September 2007 - Seedlady

[hotcouponmama]

The scoop on seedlady


Seedlady's name in real life: Martha

Age: "Between 50 and death!"

Home State: Martha joins as a member from California, where she works as a playground monitor and does childcare.

Marital Status: Other

Kids: Martha has two sons and one daughter.

Pets: Although she has no pets, she does have a stray in her neighborhood that she feeds when she can get free catfood. "The cat has me, but it's not my cat."

In Martha's Own Words:

Little Known Factoid: "I usually carry a packet of seeds in my back pocket, and I give them to people I meet. I encourage them to plant the seeds and grow fruits and vegetables."

Favorite Money Saving Tip: "Get the prescription gift cards! It’s free money – switch them around and haul it to the next drug store. If you cut out a .50c coupon, and match it with one double, and redeem just one week. On New Years eve, you have a $50 bill to pay for a baby sitter for the evening. That’s real money...the $50 is a thing! It’s not just two quarters."

Budget: "My budget is stunning in its simplicity. I put a $20 bill in my pocket for the week for everything, and when it's gone, it's gone."

Stores I shop at: CVS, Ralphs, Vons, Albertons, Target, Kmart – CVS is the one I hit the most.

Coupon Organization Method: "It depends on when you talk to me. I have used about every system. I traded a kid for some binder inserts when he was done with his Pokemon cards. A standard 2-inch binder is what I am using right now. It has five pockets – one for each store, in alpha and color order. The front is for grocery stores and the back pocket is for drug stores. So when I organize a trip, everything I need is there for the store I’m headed to."

Best Advice to Newbies: "When you're shopping in real life, start very slowly. I tell the people I meet in real life people who don’t already take the paper to get the inserts from the next door neighbor. Read through the inserts and clip the coupons you want to try. For the ones coupons that touch your world, put them in an envelope and carry them with you.

Advice I give to people on the site is to choose one store that you want to learn and get really good with just the one store. Then when you’re ready, go on to the next store, and all you’ll have to learn is the differences between stores instead of the having to relearn the whole thing. Do one store until you get good at it, then do another one."


Martha's story:

For those of you who've ever chatted with Seedlady in the chatroom, you know she's funny, witty, and intelligent. On the phone, she's even more genuine and engaging.

Martha's userID is entirely appropriate because her vision of the world is tied to her connectedness to the environment around her. "The inherent fact that there is life is the seeds- it just tickles me."

She shares her enthusiasm for plants and life with the school children on the playground. For 15 years, she's helped children understand that food doesn't come from the drive through, but from the earth and ground. "Carrots don't come from Trader Joe's," she said with a hearty laugh. When children on the playground are behaving well, she'll pass out seeds from her back pocket and give the kids instructions for planting. She takes great pleasure planting seeds in clear Starbucks cups each spring with the kids, and showing them how they grow. When the seedlings are ready, she takes them home to plant, and later harvest.

She's secretly in cahoots with the school's custodian. The playground she works at has lots of dirt, and the custodian likes to garden, so she’s really interested in seeing if they can garden at the school. She thinks he might let her tuck some plants here and there so the kids can really learn about where food comes from.

As Martha describes it, she's been "guerrilla farming it" in the schoolyard for years. She goes along the outside of the fence and plants seeds around the perimeter. She excitedly shares a story about this year's bounty. The school actively composts and puts the soil to use. A few years ago, peach pits from the compost generated a whole line of baby peach trees which sprouted along the fence. Last spring she noticed that the peach trees had blossomed. Walking through the playground, she noticed a peach on the ground. Looking up, she was astounded to see the tree had produced fruit. She's also seen tomatoes crop up. "I love tomato plants!"

Martha's simple living outlook extends to her couponing. She loves to shop the farmer's market, and there, she met Ned the Apple Man. One day when he asked her why she persistantly bought the "cosmetically challenged" apples for .50c a pound, she explained to him that she would eat what she could, then she would donate the rest to the church. He immediately started giving her the apples....by the caseload! Once when he struck up a conversation with Martha about her shopping and budget, she told him that she lived on her $20 back-pocket budget. He asked her if that included her gas, and she said she told him it did. She laughed when she told me she didn't know if she was just stubborn or determined. As gas prices have risen, she's held firm on her commitment to that $20 a week. She's just had to learn how to economize even better. After gas, she has only $5 a week to live on.

