All the buzz around the web with the TLC Extreme couponing and illegal extreme couponing is quite entertaining to me as a very mild couponer. I don’t think I am the only person who is not regular couponer. There are 3 camps of people – people who hate couponing, think it is a waste of their time; people who are extreme couponers and finally people who fall in between. I fall in the “in-between” camp for one month every year and then the rest of the year, I don’t do in-store coupons. Every year around Thanksgiving I buy newspaper for 1 month and collect coupons for toiletries. What I buy around that time lasts us for an year. I don’t use coupons for our regular shopping.
Why I don’t use in-store coupons regularly?
- We are vegetarians. 99% of the time the coupons are for boxed food. I have never seen a worth while coupon for vegetables.
- We shop local in the farmers markets, well, they don’t accept coupons even if I have one.
- We don’t need much. Honestly. We buy some staples once a month from the bulk bins at the local store. Then every week only the vegetables & dairy gets replenished. We don’t use much canned food or pre-prepared items. When I did coupons, I usually ended up buying a lot of items I didn’t need that would provide excess value to cover the items I do need. We buy from a list and stick to the list, I am guessing we are saving our money and health better this way.
- We live in a small house. I can in no way or form store 100 ketchup bottles or 50 boxes of Mac&cheese. I could donate them of course, but we figured it would be a better use of time to either volunteer or earn money in that time and donate that money.
- We have very few items that we like name brand, the rest we buy store brand.
- Deals can be addictive and can make me over spend.
- To get the amount of savings that extreme couponers get require a LOT of time and energy which I don’t have.
This person (above video) spent 6 hrs just walking through the store, then a few more hrs matching the coupons (which she ordered for $70) and then took a day off to do the shopping. I don’t think I can every do that. And I definitely don’t need 100 candy bars. I don’t think most people who use coupons does this. But it is fun to watch.
What I use coupons for?
As I said, I do use coupons for my toiletries and any internet purchases. I have never paid for toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, body wash and deodorant. I collect coupons for these items for 1-2 months, then use the sale around thanksgiving (mostly CVS) to stock up for one year. I know how much we will consumer for one year and I stick to that amount even if I have coupon for more. Last year I donated the rest of the coupons (you can donate unused coupons, even expired ones to the troops).
I always look for coupons before making any internet purchases, whether it is a personal purchase or a business purchase. Online store, restaurants, all of them have some coupons floating around whether it is $$ off, free shipping or a free dessert which makes online shopping with coupon codes extremely easy. If I want to shop for something in Amazon, finding promo codes for Amazon is my first step. With a simple Google search for [online store] + coupon (Example : California Pizza Kitchen coupon) it makes complete sense to try to look for coupons for a couple of minutes before buying an item.
That is the extend of my couponing. I always admire people who buy $600 worth of food for $6. If they can pull that off and not waste food/money, more power to them. Do you use a lot of coupons? Do you think couponing is a good use of your time? What is your personal return on investment when it comes to couponing?
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
10 hours walking around a store and collecting coupons for $70, plus a day off…. this person must not value their time much.
I fall in the camp of occasional use. When coupons, especially store coupons fall in our lap, that’s when we use them. There are always coupons in the back of phone books for dry cleaners for the rare occasions when we do use this service.
101, yes we def. can’t do this. I would much rather go to work and “earn” 2-3x the money. We use BOGO free coupons for restaurants we go to etc. So couponing is good, but extreme couponing is not for me.
I wish I could tweet this post because I would love it to go viral.
I totally agree with you. Couponing is not for us either. Like you, we are also vegetarians and we eat mostly whole foods. We don’t have anything processed in our house which is what coupons are often for. We also make our own cleaning and personal care products which are also things that coupons are usually for. And finally the time committment. I honestly have more important things to do than spend 35 hours a week finding deals and coupons on things that I probably wouldn’t use anyways.
In Canada, we also don’t have these kind of coupon options to begin with so that also stops me.
Miss T, I never realized there was no twitter button
I will add that.
I wish they would bring coupons for vegetables. I will be all over it…
There are coupons for frozen vegetables. I use them all the time. I also use coupons for flour, oatmeal, sugar, and often eggs and butter. Because I have kids, a large part of our grocery budget is cleaning supplies, toiletries, dish and laundry detergent, etc. All that stuff can be purchased with coupons. I figure I save 40 to 50 percent off our grocery bill by shopping sales and coupons.
Yeah, we don’t use frozen veggies much too. I do use coupons for all the toiletries and dish soap, never paid anything for them so far. We don’t use a dishwasher, so a couple of bottles of dish soap carries me throughout the year. Laundry detergent we bought a mega sized box in sale frim a lical wholesale luangry supply store last year, it seems like it will never end…
But my “couponing” skills stops there.
Me too. I would save a ton. We joined a CSA last year and are doing the same this year and it has saved us some money on high quality produce.
I can save about 30% off food and toiletry costs by moderately couponing. Often, most of it is free. I have never ordered coupons. And, I don’t buy more than one paper, so far. Back to school sales are great for toiletries. I get all toothbrushes, toothpaste, and deodorant free or almost free year round. However, I need to do better in the shampoo dept since I have used all the almost free shampoo from three years ago. For some reason I slacked on buying shampoo but continued everything else. There are dairy and produce coupons all the time. But, if a person is not looking, the person will never see them.
Physically, I could not do what that woman does. I don’t think a person would have to take a day off from work if the shopping trip was divided into several stops. However, she said she had to be in control. I suspect she did this trip to be in control and make a splash. That’s okay and is not a criticism from me.
What is ‘illegal extreme couponing”?
