Looking for Amy Dacyczyn? Check out the video below as well as this 2009 Amy Dacyczyn interview.
I was really happy when I went to link up the latest installment of my
Selling Used Books Online series to
Tightwad Tuesday at Canadagirl's blog,
Raising 4 Godly Men, to see a recent video interview with Amy Dacyczyn. It was great to see her speaking, and to see the farmhouse she talked so much about in
The Complete Tightwad Gazette. Check out the video
here.
Most of her advice still works in 2010, and I still find her and her books inspirational. But I did learn one thing from her book that kept me from saving the maximum on my groceries until recently: In the article "The Scoop on Coupons" on page 55-58 of
The Tightwad Gazette Volume I, Dacyczyn seems to dismiss couponing as a way to save money on groceries.
She rightfully asks the reader to consider whether alternative forms of purchase, such as buying in bulk, making homemade, or buying a store brand, would save you more than using coupons. And in some cases, she is right. I have brought coupons to the store to by a name-brand items that I needed and wasn't on sale, and by comparing prices I have found that it would be cheaper to buy the store brand without the coupon.
However, I fail to see how using these strategies could save me more than purchasing a name-brand item on sale and with a manufacturer's coupon and/or a store coupon and/or a customer rewards program. For instance, no amount of bulk buying would allow me to get
13 ounces of pasta for 3 cents. Granted, today's couponer has a lot more information and available coupons than Dacyczyn did in the early '90's. Today there are printable coupons, coupons sold on eBay or clipping websites, coupons databases, and, of course, blogs that detail great deals. So it is a lot easier to get amazing deals today than it used to be.
But because of her advice, I never looked into using coupons as a way of saving money. Instead I bought in bulk, made things from scratch, and bought store brands. And certainly, I did save some money, more than if I had bought name-brand items not on sale. But since I started using coupons, I've brought my monthly groceries bill from $500-$800 per month down to $200-$400, and I know I still have a lot of room for improvement!
So I guess the moral of the story is that not everyone has all the answers that are right for you, and that you need to check out different ideas and consider different options. And yes, I still love Amy Dacyczyn and The Tightwad Gazette!
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