Grocery cart voyeur

Sometimes there's nothing to do in the grocery store line but gaze into the cart ahead.  When the line is long, and the magazines dull (or objectionable), it's the only way to pass the time.   So last week I found myself staring into a heavily-laden Walmart cart the other day, marveling at the contents.

The cart was full of boxes.  Nearly overflowing with packaged and  frozen meals, heavily sweetened dry cereal, boxed seasoned rice mixes and other things I can't remember.  The only "real" food I saw was a carton of eggs.  Maybe there was a carton of milk in there.  Or maybe it was nondairy creamer.

Then I saw the stack of coupons.  There must have been 50 of them!  The cashier just scanned and scanned.  The customer started laughing and exclaiming over her savings.    She was really happy and pleased to be saving a lot of money on her purchase.  I started paying attention to her chatter with the cashier because by now I was wondering if this was her normal grocery shopping.  I couldn't believe the lack of ingredients for cooking in that cart and wondered if she was buying for a food bank or something.  But it sounded like it was her stuff.

After she left I couldn't help wondering if her grocery bill wouldn't have been cheaper if she'd skipped the coupons and bought real food instead.  A bag of plain rice and some spices would be cheaper than boxed mixes.  Throw in a bag of noodles and she could skip the Hamburger and Tuna Helpers.  A box of oatmeal or even Cheerios (or the store brand which are almost as good, at least to my family's taste) would be cheaper and a better breakfast than Cap'n Crunch. (Oh, I do miss Cap'n Crunch.  It was my favorite cereal growing up.  Someday I'm going to buy a box to eat like candy.  But not for breakfast.) 

I don't want to sound like I run a pure, processed-food-free kitchen.  I use canned beans more often than dry; commercial chicken broth more often than homemade stock.   I try to make most of our bread and cookies, but not all.  Cheez-its are not health food, but they often find their way into my cart.

What is my point?  I don't know exactly.  I don't have some great insight to end this post, except maybe to say now I see why I don't use coupons much. I don't see the savings if the coupons are all for packaged foods.  Peering into that woman's cart shook me up a little.  It made me want to find more ways to cut processed convenience food out of our lives, for our health and our food budget.

Yet I know a lot of people use coupons and claim to save a lot of money.  Do you?  I'd love to know your philosophy on groceries and coupons.   I'm not being snarky.  Educate me.  Because I don't get it.