Rethinking coupons

Yesterday I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to bring something today for an office baby shower. Luckily, at my suggestion, the food theme is sort of middle eastern so I knew it would be easy to find something in my budget that I could do quickly.
Since I STILL have tomatoes and a cucumber, I decided to make Tabouleh using a pretty much standard recipe like the one here. I'm not a big fan of too much parsley so I went out back and picked about half the amount the recipe calls for and some mint. My backyard is fairly sheltered so things like sage, parsley, mint last all year for me. I also have basil, rosemary, and lavender back there. The only ingredients I needed to buy were the bulgar wheat and lemon. The Bulgar seemed expensive at $4.99 for 28 ounces but I have about half of it left for later use so that isn't too bad. For the lemons I had the option of one lemon for .69 or a 2lb bag for 2.99. Since I don't use lemons all that much, I opted for the single lemon.

While I was at the Safeway, the cashier suggested that I go online and look at all the coupon options they have just added. In February, it was really cold and my housemate was stuck inside with pneumonia and broken ribs so I started having groceries delivered. That made me very familiar with the store's website and I use it a lot now when I am checking on prices of things before I buy. In over a month of food delivery, I don't think I ever found a coupon on the site that was useful to me. I also scan many blogs and other money saving sites routinely and almost never find coupons for anything I want to buy.

As a result, I've sort of given up on the whole coupon thing altogether. It seems to me that a lot of people who rely extensively on coupons aren't actually eating all that well and are also teaching their children to have a taste for more processed foods. I just find it easier to buy things that I know I both want and are in my budget than to try to figure out what I have coupons for that haven't expired and how I will combine those foods, etc. it just seems like a lot of work to me.

So, out of curiosity, today I went online to check the "new" coupons that my store was offering. Much to my surprise, there were many that I would consider using. In most cases I'd still have to do some research on the best value for my money and situation. But they had coupons for things like olive oil, fresh salmon, dried cranberries, boneless skinless chicken breasts, a couple different kinds of vegetarian frozen foods, and several kinds of yogurt. There were still a bunch of processed and frozen things but I hadn't expected to find anything much that I would eat.

I doubt that I will ever become one of those people who goes crazy over coupons but it's nice to know that there are some that I can use.