Throwing Cash in the Trash?

How many commercials have you seen in the past couple of weeks that claim to save you money. “The More You Spend – The More You Save!” I find the idea of saving money by spending money is absolutely absurd. You might spend less money than you otherwise would if you buy something you were going to buy anyway, if you find it on sale. There is just no way in this world you are going to save money when you buy something, even if it is on sale, if you were not going to buy it anyway. The reality is that the more money you spend the less money you have to save.

If I told you that you were literally throwing money away nearly every day you would probably not agree with me, but you really are. Most people think of money as cash, U.S. Dollars, greenbacks, etc., and coins as change. I found another source of money just as real and just as valuable as the U.S. Dollar that many folks just throw away. You see, the U.S. Treasury Department is not the only game in town when it comes to printing money. Let me explain.

My wife really grabbed my attention a couple of weeks ago. I had been reading some of the tin-foil hat folk's ideas of what our currency should be if/when the U.S. economy completely goes under. I'm not so sure that it will go under and if it does it may be many years from now. There are a lot of ideas out there now for alternative currency in the future. Some of these ideas are ridiculous and some make some sense. I really like the barter system of trading value for value, and I like the American Open Currency Standard system of using solid copper and silver coins as barter currency. While reading more on those ideas, my wife threw me a curve ball. She ran into someone at the grocery store that had a thick binder full of coupons. The lady purchased about $200 dollars worth of groceries for about $10 and a hand full of coupons. After talking with the lady about her system my wife was so impressed that she took a few minutes over the next few days and collected a few coupons for things that we always use and needed. She was able to cut our grocery bill in half by spending just a few minutes a week going through the coupons that we get every day in the mail and in the weekend paper. That combined with paying attention to some of the buy one, get one free, sale items and we really took a chunk out of our grocery bill. We have even run into a few buy two, get three free, sale items that we normally pay full price for.

Those coupons are printed by manufacturers and stores every day just like the U.S. government prints dollars, and the coupons spend just as good as U.S. dollars do. While I just can not agree with the spend more – save more crowd, I can really get on board the spend less – get more train. I also have trouble swallowing some of the far fetched alternative currency ideas out there on the internet, but I have enjoyed spending the alternative currency we get in the mail box every day.

Don't forget to vote in my "What is a Shadow Catcher?" poll.