My wife and I were talking the other day about saving money and the overhead expenses that some of our money saving efforts require.  Let that sink in for a bit.  It costs money to save money.  Now, the money we are spending on these overhead items is money we would be spending anyway, but as income disparity becomes more obvious in our country it is easier to see that saving money is not as easy as it necessarily sounds.

Let me give you an example we were talking about.  Everyone that knows my wife knows that she is a big couponer.  I get scolded when I buy something without a coupon.  There are a lot of hidden costs in couponing.

First of all, consider how we get the coupons.  We have a ‘Sunday only’ subscription to our local paper, which we will be cancelling.  I can’t remember exactly how much we are paying for our current subscription but it was through Groupon and it was minimal.  We grab the coupons from each edition then keep the paper to use in the garden, for art projects or to line the box where the chicks live right now.  Our local paper went up on their rates and now the cheapest two month price plan is $28.  By the time we pay $28 for the Sunday paper for two months we would have to work REALLY hard to recoup that cost.  Does the average person who is struggling to make ends meet have money to spare to buy a Sunday paper to get coupons?

How else do we get our coupons?  The internet is our biggest resource.  Here’s the breakdown of the overhead for the internet at our house.  We have a bundle with our cable company that charges $120 for TV, internet and phone…before fees and taxes.  So our internet costs roughly $50 a month with all those wonderful fees.  Let’s budget for an entry level laptop that can be picked up for $250.  A wireless router is almost a necessity now and it runs $50.  Let’s say you’re a really savvy shopper and you got a printer for free with your computer.  I recently bought ink for our printer and it was $73 (with a coupon) for the black and color cartridges.  We’ll just assume you’re a real penny pincher and you print on the clean side of recycled paper from your workplace.  You’re talking about $423 just to get the ball rolling on printing internet coupons.  The average yearly cost of maintaining a basic computer setup could be around $800 which includes $600 for the internet and around $200 for 3 sets of ink cartridges.  That figure doesn’t include the electricity it takes to run the computer, modem, wireless router and printer….and perhaps the lights you have on while working.

By the way, have you ever looked at the cost per page of your printer?  For most popular printers you can simply Google your printer name followed by the term ‘cost per page.’  For our printer the cost is 4.8 cents per black and white page and 15.7 cents per color page, based on 30% coverage.  That’s relatively low.  When I did the same cost comparison for our church I found out we were paying anywhere from 25 cents to 75 cents per color page with the laser printer we had been using.  My advice… under printer settings, set the default to black and white and then you can always turn the color on for special jobs.

Printing coupons from the internet isn’t as good as it used to be.  Manufacturers and stores are feeling the pinch of this economy as well.  Those crazy couponing shows haven’t helped either.  Most coupon sites will allow you to print two of the same coupons from one computer.  Target has just changed to allowing only one coupon per computer.  This makes stockpiling on a good deal much more difficult.

Another thing that happens a lot is coupon failure.  My wife will spend a significant amount of time compiling a coupon trip only to get to the store and find out that the deal that was posted on an online coupon site isn’t being honored at our specific store.  Or in the case of great deals, the store may be completely out of the item that was advertised.  Those printed but unused coupons add up.  If they were printed in color they cost about 15 cents each.  Ten unused color coupons would represent $1.50 in money that was spent but produced no savings.

The hidden costs of saving money can really add up.  Our conversation started when we were talking about some advice we could share with a young person at our church.  We were talking about teaching this person to coupon when we realized the initial and ongoing expense in building a coupon collection.  As I have been thinking about it and writing this post, I realize that we have been spending a lot of money to try and save money.

Here are a few ideas to reduce the cost of couponing:

• Modern day couponing requires the internet.  There are tons of sites that do all the homework for you, providing weekly store and coupon matchups.  One option for lower cost couponing could be the local library.  Our library allows 2 hours of use a day and black and white prints cost 10 cents a page.
• Additionally if your workplace allows personal use on their computers, some couponing could be done during breaks at work.  I would make sure to clear any printing expenses with a manager first.  I know corporate printing costs can be significantly lower.  Our machine at the church costs less than 1 penny per black and white page.
• Consider starting a coupon box at your church.  At our church we ask members to bring up the Sunday coupon inserts from their paper.  Some people clip the coupons they want and then bring the rest, others bring the coupon section untouched.  Either way, this could be a way to make 8-10 inserts available each week for those who need them.

Obviously this is just scratching the surface of this topic.  I’ve only talked about couponing.  I also didn’t include other factors like the time it takes to build a coupon trip or the fuel used to go to additional stores.  People who work at the lowest wage levels often have to work so many hours that they don’t have the time to put together a couponing trip.  There are plenty of other areas to consider when thinking about the idea ‘Does it take money to save money.’

There are plenty of things that can be done to save money without spending money.  Basic things like eating at home, cutting out unnecessary items, turning lights off, fixing leaks, adjusting the thermostat up or down 1 degree.  If there is a fair amount of feedback on this post I might explore this topic a bit further.

The following video, posted last year, went viral last week.  Several of you may have already seen it.  There are a few things I would disagree with, but on the whole the statistics about the disparity between the wealthiest Americans and the poorest is pretty accurate.  It is interesting to consider since we are talking about needing money to save money.

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Goal Update

I continue to do well with my goals, avoiding fast food and cutting WAY back on Dr. Pepper.  I was out of town several days at the end of the week and performed well when away from home and surrounded with DP.  I haven’t been doing too well with adding some pushups, situps and stretching to help ease back pain, probably because my back hasn’t been hurting. The treadmill desk and I haven’t seen each other much this week.  However I climbed some mountains on my  trip and also swung a sledge hammer and used a jack hammer…that’s got to count for something.

One solution I have come up with is to add some stretching to my meditation.  I am purposed in practicing meditation during the month of March in preparation for a lesson I am giving in early April.  The topic of the lesson is “Renewed Minds” and mediation will be a key aspect of my approach to the lesson.  In previous times of mediation I have found stretching to be very helpful.