According to Kitty...

...I have an addiction. Let me explain.

Remember during the pandemic when everything skyrocketed in price? And the government was throwing money at us, so we could buy these high-priced items? Well, for all intents and purposes, the pandemic seems to be over. No one is throwing money at us anymore (unless you're working a pole) yet the prices are still much more than we want to spend.

How do I deal with this? Coupons! Particularly E-coupons which you just load onto your phone and there they are when you shop. Brilliant! However, you need to check carefully because some of these offers make you buy multiple items, and the discount isn't that great. For instance, $5 off of Olay Body Wash which is good: but if you have to buy 3 and the price is like $8.99 each it's bad. Not enough of a bargain for me! The other one is "buy one item and get one free"! However, now the original price is twice as much as it was the week before, so no deal here either! So I have to make sure the coupons are going to be to my advantage.

This year I have developed a real fondness for chicken sandwiches and chicken salad. Easy to make and take to work. So I buy either canned chicken, or sometimes the rotisserie chicken from the deli. Delicious! Besides bread: what is an integral necessary ingredient? You guessed it: mayonnaise. Which, of course, is one of the food items where the price seems to keep going up, not down. Who is happy paying up to $7 for a regular jar of mayonnaise? I would buy a jar and then have to use it sparingly to make it last.

Enter in: the E-coupon! For the past three months, my 2 main stores have thankfully been having sales on my favorite Hellmann's mayonnaise. And now they have E-coupons for $2.00 off per jar!

I was sitting in the living room minding my own business when Kitty walks in. "Mom, I have to ask you something." "Okay honey, what is it?" She got very serious. "Are you obsessed with mayonnaise?"

I almost laughed out loud but she looked so serious! "No, why do you ask?" "Because you have bought like 8 jars of mayonnaise in the past few weeks. That's a LOT of mayonnaise." What Kitty hadn't put together is that she likes to have sandwiches for lunch and sometimes dinner, which uses mayo, I like sandwiches and chicken salad so I'm using mayo (and have to make chicken or egg salad for Brie too because I make it the bestest, she says, just so she doesn't have to make it!) and I made a big macaroni salad, by request for dinner on Sunday and that took almost 2/3 of a jar of mayo. With it almost being Memorial Day weekend, and with all of the BBQing and salads that the holiday entails: I'm going to be using even more mayo! "Kitty, I assure you, I am not obsessed with mayonnaise. I try to stock up on it when I have coupons so I get it at a good price. I have $2 off coupons so I use those; and with the mayo on sale I only pay $3.29 for the big jar (30 ounces, remember when it was 32 ounces???). So as long as I have coupons and there's a far enough away expiration date, I'm going to stock up on Hellmann's!" "Okay Mom, as long as you don't have an addiction problem." Then she walked away.

My darling Kitty: thank you for looking out for mom. I promise you: I'm really not addicted. But I do have 2 more E-coupons to use for $2 off, which will bring it down to $3.99 a jar. Then I will have 5 jars of mayonnaise. Whoo hoo!!!