I guess I CAN teach my mom a few new shopping tricks!
Posted by: SueI’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned my mom a time or two on this blog. Or rather, I’ve mentioned her shopping style. The grocery shopping of my childhood was one of the things I had to overcome in my quest for frugality. Now, I’m not sure, but I think my mom’s rules were pretty much as follows:
Shop one store and one store only. Make a list - well, it doesn’t have to be a long list. 10 items are enough. Don’t organize by item types, placement in the store, etc. Coupons are more trouble than they’re worth. Don’t bother reading the store ads - what does it matter if something is on sale if I don’t need it at that exact moment in time?
I could go on and on with her unwritten “rules” but I think you get the point.
I remember when I was in my late teens, coming home from college and going grocery shopping with her. I had been on my own long enough to have begun to develop my own shopping habits. And I could not believe that it took her over two hours to grocery shop for three people - at one store. Now, this was in my pre-frugal days, so I don’t know that I really noticed the financial implications of her shopping. At the time, the fact that she could spend over two hours aimlessly wandering the aisles amazed me.
Fast forward to the present. Last year, my mom gave up her drivers license. And I am now taking her grocery shopping again. On our first shopping trip, it became obvious that Mom had not gotten any quicker. No, we could now add another hour to the excursion. Really. Almost THREE HOURS in the grocery store. It’s not that she slowed down with age - she moves fast. Really fast. But it wasn’t the time spent in the store that bothered me most.
Frugality is part of my life. It quickly became apparent that I did not inherit the frugal gene from my mom. I was stunned at the amount of money she spent. For ONE person. I decided to seize the opportunity to try and change her ways. I knew this would not happen overnight. And I knew that I would need to take it one step at a time.
The first thing I wanted to tackle was the time spent in the store. I cannot tell you how many times we went back to the same aisles, again and again. And each time, Mom found more things to put in her cart. After we got home, we talked about organizing grocery lists. Mom decided to give it a try. The next week, we were back down to the 2 hour shopping excursion I remember from my childhood. It was an improvement. She did not spend quite as much money this time, possibly because she did not make as many repeat trips down the same aisles. First step in the transformation - done.
Now, I mentioned that Mom spent less money on this trip than she had on the previous one. But I knew she could be spending a lot less. It was time to move to the intermediate level - COUPONS! My mom has always given me her coupon supplements. Sometimes there is a coupon cut out, but usually, they are totally intact. I keep a small folder of coupons in my purse, and on this next shopping trip, I gave her several for items she was buying. She seemed pleased that she saved $3.75 that week.
She hadn’t seen anything yet.
Quite often, I get coupons in the mail for $5 off $50 or more at the chain of grocery stores Mom prefers. I rarely spend that much at one time at ANY store, so I started giving her those coupons - on top of ones for the products she uses. She really liked this! Soon, it seemed that she was paying more attention to coupons. It started slowly. The first time she mentioned coupons, it was “oh, I had a coupon cut out for that. But I left it at home.” Like I said, it started slowly. But before long, she was bringing her own coupons. The last time we went shopping, she had a fist full of coupons. And when we went to Walgreens after grocery shopping, she went through her purse first to find the coupon and the register reward she knew she had. I was so proud of her. It goes without saying that she spends less money on food than she used to.
Stay tuned. In the near future, I will attempt to take her to the advanced level: checking the sales flyers and shopping the sales - at more than one store!