Coupon Shopping with Kids

Shopping with kids can sometimes be a daunting task alone but add in trying to work the deals using coupons and things can get kinda crazy!  For my own sanity, I try to shop alone when I can, but for the last 3.5 years my husband has been a full time student as well as worked full time so I had to learn to be creative when heading to the store.  I have some tricks that I use when shopping with my 5 year old that I would like to share with you and maybe make your shopping trip a little easier.

First, he is designated my coupon collector.  He's in charge of finding all the "blinkie" machines up and down the aisles as we make our way through the store.  This serves two very useful purposes.  It keeps him occupied and by the time we leave the store I have a beautiful stack of nice coupons to sort through.  Even if they are ones that I can't or won't use, I can trade them at ecoupons.com for coupons that I can and will use. 

Next, we play games similar to "I spy" and try to find things as we walk the aisles.  I tell him something on our list and he searches for it.  He's so proud of himself when he locates the item on our list that we are searching for. 

He's in charge of the calculator when it's not being used by me.  He carries it and watches price tags in the aisles.  When we make a stop he trys to match the price tags to what he punches into the calculator. 

He's my price checker.  He loves to take things up to the price checker in the aisle and scan the bar code for the price check. 

He's my bagger.  Since I mostly go to the self check out lane when I do my grocery shopping, he stands at the end of the belt with our re-useable shopping bags just waiting for our groceries to slide down to him.  This is where I have to be very careful about sending my breads and other delicate items down the belt!

If you have older kids that get bored easily with shopping you can give them jobs also.  Why not give them a list of simple items to pick up throughout the store? 

If you have smaller kids, you can always do some extra things to keep them occupied as well.  Try those cute carts that are designed to look like a car or truck,  as you push them around have them pretend they are driving through the grocery store making stops to pick up "loads" for their shipment.

I think that doing these activities makes your shopping trip more peaceful by keeping the kids occupied while shopping, but it also teaches them valuable lessons.  I think coupons are a vitial part of any household budget and teaching kids at an early age to be frugal is a step in the right direction.  As they see you shopping with coupons and getting the most out of your dollar, they will learn by example and hopefully be smart shoppers when they grow up.