If you love clipping coupons, you may not enjoy this post or agree with my premise. But I am convinced that coupons are a huge contributor to overspending.

In fact, let me ask you a question: When you spend time thumbing through the paper or surfing the net for great coupons…aren’t you really just thinking about spending money?

Of course you are.

Coupons are directly tied to spending.. You don’t collect them for those amazing graphics. Right?

In fact, for many people, browsing for coupons is part of an overspending ritual. This may not describe you, but I’ll guarantee that people who spend lots of time looking for coupons spend much more time thinking about spending than they spend time thinking about saving and investing.

Ever heard someone tell you they bought something just because it was on sale?
That’s almost as bad as someone saying they spend a ton of dough and tried to justify it because “it’s deductible”.

Coupons weren’t developed by Debtors Anonymous. Coupons were created by the Retailers Association of America probably. They did it to give you a reason to get into their store and spend money. That’s it. They know that once you’re there, you’ll keep spending. You might get a deal on toilet paper, but they’ll get you on the breakfast cereal.

Coupons were not created to save you money or help you save for your retirement.

And you know what…..it works.

If it didn’t, you wouldn’t find any coupons in the mailbox, newspaper or on the internet.

Of course, some people use coupons to stop spending money they don’t have — and I hope that describes you. But most people get sucked in. Coupons get you to buy stuff you really don’t need.

Don’t believe me?

Look at your trash can.

It’s full…right?

That means you are buying more than you need.

That’s why I don’t spend any time looking for coupons. I don’t want a “spending” mindset.

I want an investor mindset.

When I need something I go out and get it. I don’t clip coupons and then find a reason to need something. Maybe I pay more for the stuff I need than you do. But I don’t buy anything I don’t really need. At the end of the day, I spend less money as a result of not collecting coupons.

So if you’re looking for a good personal finance or a great small business idea, just say no to coupons from today on.

Am I wrong? Do you only buy stuff that you absolutely need or do coupons get you to bring home more than you intended to?

Note from Frugal Dad: When I read Neal’s title my immediate reaction was, “Are you nuts? You want me to run this post on Frugal Dad?” But after reading the guest post, I must say Neal makes a good point.

Looking back on my own experience with coupons, I remember making some impractical decisions in the name of “saving money” because I had a coupon. Honestly, how many squeezable mayonnaise bottles does one family really need? With the exception of stockpiling a few essentials using coupons, our family has found that we generally come out ahead by skipping the coupon and simply buying the store brand.

So Half Price Books had a coupon to get 50% off of any one purchase. I am slowly wanting to replace all of my paperback books with Hardbacks, or at least my favorites. Grant was a great sport, and he came with me to two different locations so that I could get these four books in Hardback  for a $15.12 total. I normally preorder books from Amazon, so that I get them on the day they come out, I don’t have to go to the store, and I get them for about 13-15 per book which is way cheaper than the $30+ normal price. I must say, that I am very excited about my finds. Now, there are some books that I probably will have to buy online or from Amazon,but this was a great treat. I would recommend any of the books below. Terry Brooks is my favorite author, and I finally own every single book in hardbacks of his series that I enjoy reading!!! I think I need to buy some sweet book ends for my shelves now that I have more to put on them.

So, here is the tale of our KitchenAid Mixer. I grew up with only using a hand mixer, mainly the Braun brand because it is German, and my mom is gung hoe about it. So, the first time I ever saw a KitchenAid mixer in action was when my mother in law Gail was making our wedding cake. Hers was an older model,but it worked great, and I was very impressed. I still had my hand mixer, but we registered for a KitchenAid anyway. Grant’s sister, mom, cousins, and aunts all came together and bought us a 5 quart mixer, and I was so excited.

This is the Mixer that we got in black. I was so excited about using it, and when I started to use it, I was very disappointed. Mine made some weird high pitch noises anytime I had it on. Grant assured me this wasn’t normal, so we went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and exchanged it for the same thing no problem. That was mixer #1. So, mixer #2, this mixer worked great until you added any liquids to the dry ingredients. If you did, then it would start a weird grating like you were rubbing metals against each other, only they weren’t. So, back to Bed, Bath, & beyond for us. That was Mixer #2. Then we got the Mixer #3 the replacement. We both had high hopes for this one,but right after we got it, it went into storage while we were looking for jobs. So, it was in there for over a year.  During that time, Grant and I were able to house sit for the Amaros who had a Professional KitchenAid mixer. I used it and fell in love because it had a stronger motor it didn’t have any issues with the thicker doughs.

