How My Frugality Now Looks Different Than a Decade Ago

Right about the time our Instacart came up for renewal, Walmart Grocery started offering delivery to our address (which isn't exactly out in the boonies, but seems like it is to townies). I have no particular affection for the WM, which I partially blame for destroying my first marriage, but... their apps are so reliably functional and the product prices are so much less than Instacart's partner stores'. As what I'm certain is an intentional dig at the grocery delivering giant, Walmart also placed their annual delivery membership at exactly one dollar less than Instacart's.

All of this means that I have not gone to the store to buy ingredients for our cook-at-home meals (5 a week, more or less) in at least a year. It's probably even less, because I was doing Walmart Pickup or HEB Curbside and awful lot before that.

When D was little, I LOVED going grocery shopping. Whereas now, I pick meals from eMeals' offerings and get that stuff, supplementing with snacks and cereal, etc. back then, grocery shopping was a game that I played with great relish.

I clipped every coupon from the Sunday paper, even if I didn't think I'd use it. That was actually pretty cool, because if I were in line behind someone who was getting, say, a particular brand of cat food when I didn't have a cat, I could pass the savings on to them.  People knew I couponed (though I was never an "extreme couponer"), and often gave me extra inserts.

When the grocery sales papers came out on Tuesday, I'd look through and choose which store to visit. We had an Albertson's and a Kroger in Sherman, and I almost always chose Kroger. It was not as "nice," but it was a lot less expensive. Also, Kroger doubled coupons up to $.50 and tripled coupons up to $.35.

I'd look at what items were advertised as on sale that corresponded to my coupons. I'd make a list on the outside of an envelope, and stick the coupons that I definitely planned to use in there, taking the other coupons with me in case I found something in the store that wasn't advertised.

I headed to the store with an open mind, sure that if I found, say, hamburger on sale, I could find some cheap tomato sauce and pasta, and supplement that with a head of lettuce and some boiled eggs as a side salad.

Using this method, I went years without paying for toothbrushes, deodorant, salad dressing, or yogurt. For some reason, those were often both on sale and had coupons that meant I could stock up on several at a time.

I never shied away from perishable clearance items: meat, dairy, prepared produce. If it looked okay in the store, I knew we'd use it before it went south.

At the time, I had an "allowance" of about $400 a month for groceries. I'd try to spend $75 or less during any grocery run, and then have some left over in case we wanted to grab a soda or eat out sometime when I didn't have a mystery shopping job.

When I'd arrive home with a giant haul for just $75, I was proud. I wanted to tell everyone how I'd gotten 4 2-liters of soda for $.50. I know no one really cared, but it was exciting to me.

The main differences between then and now is that, first of all, stores (including my beloved Kroger) stopped bumping the value of coupons. That made the somewhat labor-intensive process of couponing -- some parents got absorbed in their phones when their kids were playing; I often used the down time to go through my accordion wallet of coupons, extracting the expired ones and fronting the ones that were about to run out -- less valuable.

Secondly, I started working, and really had to choose between couponing and mystery shopping. I still wanted to take my kiddo out to a restaurant on a single-parent budget, and got more mileage out of the shops than the coupons.

Thirdly, and most importantly now that I have nothing but leisure time anymore (have you noticed this is the fourth blog post this year??), going to the grocery store with Mal, with the intent of buying a lot of specific products off of a list, is just not fun. When he was little, he was just fussy. Now, he wants to look at toys... and, actually, he's at the age when I could just tell him to look at toys and I'd find him when I was done, which is what I did with D, but substitute "books" for "toys."

However, spending an entire hour in a store with a to-do list and that child is not the leisurely romp it was when I had a more compliant and self-entertaining child. Oh, memories are coming back. I distinctly remember listening to "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on my Walkman, using a splitter and two pair of headphones, when D was much too old to be sitting in the cart but was, anyway, and laughing so hard at Hermione sputtering through happy tears, "You boys... are so... STUPID!" What's funny about how memories work is that I know I was reaching into the freezer for veggies when that happened. (I was in the produce section solo, listening to "Forrest Gump" once, and blushed, grateful that other shoppers couldn't hear what I was hearing. The book is way grittier and more sexual than the movie!)

Mal and I went to Walmart last night, and all I needed to get was some make-up remover and a couple of frozen meals for D. We can handle that. We spend about 20 minutes looking at toys, and he's content to ride "like a trash man" on the cart so he can jump off when something catches his eye. Short trips without a strict agenda, we can do. Otherwise, I'm grateful for grocery delivery. I'm not engaging in hyperbole when I tell you that it's changed my life.