Can Esther hack a month of coupon-clipping and sales shopping?
Really, it’s all just spin; I’m cheap and selfish and I don’t want to spend a penny more than I have to. Or maybe I just suffer more from the loss-aversion bias identified by Nobel winning economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.
This Life Lab challenge is simple enough: buy only on sale or with coupons for a month. For the most part this applies to groceries — I figure I’ll push off any other purchase to the next month. Will I save money, will my life be forever changed, will my kids run away from home in the end? Who knows?
Let the fun begin.
Ground rules: Everything needs to either be on sale or have a coupon. Exceptions are basics like milk and bread and standard produce (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and potatoes). Obviously I’ll try to buy them on sale, but if there’s no sale, I can still buy them.
And there are a few items that never go on sale that my family would not abide my not buying — mainly herring, specifically Schwartz’s Pepper Crusted Matjes Herring that I use for the herring platter I make every Shabbos. It’s my family’s oneg Shabbos. I don’t threaten my kids with no Shabbos party when they get out of hand, I say, “No herring platter” — and my four-year-old falls right in line.
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