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For most of my life, I never worried about shelf prices, I just grabbed whatever I needed (or wanted) and threw it in the shopping cart without a second thought. Couldn't be bothered to go bargain hunting or coupon-clipping.

However, starting about a couple years ago, my wife and I started some belt-tightening. Not so much out of need but out of a sense of wanting to see if we could "make do with less" as our kids are now grown up and we head towards our retirement years.

I was absolutely shocked with how much money I could save just by paying careful attention to what I was buying and paying for. We now buy most of our household items in bulk at the the Costco or Sam's Club. We get a lot of generic brands. For example, a 99 cent bottle of generic hair shampoo gets our hair just as clean as those six dollar bottles of designer shampoos in those fancy, colorful, over-designed bottles (and those bottles hold a lot less product too).

Instead of bottled water, we filter it at the tap (can't tell the difference). We do a lot more cooking from scratch and was amazed to discover that we could easily cut our grocery bill by more than half just by eliminating the pre-prepared "heat-and-eat" type foods.

Getting back to the article, being that buy mostly bulk and generic items, we are not noticing a lot of increases in what we are buying. However, I am sorry to report that the price of beer has increased significantly here in Massachusetts, due to the recently imposed "sin tax" on alcohol. Might have to start getting my beer in New Hampshire.

I was absolutely shocked with how much money I could save just by paying careful attention to what I was buying and paying for

I figure that I get about 1 week out of every month for free between coupons, shopping the loss leaders, and the Grocery VIP shopper (or whatever it's called) rewards. All those $0.35 coupons add up, in time. :-)

Mom and Dad are retired and shop the sales even more carefully than I do....they've got the time to do it. Mom said that their budget has really, really gotten reduced.

It's worth it, I tell ya. :-) Just last week, I had a guy behind me at the grocery store. He was chuckling a little as I pulled out my coupons....not really giving me a hard time, but more of a "Oh, you bother with those? how quaint..." type thing.

His eyes popped a little when the cashier said "Mr. WBill, you saved $61.01 in coupons and discounts this week." So, for what that's worth.....