Life As a Bargain Shopper

I've always loved a bargain. I'm assuming most here at MyCoupons do too. I think for me it started as a child, the little comments I would hear from my grandfather or family friends talking about coupons. Let me tell you about two vivid memories I have that involve saving money and coupons. First at about age 5 or 6, I remember my grandfather looking out the living room window of his home across the street to the church parking lot and saying "there lays a dime." I thought wow, Papaw's got good eyes. I thought old people couldn't see well. I looked and looked but never saw the dime. My grandfather laughed and said "see that bottle"? I said "yes". "Well, go pick it up, take it back to the store and you'll have a dime". I never forgot that and I never forgot about money, how valuable it is and that it may just be a small amount of money but it adds up. My grandfather had another saying that's stuck with me. "Watch the pennies, they add up if you save them. Don't worry about the dollars, they take care of themselves." As a child I didn't understand this but it makes more sense now. My other vivid memory about saving money is from a lady, a family friend, that came into my grandmother's beauty shop. Again, I was young, about 4 or 5, maybe 6. At this time, you could take any coupons into the grocery store and get the money for them. You didn't have to purchase the item. (or so I was told) Anyway, this lady would bring pages of coupons with her into the beauty shop and ask me to cut them out. My reward for doing so was usually a quarter. I was thrilled to be getting this quarter because at that time, I could walk down the hill from my grandparent's home (also where the beauty shop was located) and buy candy, a lot of candy with that quarter. But I also learned why coupons were important. I would ask what these pieces of paper were and what she did with them. She gladly explained the process to me and that has always stayed with me. Obviously, it was a valuable lesson to me because as soon I got married, I started saving and using coupons. My mom was never much of a coupon user. To this day, she doesn't use coupons. She's not much of a bargain shopper either. Now she loves saving money and if she finds something on sale she's all too excited to tell me about it. But to my mom, she'll go to Target and find something on clearance at 30% off and she thinks she has the deal of the century. I humor her and tell her what a good deal she got and then for good measure tell her that it will be 50% off soon and then eventually, if not all gone it will get to 75% off. She smiles and says "well, I found it today, bought it today and won't be back when it's marked down more so I'll take my 30% off because that's better than I normally do." Poor thing!
For some reason I began thinking about coupons, saving money, bargain shopping and being thrifty and why I am that way. And I truly believe that the two experiences that I mentioned above put me on the road of couponing and bargain shopping. Of course I've gotten much better at it since joining MyCoupons and receiving the wonderful tips here. So to my grandfather, Mrs. F and all the wonderful people here, thank you. Thank you for helping me save money on everything from groceries to clothes and shoes for myself and my kids. At this period of my life, this way of saving money has proven invaluable!