On the most recent episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8, Kate revealed herself to be Sir Monkeypants’ dream woman, as she managed to save almost $100 off of her $250 grocery bill through careful use of coupons and focus on sale-priced items. She interviewed that before the sextuplets were born, she used to just go to the store and get what they needed, and that was that. Now she spends quite a lot of time before each excursion poring over the various grocery flyers, selecting which stores she will shop at to get the best deals, and looking for coupons and vouchers online. Good strategy, considering they go through a loaf of bread and 1 1/2 boxes of cereal every day.

I don’t want to get too excited, but watching Kate shop has really put me in a thoughtful mood. I’m like pre-sextuplets Kate; when we run out of something, I put it on the grocery list, and next time I’m at the Superstore, I get more. I never look at grocery store flyers because I find them a little confusing — I can never tell if they are actually advertising stuff as being on sale, or just highlighting stuff that they have a lot of and are looking to move, like the WalMart (“We never have sales”) flyer. Plus, due to my known laziness, there is no way I am going to go to more than one grocery store per outing. We’ll get what we need from the most convenient place, and that’s that.

But Kate said she looks back on her old self and feels terrible, knowing the money she could have been saving with only a little effort. And also, she pointed out that she considers it her job, as the non-working parent, to figure out how to best stretch their dollars. She makes it sound easy. And worthwhile. And responsible. And in the land of Sir Monkeypants, damn sexy.

So, don’t tell my husband, but this weekend, I am actually going to look at the grocery store flyers and attempt to decipher them. As an additional first step, I’m going to try to get a feel for how much the stuff we buy usually costs, because sadly, if you asked me how much a loaf of bread is, or a package of hot dogs, or a box of cereal, I could not even begin to guess. We need it, we eat it, so I throw it in the cart, you know? We are somewhat limited by the Captain’s food allergies in terms of brand name, but I’m hoping I can at least start to pay more attention and be more aware.