So every now and then I will receive emails from you saying that your spouse (be it male or female) isn’t supportive of your couponing ventures. You tell me that your spouse rolls their eyes or that your spouse complains that you spend too much time getting your grocery list and coupons in order. So I wanted to find out, is this common? My husband is really supportive – so supportive that he went shopping for me in the fall when I was recovering from surgery and stuck in bed. But I know (from many of you) that sometimes our significant others just don’t get the concept of couponing or why we should do it.
If you watched Extreme Couponing two weeks ago, you would have seen one of the husband’s of the extreme couponer basically rolling his eyes. (Now she was extreme and she did have huge a bit of a hoarding mentality.) But still, I was surprised that he wasn’t more supportive of her saving as much money as she did.
So, I wanted to ask, do you ever feel alone in this couponing venture? Do you feel supported by your significant other? And, if you do feel supported, do you have advice for the readers that email me telling me they feel alone?
P.S. I really don’t want you all to start complaining about your spouses or using this as a bashing session. That is not my intent at all. 🙂 Instead, I would love constructive wisdom shared.
My husband is hot and cold. Sometimes it bugs him when I have to make weekly visits to the store or his preferred item is not on sale. (He will only eat Jif peanut butter, eggo waffles, etc) He has yelled at me for having 30 flosses but he goes through one every 2-3 weeks(plus they are an overage for me at target YEAH!!). I think it is only at its worst when I run out of space to store the items. That is when he gets huffy and puffy over the stuff.
Otherwise, he is supportive and sometimes wants to see the receipts to see how much I save. Generally, it makes me happy and he will go along with it. So I guess he is 80% supportive.
My husband likes the idea of me saving money with coupons. He’s gladly using the FREE Ivory soap, even though his favorite brand is Safeguard. He doesn’t care if I stock up on that kind of thing. We have several brands of shavers here, all free. I would like for him to help me with the coupons, since it’s so much work. But I don’t need him to go to the store with me.
My husband loves me saving money, but wants me to keep the quantites I buy to a minimum so the house doesn’t get too cluttered. I am slowly educating him on how some items only go on sale a few times per year and the shelf life of some items is longer than he realizes (i.e. laundry soap, toothpaste, T.P., ect). He is coming over to the “stock pile” side gradually 🙂
My husband is very supportive about my coupon usage. I don’t think he will ever go to the store for me with my coupons. I don’t blame him though he hears all the horror stories of untrained and rude cashiers, he will go to pick up a few things I have forgotten on his way home. I have complained a few times about the work that goes into couponing and he reminds me that coupons are why I get to stay home with our children while he works.
Overall hes very supportive and understanding when it comes to coupons.
Mine is very supporting which is a huge help for me, as I am disabled and at times not able to think clearly. It gets overwhelming with all the information but I just keep trudging along. Most of the time I am unable to catch the really good deals, by the time I make it to the store the free after I use my coupons are all gone, even though I live in a fairly large city. So I just take that at times I am able to save at least 30% on the total bill.
My Husband is very supportive. I always let him know what I am doing, my plans and when my shopping day is. When all is done, I show him the receipt and how much I have saved. I ALWAYS make sure I treat him with something from my shopping trip. I usually save it to the last. When I include him on my excursions, he feels included and gets excited too on the savings. He now makes sure I have time to search down coupons and in return I make sure I make time for things he wants to do. Its not a take take relationship. You have to give as much as you take. We have just celebrated our 16th anniversary. I have found the more I support him, he supports me.
Thanks for letting me brag about my “Better Half”!!
I just started couponing, my bf is so far fairly supportive He told me that we probably need to eat what we have but then ask me “what are the deals this week?”
My hubby is very supportive. He gets pretty excited to see how much I save (which I think is so cute) and he brags to people about the money I save by couponing.
My husband is SO WONDERFUL and the most supportive husband I know! He goes with me on EVERY publix trip to make it easier for me. He does most of the CVS and Walgreens runs for me after I do the workups! That is so helpful, since I have 2 jobs and 3 kids! He makes special trips to different grocery stores to find the coupon books that you post about! He is also so addicted, that he took my daughter to a birthday party last week and spend the whole time teaching another mom how to coupon! I love my husband! Happy Father’s Day sweetie!
My husband enjoys seeing us save money. I get to stay home with our three kids. My 2 boys enjoy clipping coupons with me. I let them use free gum and candy coupons so they understand why I use them. Any time they want to buy something they ask if I have a coupon for it. My husband has to remind me not to hoard. I had to donate body soap, But I also use it for my daughters bubble bath:) Everyone in my house enjoys it. And I get to go shopping.
