Coupon Loser

Years ago, I used to do a lot of couponing and rebating. It really helped my husband and I out as we were just married and he was completing his teaching certification. I rarely bought an item without a coupon. My system wasn't very complex, just a coupon organizer and the weekly ads. Granted, this was back in the late 80's early 90's and the Sunday flyers only had minimum coupon leaflets. Also, the drugstores were just getting into offering coupons and rebates. Plus there were no internet sites to print off coupons. There was a coupon clearinghouse that you could fill out a form with the brands you used most often and they would mail out available coupons.

Flash forward to today. I have been trying to get back in the habit of couponing and especially when the drugstores offer their own money saving programs. I read a lot of blogs and many of the personal finance blogs talk about how they score great deals using coupons and reward dollars. It makes me want to jump on the bandwagon and save money too.

Except I am a coupon loser. I don't know if it's the fact that my children's births depleted any couponing brain cells or what. I collect the ads and see great deals but then I never bother to go to the store. Yah, that's being lazy. I wait too long and then when I do go to the store, they are out of the item. For example, Wednesday, I printed a Walgreen coupon for $5 off any purchase $25 or more. It was good only for Wednesday and Thursday. I need a ton of stuff and so would have a bill way over $25. But again, too lazy to run 3 blocks down the road. Now I will probably go tomorrow, buy all the items I need, and not save the extra $5 dollars.

Why is it I can't get back into the habit? Am I just too old? Do I not care as much about saving money? I admit the lazy part.

Any suggestions? Maybe I need to focus on other areas of saving money and not through couponing.