areas of vinyl grooves mounted on the back of the box. Once the box was empty, you'd cut out the back of the box along the dotted lines and you'd have a cardboard record.
One funny memory I have has to do with those cereal prizes. For those of you who don't know, these were great free little toys buried deep at the bottom of the box; usually in a plastic pouch coated in cereal dust.
My Mom would allow each of us (my brother Michael, my sister Susan and I) to select one box of cereal to have as our own, meaning our responsibility to finish it and as a reward, we'd keep the prize that came in it. Of course our cereal selection was nearly always prize-based. And being kids, we couldn't wait for the prize - we had to know what it was! Once we were home and Mom wasn't around, we would dig to the bottom of the box with our little grubby paws to retrieve our little plastic treasure (we never thought to dump the cereal out into a big bowl or anything - that would be too messy).
The cereal prizes would then live - unopened - in the top cabinet (over the little counter next to the dishwasher) until we finished eating that box of cereal. Of course, oft times since we chose the cereal based on the prize, the cereal would sit and sit uneaten. We'd eat each other's cereals and being the older brother, I'm sure I conned them into somehow trading their next pick of cereal to me if I hadn't finished mine... but so it goes.
Anyway, those days are gone. The prizes are lame. Most of my cereal now comes from Trader Joe's. Gone is the torn-up roof-of-my-mouth due to Capt. Crunch. The smell of Froot Loops no longer sends my sinuses into convulsive delight. The sweet, slightly hard nuggets of colorful shapely marshmallow bits with the oaty goodness of Lucky Charms no longer sits in a box on my shelf. The crunchy, oh-so cocoa-ey spheres of corn in Cocoa Puffs no longer turn my milk chocolatey.
But I do remember those times.
