Normally completely on your side about things, but I feel like there’s some nuance lost in this strategy. No point in not getting at the low-hanging fruit.

Well, then don’t grow tomatoes. Grow herbs and flowers and support bees, moths, butterflies, and birds. 

Lifehacker is mastering clickbate titles.

Even more fun with peppers is that they will cross pollinate with just about any other pepper near by. Plant habaneros, jalapenos, poblanos, etc at the same time and you’ll end up with some wild combinations. One year, I ended up with giant jalapenos that had obviously been doing the dirty with my poblanos.

I like having a garden, but I know I can get busy and will end up deprioritizing it. That’s why I installed a programmable drip irrigation system into some raised beds in a fenced off garden area. It makes it mostly hands off, with weeds only occasionally being an issue. I’m not under any illusion that this is about…

There’s a Costco on the way home from work, and gas at their station is generally about $.20 a gallon cheaper then retail. Over the course of a year I’m recovering about a third of the cost of the Costco membership just on gasoline.

I definitely spend hundreds of dollars on my garden every year, between new soil to top off the raised beds (the ground around my house might as well be concrete), fertilizer, mulch, various chicken wire and bird netting to keep the cats from using them as a litter box and keep the birds from eating all my seedlings,…

Choose indeterminate varieties - they don’t ripen all at once, but progressively.

For most folks, I don’t think the cost factors into the decision. It surely didn’t for me. I was under no illusions. I fully realized and accepted the fact that those were going to be *THE MOST* expensive veggies to ever cross my lips. I knew from the start that I would likely never, ever recoup the initial and…

Home grown tomatoes are AMAZING. Worlds apart from the store stuff. We grew some jalafuegos last year, and they were pretty zingy!

Agreed. The taste is much better, and I know what (if any) chemicals were put on it. Plus even if I’m not technically saving money, I know that I’m not burning oil/gas/coal to have tomatoes shipped from California or Florida or onions and potatoes from Washington, Idaho, or Oregon.

It’s less a matter of cost than delivering something priceless.
Homegrown tomatoes will be better than anything you can get a a supermarket, and better than 90% of what you’ll get at a farmer’s market.
A cucumber fresh off the vine is a delight of freshness, with no wax on the skin.
Homegrown jalapeno peppers actually…

We’re not rabid couponers in our house, but we’ll use them if they’re for things we need to buy rather than impulse purchases. I don’t feel like we get sucked into that “use it or lose it” coupon mentality, where you feel like you lost out if you don’t use the coupon.

there’s also the mental health benefit. working in the garden is a great way to de-stress and get away from your screens.

I only ever use coupons on things I am going to buy anyway. I will keep using them, because it’s a net save versus paying full price, since I am going to buy the item regardless.

FTFY. If I get a coupon for free eggs, like I did recently, you’re damn sure I’m going to use it.

“Coupons CAN lead you to spend more money, so never use them” is a really odd take, especially for here. Coupons can literally save you money on things you were going to buy ANYWAY as well. Pointing out the manipulative psychology behind them on the part of who makes them is a valuable insight to help from…

I feel like "don't use coupons" as the solution here is a flawed one. If you're aware enough of the psychology to stop using coupons, you're aware enough use those coupons only on the thing you want/need, then leave. Also, you compare that people spend more when using coupons than without, but that doesn't take into…