A penny wise in What's Happening

Although I’m not an extreme couponer or anything like that, over the past fews years I’ve developed many habits and methods for saving money in almost every facet of life. When I try to share some of my routines with other people it often sounds very convoluted & in-depth. The person will sometimes look at me like I’m some sort of psychopath. This is a feeling that I assume many couponers must experience when they generously try to share some of their techniques with others.

Some couponers might actually be a little crazy since they will stockpile hoards of goods that they don’t even want just because they got them for cheap. Constantly being on the look out for deals on random items can require a lot of work and I personally don’t like to cross into the threshold where it becomes second job. Because of this I like to stick with my tried & true methods and rarely exert too much energy into it. If I do decide to start searching for deals I try to make sure I’m doing it during the lulls at work so I’m at least not doing it on my own precious time. Another thing that prevents me from over-consuming goods is how much I value my precious space. I usually just limit my cost-saving savviness to items that I need and would have to buy regardless whether I was able to find a good deal on them.

My money-saving techniques go way beyond just merely finding a good deal. I can’t even tell you how many credit cards I have and I jockey them around and take advantage of as many incentives as I can.

With the job I have now I make enough money where I don’t really need to pinch pennies at all. At this point however, I’m so used to shopping the way I do that It’s just natural for me. Its somewhat like a hobby and honestly when I have to pay full price I can sometimes feel like I got ripped off. I cringe when people tell me how much they paid for certain things sometimes. I do try not to let the thrill of getting a good deal take over my senses though. There are times when paying full price is worth saving the hassle. Sometimes even when over-paying for things is worth it. My primary goal is never really to be cheap it’s more just to not waste money unnecessarily.

For example, I would never argue with a manager or store employee to get a good deal even if I’m in the right. Saving a few dollars isn’t worth it if I have to pay it back with stress or even causing stress to someone else. I always remind myself,

I deal with the stress of making a good wage so that I don’t have to deal with stress when I’m outside of work.

Everyone’s situation is different. For some people it might be worth it for them to get stressed out over the low-hanging fruits of life.

Last weekend I was buying new socks for my sock-purge that I wrote about in my last entry. I saw a nice long sleeve shirt in an area listed for $8. It seemed like a good deal so I grabbed it. When I got to the register it rang up as full price. Sometimes I don’t even notice these kinds of things because I don’t always pay attention, but I noticed right away and said,

”Oh I don’t want that shirt. I only grabbed it because it was in the $8 section.”

I was not overly-polite about it, but also not hostile about the situation in any way. She ended up entering the price in manually at $8 for me. We all went about our day without adding any unneeded stress to it.

Despite price savvy, I don’t consider myself a “cheap” or even an overly-frugal person. A lot of times I use the fact that I’m able to save so much money as an excuse to splurge on other items that I want.