PP,
“Illegal” extreme couponing is when you use the coupon not for the product it was intended for, but match the barcode and use it for another cheaper product making the product free. But the store won’t get reimbursed for that product because…well… they allowed the coupon to be used with the wrong product. For example : The cheerio coupon and Fibre one coupon has the same 4-5 initial digits in the bar code, like 1101198765 for cherrio and 1101112345 for fibre one. Because they belong int the same class “11011xxxxx” one coupon will scan for the other but obviously the coupon value for Fibre one (3$ off $5 box) will be larger than cheerios. Cheerios will be $3 only, so you get it for free. Now the supermarket won’t be reimbursed for cheerios so they are out $3. One shopping trip multiply that into 100 boxes and a few shopping trips we are looking into a pretty big chunk of money….
That is NOT illegal. Yes, they will be reimbursed if they sell enough of the product to cover the coupons used. A manager told me that if the computer/cash register accepts the coupon, it’s okay. Now, if the store gets 100 coupons during the month and only has gotten 50 of the product that month, then the store loses.
I learned this when I was checking out and realized I had the wrong product for the coupon. The manager took the coupon from my hand, scanned it, and then said the register accepted it.
At other times, I have presented a coupon that the register would not accept because I had the wrong product, unbeknownst to me. Still other times, the register refuses my coupon, the cashier checks, and I do have the right product. She just has to key it in.
However, I had a ‘friend’, that worked as a cashier. After she left the store for other employment, years later I discovered that she let people use any coupon they wanted, even if they used a cereal coupon on bread or cigarettes. These people used 20 coupons on four items and got it all free. She never offered me this option, thankfully, because I would have thought it was terribly wrong. When she later worked in a bank, she told me who in town was broke and living high, who was more wealthy than they claimed, all sorts of confidential information. Later, when she worked at a pharmacy, she told me who had what disease and who was on prescription controlled substance.
As you can imagine, I immediately changed banks and pharmacies.
Okay, back to coupons. It all depends on sales volumes, store inventory of items, and the number of coupons the company presents to manufacturers as to whether they lose money or not. Illegal? Immoral? I don’t try it, but somedays I do try to use a coupon that is expired or for a different product. I am terribly embarrassed.
Often, my wrong coupons are not really wrong. The coupon may have a picture of Kraft Medium chunk cheese. The cashier rejects the coupon because I bought Sharp. TTHEN, I have to show her the words, “any Kraft Chunk Cheese.” We wrangle a bit. She calls supervisor or manager. I am right more often when I am confronted with the accusation that I am using the wrong coupon.
PP, As I said I am not an avid couponer, so I am not “really” sure if it is illegal or not. But as I said there has been a lot of talk about illegal couponing
http://www.jillcataldo.com/alleged-tlc-extreme-couponing-fraud
http://yesiamcheap.com/2011/05/coupon-industry-fights-illegal-extreme-couponing/
I am assuming buying a product that is allowed, like any Kraft cheese, is ok. The problem is using a coupon that is “not” intended for the product on purpose to make it cheap/free I am not sure…
Suba, Branch out…lol. The eggs, fresh vegetables and fruits, milk and butter coupons do exist. If you stock up on butter when the coupons are good, then you can freeze the butter and have a supply of that. A bag or two of frozen vegetables is not a bad thing to have in a pinch. If you use all these coupons in conjunction with a store sale, then at least some of your food items will be almost free, if not free. You don’t even have to order the coupons I am talking about. There are sites that tell which coupons will be in the inserts in the Sunday paper. That way, you can scan the list of coupons before investing in a paper if you wish to avoid that expense.
haha… yeah we could save more with frozen veggies, but I am following a list of vegetables my doctor gave me. And I am supposed to have mostly salads. So frozen veggeis won’t work out very well. But we can get frozen veggies at least for part of the meal.
Suba, That is why all the advice doesn’t fit everyone. Dr’s orders to eat mostly salads is a good diet to me. I am of the opinion that a little bit of some things will not hurt. I probably need to change my opinion. Just curious and nosy,too, I suppose. Is this salad eating for calorie restriction or for the nutrients. I have to have several invasive tests and several surgeries in the near future, and I will be stoking my body with green, leafy vegetables to get the clotting effect of the Vit K in these foods. Just my luck, they will put me on coumadin…(sp)…afterwards. I eat mostly fresh vegetables, but I am not averse to eating a few canned or frozen, especially frozen.
I actually have poly cystic ovarian syndrome, so any little hormones in anything (I was asked not to drink cows milk because even though they the organic non-bST they contain their natural hormones which is not good for me, so now we buy almond milk). Rice is not good for me due to insulin resistance (a problem with PCOS) so quinoa it is instead (which is a LOT costlier than rice). It does complicate things with our budget. But it has to be done. And the salad eating and mainly raw food is for balancing my hormone and insulin resistance. I have been a vegetarian all my life so I know plenty of ways to cook tasty food with just vegetables when I get bored with salads but fresh ingredients (and unknown vegetables
) does throw our budget out of balance sometimes.
I have a friend with PCOS. Until three years ago, I was not aware it existed. Do you have any sites for information that you can recommend? You can send the information to the email on my blog. Or–pparsimony AT yahoo dot com. I avoid all soy because of the estrogen-like effects. It must frustrate you to hear so much advice from people like me who don’t know the whole story
I use coupons in-between as well. I do not have the time nor the inclination to be extreme but I do check my match-up sites and use coupons for things that are free/cheap. For example I was able to buy some whole wheat pasta (.50) for cheaper the regular pasta (.80) using coupons and sales. I definitely use coupons for toiletries and for online purchases as well. I try to stretch both my time and my money.
If it is online, I seek out coupons. For in-store, I do it if I find the time. But won’t stop me from purchasing if I need an item but don’t have a coupon for it.
I use coupons, but not obsessed about it!
{ 2 trackbacks }