Martha explained that her budget is really out of necessity. She's her own sole support, and she does it on part-time school wages. She eats what CVS gives her for free. I couldn't believe that anyone could quite do everything on $20. She says her diet isn't very interesting, but she'll make recipes out the food she gets from CVS. She explained that all the pantry and dairy items she needs she can get right there on two aisles...flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and half-n-half. She rolls ECB deals and actually earns money from her deals. The ECB deals are what keeps her in that budget.

Any money she haves left goes to clothes and entertainment. In fact, everything she spends that’s not the house payment and it’s related costs comes out of that $20. "My entertainment is pretty inexpensive. I don’t go out and do much. I don’t have cable. In fact, I don’t really use the TV at all – the rabbit ears aren’t working." She utilizes the library, newspaper, and magazines to keep her occupied. "I subscribe to the newspaper for the coupons. I worked out a deal where I get four days for the price of just the Sunday."


Martha eagerly and generously shares her knowledge with others. She teaches a regular monthly coupon class. She feels the most important part of her class is when she teaches people how to save on prescriptions. "It's all about prescription gift card transfers. I've told people to get close to someone with a cold and let them cough on you....it's worth $30!!!"

In Martha's area, the pharmacies will take competitor coupons. She's been using prescription gift card coupons for 26 years. The coupons were worth only $2 back then. "I used to tape them to the inside of the hot water heater closet so they were out of the way, but still in one place. That way, I could look for the best ones, then take them in to swap for gift cards." For Martha, these coupons represent $300-400 per year in gift cards per year towards supporting herself. "It's free money. Tax free...they hand it to you smiling, and they say “Here you go."

She's amazed by the "fools" that go in and pay full price for prescriptions and ignore those coupons. At the CVS pharmacy, she once had a prescription that didn't go through the insurance and the cashier blithely asked for $800. She couldn't believe it, and for that reason, doesn't feel any loyalty for any one pharmacy.

Her fiesty spirit shines through when she talks about Kmart.

Sorry Martha, I said the K-word..LOL!!!

We're not supposed to say the K-word. In fact, the "chat room girls" Seedlady hangs out with at night (kmmmom, twomoms, Jane4girls and a few others) know to only refer to it as "the store which must not be named", or she gets fired up. The hullabaloo over Kmart? "I sicked the California attorney general on the Kmart because they broke California codes with regard to their Duracell offer. They just rile me up!"

Martha is passionate about everything in her life from saving money and getting good deals, to her quiet way of caring for the environment and educating kids. While her budget plan might not be for everyone, it's certainly inspiring to know that simple living in one of the country's most expensive states can be achieved. More than that, it's clear that Martha touches many people's lives with her generousity and caring.

Thank you Martha for sharing your spirit with Hotcouponworld.

[jujubee]

Great story, Martha! Thanks for it with us.

Now, where can I find someone with a cold to cough on me...

[bexx09]

Martha's userID is entirely appropriate because her vision of the world is tied to her connectedness to the environment around her. "The inherent fact that there is life is the seeds- it just tickles me."

I love this! It's so weird, but I'd never really thought of it like that before. Thanks so much for sharing your story!

[YouPdWhat]

Reading your story confirmed the impression I had formed about your passion for gardening in general, your love & closeness to nature. Thanks for sharing!

Everytime I look through my Avatar graphics folder & see the one I posted below it reminds me of you for some reason. Feel free to use if you like.

[cuzisaidso]

Wow! What a great article! Martha, you are awesome!

[kmmmom]

Now that I know more about you, I am convinced that you are just as great as I originally thought! Thanks for sharing so much.

[kim11565]

wow what a story!!!! you are so inspiring. where were you when my boys were on the playground and being gullable. keep up the great work you do. awesome....

[jackieutah]

Oh what a story!! Thanks for sharing it with us. I am happy to meet you seedlady.. I am the paperclip girl..
Jackie

[chelsea]

Now that I know more about you, I am convinced that you are just as great as I originally thought! Thanks for sharing so much.

i totally agree lisa! your wit and jokes make me laugh out loud when we are in chat. and i think you are so much better than martha stewart. lol

[JANE4girls]

from a fellow chat roomie...that was great! Nice to learn more about you and what you do.