Ralphs Shopping Trip – 9/11

Nothing beats walking through a grocery store while hungry with gaping holes in your mouth that prevent you from eating 99% of surrounding products. The tooth issues that led to this situation have kept me from eating certain foods over the last couple weeks, resulting in $20-30 in food spoilage. Not particularly happy about that, but I made it up with today’s shopping trip.

Ralphs is running a buy combination of 15 selected items, get $5 back deal. For some reason I received 3 of these $5 rebates, which makes up for past mistakes Ralphs has made in my search for savings.

Total spent: $43
Total saved: $91

Grocery Shopping: 8/21 – 8/29

Ralphs – 8/21 – $34

Coupon Items:
2 x Tree Top Juice – $1.00 (retail: $6.00)
5 x Lean Cuisine Frozen Crap – $6.35 (retail: $15.00)
Jose Ole Frozen Skillet Meal – $2.99 (retail: $7.59)
Degree Deodorant – $0.50 (retail: $4.49)

The Ethics of Couponing

When I decided to get hardcore about clipping coupons, I inevitably ended up consider coupon ethics. I also started using words like “hardcore” to describe couponing. When I first start getting back in the game – the hardcore coupon game – I ran across an article on coupon ethics. It covered the basics: don’t use expired coupons unless your store has a policy of accepting them, don’t try to get coupons scanned that you didn’t actually buy a product for, and when there are restrictions on size or quantity adhere to them. This is all ethical child’s play.

I was more concerned about the big picture – the implications of my calculated, excessive, coupon usage.

Guilty Pleasures, Pt. 1: Couponing

Part of the “Living Large on Hobo Change” series. Clipping coupons is traditionally associated with middle-aged women, but anyone can realize massive savings through obsessive couponing, brand disloyalty, and a minor hit to dignity. That last one is a personal thing; I have no problem living cheap, but I always feel awkward handing over a fistful of coupons. On the plus side, several nice old ladies have commended me on my frugality. All we need is a Great Depression and some war rationing for the younger ladies to be impressed by my wily couponing ways.

Okkervil River

I’ve always had a good ear for music and assume I’d be a great talent scout – a.k.a. soulless purveyor of radio-friendly chord progressions and instigator/abuser of short-lived trends. Every once in a while a song immediately clicks not just because it’s catchy, but because it is legitimately good. In a documentary on the Grateful Dead album “American Beauty”, one band member chalked up the intense reactions many people had to it to “ancestral memory.” You don’t have to be a filthy hippy to have had the experience of rhythm, beats, and cadence combining in an “I swear I’ve heard this before, even though I know I haven’t” way.

That was my experience in hearing Okkervil River for the first time. They’ve written a few songs that everybody should like, but the general response from people I’ve sent tracks or YouTube links to has been less than stellar. Screw you all and watch this music video until you like it . . .