Friday, October 21, 2011

Raven Street Notes No. 7

It's taken me a long while to confess this via the web, but I have become a Coupon Person.

Yes. I have a special binder, with baseball card inserts to hold the coupons. Oldest says "you spend all of your time looking for coupons now" and "why do you have to?" (But she usually only says this when she wants something from me in the few minutes each day I cut coupons or print them out).  I promise her I don't and I don't.  Really, really: I am not OCD. 

This all started with a friend who began couponing and then this website, and then that obnoxious show on TLC where people spend $.50 on a cagillion bags of cat food worth $800 in retail and they don't even have any cats.  There was one couponer on the show (I think she was the sister of the most recent Bachelorette--please don't ask me how I know this) who implied that couponing is the new wave for hip young moms who would rather spend their money on "sexy purses" and "sexy shoes." 

I guess on some level aspire to hip-ness. But I haven't bought any shoes with the money I saved from couponing. Although I did buy a purse . For 8 bucks. On clearance. And I wouldn't call it sexy.

Mostly I began couponing so that the family could stay under budget.  I used to buy only whole foods and almost never any snack foods because [organic, all natural] snack foods are more expensive.  But now it feels like Christmas: we have boxes of [moderately healthy, won't-clog-your-arteries] crackers and chips and fruit leathers galore and buying them with coupons and sales really hasn't cut into our whole-foods budget much at all. 

I will say this: the little ones are happier with crackers around.



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It feels surreal to be naming this entry "Raven Street notes" now that we don't live on Raven Street anymore.

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Tiny isn't so tiny these days.  And she's exhibiting borderline personality traits (also known as Toddlerhood).  But she is sweet as sweet can be and there are new words every day.  She's heavy on her "k" in milk and book whereas two weeks ago we heard only mil  and boo. Bottles are hot and this morning she walked up to the refrigerator and demanded a hot dog hot dog hot dog.

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I promise I am buying all natural hot dogs. With coupons.

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Kody Brown and the sister wives are almost as compelling to me as couponing.  Does anyone else agree? I am absolutely. Fascinated.  I can't quite wrap my mind around how they make sense of all the marriage relationships in the family system.

Here was my favorite quote, in reference to his wives, from Kody Brown on Sunday night's episode:

"I have a monogomous relationship with each one of them."

I was so startled that I laughed out loud--mostly because he pronounced this in the most unself-conscious and sincere way. The show's creators seemed not even to notice the irony.

Are you fascinated?

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