My husband is supportive. He loves to hear how much I save and he is thinking about his purchases now. But he will never ever go to the store with me if I am using coupons. He hates that it holds other people up and that they have to wait.
My husband has named us “coupies”. He loves when I save money at the grocery store and checks out the total saved on the receipts. He also find me extra coupons in the recycle bins:)
My hubby is VERY supportive of my couponing, except creating space for my stockpile in his man cave. 🙂 He rewarded me with a new 3″ binder and lots of inserts when I hit the $500.00 savings at the beginning, and now always asks when I’m going, what’s on sale and how much did i save (%) when I get home.! He’s the best.
My husband LOVES to shop more than I do so you can only imagine how giddy he gets when he comes with me -he gets bummed if I do a shopping trip w/o him! LOL! He likes to hum the theme song to “Rocky” as we walk into the store 😀 He runs interference for me in line with impatient shoppers and warns them for me that we are super couponing and may take longer – that way I can stay focused on the scanning. He helps me clip coupons and even comes home with blinkies & tearpads he’s come across in different stores. I treated him to a (free) Wall Street Journal subscription recently for all his help. He knows I put a lot of time into couponing, but is increadibly supportive in every way and always tells me he’s proud of me. His favorite thing in all of this is watching the totals come down when we shop.
My husband wasn’t very supportive until one day I was watching Extreme Couponing and there was a man that was doing the couponing. After that, he has been very supportive. He used to say that he thought people would think he was poor if he used coupons, I say they think you’re frugal and smart if use coupons, but it was really the Extreme Couponing show that changed his mind. It also doesn’t hurt that I get some stuff for free and our grocery bills have decreased. He likes that!
I usually do all the sale shopping and he goes to Wal-mart for whatever wasn’t on sale that we need. He now asks me to give him coupons to take to Wal-Mart when he does the grocery shopping.
I am in a new relationship with a guy that just moved and I have brought him over toothpaste, laundry detergent, the Nivea men’s body wash (14 cents at Target right now) and dish soap. He loves that I am frugal and careful with my money. He has asked to go shopping with me to see how I do it. He did tease me and called me a hoarder even though I am nowhere near that. It did make me realize that I have a little more than I need so I packed up a bag of toiletries for a women’s shelter. I love to be able to do that and still have a reasonable stock and, even better, money saved.
My husband is VERY supportive of my coupon addiction :). He happily goes along to help with deals and he has offered to and has done deals on his own when I was unavailable. He has put shelves together and helped me organize my stockpile. He loves to hear how much I saved and he loves to figure out how cheap the meals are that we fix. He just finished up a handsoap in the bathroom and said “I wonder if we have anymore?”. He knew the answer and we both giggled. Before we would have had to run to the store. Couponing has changed our lives.
Mine was skeptical of stockpiling at first. I think he figured we’d have a hoard of stuff and wouldn’t be saving any money. As a bachelor he had never used coupons and had the mindset that if he had money in the bank then all was well. He’s been really supportive by listening and asking questions when he doesn’t understand the process of something or why we should buy as many as we do at a time (seriously though, the worst I get is pasta at 10 for $10…we just don’t have the space). My DH LOVES it that I’m not a frivolous spender, and that I’m not wrapped up in buying the latest and greatest thing just because we can. I think what really made it real to him was the fact that through what I’ve saved us we’ve paid off 3 credit cards and are working on the last, we have a nice emergency fund and we are saving for a house…on one income. This is way better than when we were both working full time.
My advice for anyone dealing with someone less supportive: show them cold, hard proof. Men are very literal. It’s nice to say you got the laundry detergent dirt cheap, but they don’t care about “sales” and “good deals” in general. They go in, get what they need without paying attention to price and get out. (I’m speaking in generalities obviously, I’m sure there are frugal guys out there!) You have to show them quantifiable proof of just how much you’re saving. My husband was stunned when we’d accrued a lot of extra cash in the bank because we weren’t running out with a weekly list and spending $150 a week. I’ve slashed that in half and I’m working on going even lower than that. He keeps a budget spreadsheet and it does not lie. Now even *he’s* become a great shopper. He checks with me about good deals and coupons before we go out and he does the math on unit prices at the store weighing our options for the best deal. Having the proof right there in black and white was amazing for him.
