Cynthia the Coupon Queen

Cynthia lately has turned into the Coupon Queen. She has become so obsessed with it that she is teetering on the edge of being called the Coupon Nazi. She has been able to save a lot of money and build up our food storage at the same time. At first I was reluctant because of the time it requires. However Cynthia seems to have a lot more time these days especially since the kids have gone back to school and it is just her and Keanu together for most of the day.

It all starts each Sunday morning with the delivery of a newspaper- 3 Daily Heralds to be exact. She gets so “involved” (I would say fanatical but it isn’t a very P.C. word) that if the paper isn’t delivered by 8am she starts dialing the phone number of the home delivery department. It only costs her about 18 bucks a month to get the paper.

Then she has Kalea and Taylor sit at the kitchen table cutting out and organizing the coupons into the 50+ categories that she has outlined. The coupons are stored in a fishing tackle box like contraption. The girls get some kind of incentive for doing this- I think it’s an ‘atta-boy’ or ‘the-more-we-save-the-bigger-Christmas-will-be’. Cynthia then sits and compares sales with the weekly advertisements that come in the mail. She also has a little network of friends that she calls and they share 'insider tips' on what is going on and at what stores. It vaguely reminds me of my fantasy football league except not as cool.

She then sticks most of the food downstairs in our storage room. Several months ago I built shelves that were 2 ft wide by 12 ft long. She recently asked me if I could build more. Her plan is to be able to do her ‘shopping’ from our food storage. I have to admit there isn’t anything down there I wouldn’t eat except the whole wheat flour that occupies several 5 gallon buckets. Cynthia really gets a rush out of doing this. I’ll never forget the time she came home from Albertson’s on double coupon day with half an elephant for less than 50¢ a pound. You would have thought she had just won the lottery and been on crack. Seriously, I think she experiences some serious kick ass endorphins when she goes grocery shopping. Last week when we went to Chuck E Cheese for my birthday-yea we had a coupon!