I used to clip tons of coupons and pride myself in how much I saved every week, and I did save a whole heckuva lot. What I didn't realize back then was that I was getting a healthy dose of "Consumerism" by buying products with little or no nutritional value and lots of cool packaging.
Being frugal and buying whole foods is healthy in the long run. Eating real meals that have not been processed or packaged and served on plates is real living. Buying into something because of the advertising campaign for the product is so ridiculous when you think about it. It's junior high school playground at it's worst. Buying a certain product is not meant to make you a better person or a more popular person or make you happy or act a certain way...commercialism and marketing are meant to make us 'feel' they get under our skin and our kids' skin to emotionally connect us to their product. It's not right and if you have kids it's especially hard to raise them without the influence of commercials and eye catching products. When you can't give them and hopefully don't want to give in to their every whim it makes you feel bad and standing your ground is hard especially when you feel like you've hurt them because you aren't buying for them. We all have to learn - You don't have to buy to be happy.
New Home Economics Cooking 101! Real cooking is healthy, economical and...Empowering!
Yes,you are so right!
ReplyDeleteWe never really used coupons growing up because as my mother put it "they are never for anything I would buy anyway".
And thats true!
If only there was coupons for sacks of rice and whole wheat flour:)
Also,we love mexican food in our house too!
Once a week we have homemade tortillas,beans and rice,so yummy!!!