My husband is not very supportive! He thinks it causes us to spend money on things that we don’t need or wouldn’t normally buy. He works at Publix and I ask him to be on the lookout for coupons or bring home coupons to save me a trip. He usually can’t be bothered or says he forgot. Oh well, I’ll keep trying!
Most of the time he is. He LOVES it when I walk in the door and I’ve scored an awesome deal or gotten something for free. Sometimes he’s not so crazy when we have no room to put things or when I get a bit nutters because he stopped to pick up milk or went shopping and spent “more than I would have”!
Jen, I totally do that too. The ONE time I allowed my husband to go to the grocery store with me, even after I explained the rules to him about not putting random things in the buggy, he STILL does it and then argues with me in the middle of the store when I tell him to just wait because there will probably be a coupon for those items, especially since he wasn’t planning on eating them right away…but Noooo, don’t listen to the person who has a gigantic coupon book and knows the cycles. Sure enough, the next week…there were coupons. Can we say told ya so?!
My husband says good job buy he can’t get excited about it but yet he says good job and complains on how much time I use up getting all my stuff together for the store
I have to say my boyfriend was ‘mortified’ the first time I took him to the grocery store with me and pulled out a stack of coupons — he acted like he did not know me. But the other day I had to go out of town on a family emergency and did not want miss out on a few deals at Publix, so I made him a (short)list, told him exactly where the items were in the store, gave him the coupons and he actually went for me! He tried to tell me that he just threw the coupons away and paid full price, but he likes to kid that way so I don’t believe him 🙂
My husband either doesn’t quite get it, or he just sees me going to the store all the time and has a cow. “You go shopping every day!!” 1) I do not go shopping literally every day. 2) If I’m getting things for free or nearly free…what’s the difference? I went to Walmart yesterday and they price matched the Publix price on the Tylenol patches, so I used my coupon and they were free. Today, I took a couple of hours deciding what I wanted from Publix since today was the first day of the sale, and got my coupons all together and saved more than I spent, but he still gives me that comment about “shopping every day”
I’ve tried explaining scenarios to him numerous times and showing him all of my loot in my lovely stockpile, which he calls “the hoarding shelves,” and it kind of hurts my feelings when he says things like that, because I’ve seen hoarders…and I’m definitely not one. So I have 10 boxes of tampons and 20 packages of the smallest panty liners available…That doesn’t make me a hoarder, that makes me smart so I don’t have to pay full price for those items every month. What can I do to make him understand that I’m saving us a ton of money? I’m a full-time student and he’s the only one working. He doesn’t seem to have a problem using the stuff I’m “hoarding.” Maybe I should keep it all to myself and show him what a hoarder really does! HA, fend for yourself buddy!…and don’t touch my snack packs that I got for free. : P
@Stephanie – men are terribly insecure, and any man who says he isn’t is probably the worst offender! The truth is, we’re scared of what we don’t understand and intimidated that we can’t do what you can. That he calls your shelves “hoarding shelves” is just his way of regaining control of the situation so that he doesn’t feel like such a schmuck.
Believe me, all men are schmucks deep down, but we don’t want our women to know it. So keep doing what you’re doing, but respect him when he questions why you’re going to the store “again.” Maybe one day even forgo a great deal and tell him that you’d rather stay home with him anyway.
Also, @Christina has a great point. Men are linear, logical thinkers. We want stats, not feelings. So show us numbers. Give us a spreadsheet of the savings (not a “really great deal”), and what we now have money for that 6 months ago we didn’t. But above all, remember we’re just little kids inside who want the approval our moms and our wives!
Yes, he’s supportive but only up to a point. He loves the savings, but he always asks but do we need it. I have started buying a bigger variety of things but have expanded my cooking repertoire as well. He is excited to hear about the great deals I find 🙂
When we watch the Extreme Couponing show (which he enjoys watching), he always thinks I could do as well as them if I had more time. I however find them to be somewhat of hoarders and think they buy too many coupons.
BTW, I think the husband on the show liked his wife’s savings but didn’t want to be shopping at the store with her. He contradicted himself through the whole show.
Very supportive! He does all my Walgreens and CVS runs every Sunday morning… It’s become a thing. Wake up. I do deals, while he makes coffee and does his morning routine.. Then he goes out to Wal and CVS and I get my coffee and do my morning routine. Every week he asks me what the deals are for publix, and helps me decide if we would use something that’s a great deal. We go to publix every time together, and when we walk out we look to each other and talk about how much we feel like we robbed the place!
my husband love the fact that i can get him things he loves, in bulk! he’s never complained or rolled his eyes. he has asked me to stop talking so much about coupons with him, threatening to talk about baseball all the time with me…. i got the hint 🙂
but he loves that we can actually AFFORD things, whereas we wouldn’t have before.
