Couponing

So today has been a hectic day. It's always nonstop when I come into the office; today a funder thinks they overpaid us by $450K and I had to figure out why; some employee who's chronically ill is getting worker's comp (which is sort of odd because they seldom do any work); meanwhile worker's comp thinks we owe them thousands of dollars for [who knows what. They're government bureaucrats and need to keep their jobs]. Add to that the time spent on the phone with the attys because someone didn't like the fact that they got fired, the local kid I'm hiring, the office optimization I'm attempting, and it was 1 pm before I looked up.

Headed out to get some lunch, came back, did some photo updates, and decided to finish last night's Vitamin Shoppe order. Recently lots of friends on FB have been couponing, and somewhere I heard someone say that when you're ordering you should just google the vendor. This appears to work better than Coupon Cabin, because Coupon Cabin now (like everything on the internet that used to be free) is so full of ads it's hardly worth the effort of visiting it (especially when your time is limited and your internet connection is closer to 1.5Mbps than the 5Mbps you're paying for). Vitamin Shoppe is already running a special for free shipping over $25.00. But I'm out of CoQ10, and the 200mg cap gets expensive ($0.33 per serving at VS, but I take 2-4 servings a day). I tend to buy in bulk, so it kicked the order up to over $100.00. It was about $117. I adjusted it a bit, but while I was adjusting it, I googled "vitamin shoppe coupon." I found a code for $25.00 off on an order of $150.00 or more. I actually needed more hyaluronic acid (helps with arthritic inflammation; also supposed to be good for skin), so by the time I added that and a small bottle of vitamin K, I just eked over the $150.00 mark. $153.30, to be exact. Which then brought my total down to $128.30. So the net-net is that I got a $17.00 bottle of hyaluronic acid for less than $10.00.

It's not a lot, but I try to only buy things I need, and to buy in bulk -- I usually buy vitamins twice a year, at Vitamin Shoppe's buy one, get one half off sale. For maintenance vitamins that I can't buy in bulk, I try to go to GNC during Gold Card week. I don't see the point in paying more if I can pay less, and if being frugal in small things allows me to save money so I can go on my trips (this is the second year I'll do TWO overseas trips. Pretty significant for someone who, during the dark years, couldn't scrape up enough extra money to get her passport renewed).

So yeah, I do couponing, and I shop in thrift stores, and I wait to buy things on sale. And I work three jobs. But I'ma climb Mt. Sinai, and I'ma jump out of an airplane, and I'ma do all the other things my heart desires. That's the tradeoff. No, I don't have a lot of time to spend hanging out, and no, I don't want to go out to dinner with you, and will only go to the movies with Amit because he's socially retarded and happens to like the geeky movies I like that no one my own age will see with me. And no, I'm not gonna clean my house (though I will have very good people clean it for me).

There are tradeoffs in life, and while couponing and shopping at thrift stores may seem incongruent with paying someone to clean your house (and often to do your laundry. Though I prefer to do my own laundry just because when you send it out they never do it right) -- while those things may seem incongruent, they're really not. At the end of the day, if you know where to find it, a coupon is a key that adds value to your purchase experience. As I get older and wiser, as I learn where to look, I'm discovering keys, both in the spiritual and in the physical realms, that add value to my life experience.