So, we are finally in our apartment, with our smaller nonprofessional mixer still in the box. I knew that we had discussed exchanging it for the professional series, but it is $100.00 more than the one we had. We figured we should save up, and do this sooner rather than later because otherwise it might never happen. Well, the hand mixer I had was dumb to say the least. It would mess up, I couldn’t make an icing for a cake I wanted to make this week, and that was the last straw. So, I talked to Grant about getting the Professional mixer. We called Amanda(Grant’s Sister) who had the original receipt thinking we would need it for this. She found it, sent it to us, and then we lost it… go figure.

We knew that she had used a 20% off coupon on the purchase and figured we couldn’t use one again when purchasing the mixer, but we decided to go look and give it all a try.

We got to the store, finally picked a color that we liked, “Pearl Metallic,” and went to pay. Since it was on our registry, they looked it up. Then they said it had cost $299.00 which was subtracted from the total amount of $399.00, then they let us use the 20% off coupon which took off $80.00. So our total was about $22.00, but I had a gift card for $25.00 from Christmas from my mother in law Gail which we used. So, we were able to upgrade to the brand new mixer that  I wanted without paying a cent out of pocket. THEN on top of that there was a $40.00 Rebate for this too, and today the 27th was the last day to purchase for this rebate. So, we made $40.00 for the upgrade. This was such a God thing; we didn’t need this new mixer. I mean I needed some form of a mixer, but I could have bought a cheap hand mixer or stuck with the KitchenAid that we already had,but it was definitely so exciting to get what I want without spending money since we are on the don’t spend money budget!

Here is our beautiful Mixer in its new place. I honestly haven’t baked anything with it yet, so I am praying that it works, and I don’t have to mess with exchanging again.

When I had first ever used a KitchenAid mixer, I was dissapointed with the fact that it never mixed well enough. I was having to clean out all the areas with a spatula. Well, now I know that there is a way to adjust it so it goes closer to the bowl and mixes better. So, if you have ever had issues that is something to look into. I am soooooo excited about baking with this, and I will be sure to post whatever fun recipes I come across with my new toy!!!

I have been working on organizing as much as I can when I am off of work. So my latest project was my kitchen cabinets.

My Cabinets were a mess,but when you just put stuff away so it isn’t in your way, it just happens that way. Mugs are always an issues, so I looked at a whole bunch of different options from mug trees to hanging from underneath the cabinet.

Sorry about the fuzzyness of the pictures, but our camera’s battery was dead. Just random appliances that just make it into our cabinets are sometimes awkward for storage.

Tupperware is always a hassle, so I was lucky to find a single solution for all of these issues at Ikea. Not my favorite look,but the shelves that I ended up using were made of metal where other store’s were plastic, and I just don’t want to mess with them breaking.

Sweet tea supplies,but be organized! ;p

After the shelves, everything cleaned up very well. I still had to stack some of my mugs,but that is because I have too many and am not willing to part with very many.

And again everything so much easier to find. Sigh, I am content.

I finally got under our sink orderly, and I got the “wow” from Grant meaning, finally you are done, and I don’t have to be bothered with it anymore.

I decided to do this to my laundry stuff, and Grant told me he wanted it differently, so we will see how our compromising works out.

Grant is so patient with me in so many ways. I was talking with a few girls from our young married’s group, and they mentioned to me that they are sometimes more depressed when they move in until their stuff is organized, and let me tell you that is how I am. The more organized I get, the happier I am.. poor Grant.I know I have a lot of shoes, and I can’t stand them all over the floor in the closet even if I do have the room for it. So, Grant and I got thinking about a good solution for this.

Another view of more shoes.. some of them are Grant’s…

The ugly black shelf is very versatile, we shorted it in half, and then put all of the shelves on it in good intervals for shoes.

Here you can see the finished product which = a very happy Jessica and Grant since I am not bugging him.

Some of my boots couldn’t make it on the rack,but it is better than nothing!

So, now our floor in our closet is clean! WOOT!