Are you kidding? I can’t sneak out of the house to shop in peace without him wanting to tag along and use our coupons!
my hubby will go if we split the list and meet in the middle and check out with no issues … if I know it will be a challenging trip he kisses me and sends me n my way… when i come home he thanks me and then takes all the groceries and puts them away.
I’m so glad my husband is supportive, he really is supportive of anything I like to do. That being said he also needs alot of convincing, especially when it comes to MONEY. He didn’t mind the long hours I spent in front of the computer prinitng out coupons and finding deals, and he wasn’t bothered by my constant shopping trips….what bothered him at first was the thought of me buying things we really didn’t need “just because there was a coupon for them.” So I went Publix one day and just bought two things that I knew would give me overage, When it came time for the cashier to give ME .21 cents after I didn’t pay a dime for two boxes of crackers she figured she must of done something wrong. Anyways I got that receipt and handed it to my husband with the .21 cents. That perked his interest. Then I showed him how I can make money at CVS. He needed to see the numbers and then he understood it and I think that made all the difference to him. Like last week I came home from CVS and he saw Preparation H wipes in the bag and he was like “Really? you needed to buy these?” Then I told him that CVS paid me $2 to get them and I showed him the numbers. He wasn’t complaining after that. 🙂
Now I make it a game when I come home from a coupon trip I lay out all of the stuff I bought and he has to guess how much I paid.
Thank goodness he is. We actually watched the extreme couponing for the first time together and his first question was how did she get all those coupons?! I am grateful he doesn’t mind using them 🙂
My fiance is pretty supportive. He always goes with me to the store and he calculates the unit prices for the best deal. When it’s checkout time he unloads the cart while I get together the coupons to hand over. (He even unpacks it the way I like now – cold stuff together, cans, soft stuff/produce last :-))
I am going back to school soon and I’ve been trying to get him to learn the ropes so he could help me. He still says that he can’t do everything I do, but he’s a fast learner. And this new printable list is AMAZING for us. He loves being able to make the list without copying over the coupons by hand like I used to do. I still can’t get him to clip the inserts each week though.
For anyone who wants their significant other involved, you just have to convince them in person. I would plan my trip with as many great deals as possible, pull all my coupons beforehand and make the actual shop go as quickly as possible. When he/she sees how streamlined and easy it can be (and how much you saved) they will start to come around. That’s what happened with us at least. 😀
I don’t have a spouse or significant other, but my teenaged daughter is very supportive. She’s realized that snacky food doesn’t come in the house unless there is a sale and/or coupon. She’s even started circling what she wants in the sale ad and saying “Mom, if there’s a good sale on THIS, can you get it for me?” — And fortunately she’s gotten really good about letting me know when she’s running low on shampoo and facewash — some of the very few things we are brand specific about.
Hubby is very supportive. He even pays me half of what I save! He has said that he is still saving money even after he pays me. So, this really is my part time job. I usually shop twice a week. So, I am not out the door everyday but I do one large shopping trip and one small one. I just started couponing a couple of months ago.
I don’t know what happened to my comment, but my husband is very supportive. He doesn’t like how much time I spend on cutting and sorting and figuring out what to buy, but he’s supportive nonetheless! 🙂 He was a “couponer” before we met, so this is nothing new to him. He’s always been big on saving money anywhere and everywhere we can, so that’s a HUGE plus! He doesn’t normally go to the store with me and he does get a little irritated when I complain about Walgreens, Publix, and CVS being out of everything on sale..but I get irritated too! 🙂
Exceptionally supportive – he knows the value to our family. In fact he actually does all the shopping. I gather the coupons, watch the sale flyers, make the list and he does the store visit (though we only coupon once at week and only at Publix – no running around to get a couple items here and there).
We save about 50% every single week and have well stocked (though nothing like the extreme couponers) stocked panties.
Stocked panties? That made me giggle.
Adding we are also brand specific shoppers for many items – I will only use Dove Body wash, Venus reusable razors, he will only use Dove bar soap, Mitchum deodorant, we eat a lot of organic and will only use all natural cleaning products including detergent and even with a long list of “preferences” we still save 50%.