Cents Off Coupons

Moderation in everything, even couponing

$500 worth of groceries for $4.20. $1,000 worth of groceries for $10.39. $1,500 worth of groceries for $20.55. These numbers aren't exact, but they're pretty close. And if you've been watching TLC lately, you know exactly what I'm talking about. "Extreme Couponing."

Although I find the show fascinating -- I mean who doesn't like to watch women dive into dumpsters to retrieve coupons for 50 cents off of croutons? -- I also find the concept financially flawed.

Here's the basic premise. The couponer fills several shopping carts to the brim and then heads to the checkout aisle where the full price of the groceries is rung up. Then the coupons are scanned and we all wait in anticipation as we watch that large dollar amount drop down to next-to-nothing.

Extreme couponers will buy anything they have a good coupon for, and they always buy in extreme quantities.

This makes the show entertaining but doesn't always make good financial sense.

The problem is these people are saving on a bunch of things they don't even like or need. Two of my favorite examples were the lady who bought about thirty bottles of mustard and her family didn't even like mustard; and the lady who bought a ton of diapers but had no children.

Clearly, these people did get free stuff, but you can only call it savings if you're getting money off of things you would have normally purchased anyway.

My advice is this, if it won't be consumed within a reasonable timeframe, don't buy it. That timeframe should be about 90 days. If you'd like to limit it to 30 or 60, even better.

My second pet peeve concerning the show is the idea that these men and women are doing the equivalent of earning a great salary by getting all of their family's groceries for free.

Let's do the math.

The USDA calculates the average cost of food for a home at four different levels: thrifty, low-cost, moderate-cost and liberal. Their calculations are also based on the number of people in the family.

If I pick a family of four and moderate-cost, the average monthly food cost as of April 2011 is $992.10, an amount that could easily cover household items as well.

Many of these couponers admit to spending about 30 hours per week couponing. Using the average monthly food cost figure above, that time represents an hourly wage of $7.63, or the equivalent of a minimum-wage job.

The moral here? Don't be extreme, just be smart. Clip coupons when they're for items you typically purchase, buy when things are on sale, and don't make couponing a full-time job.

Krazy for Coupons #3 | Monticello Live

Not unless you are going to buy up all the newspaper inserts in south Arkansas and work for a week or two nonstop trying to put together all of your deals. It’s more realistic to pick up a few FREE or very cheap things a few times a week to add to your stockpile. Remember, the entire purpose of your stockpile is to have items you will use on-hand when you need it so that you do not have to pay full retail. Let me share with you what I’ve picked up lately to add to my stockpile.

A week or so ago there was a Dial coupon available that was for $2 off any Dial body wash or lotion. Keyword here is any. I took all 5 of my coupons, went to Walmart and purchased 5 trial size Dial body washes for .97¢ each. That’s right…I made a profit of $5.15 (minus taxes of course). The cashier didn’t know how to handle the $2 coupon when the item was only .97¢. She called over the CSM who informed her that she is supposed to adjust the coupon down to .97¢ off instead of the $2. WRONG! It specifically states in Walmart’s coupon policy that if the coupon value exceeds the price of the item, the excess may be given to the customer as cash or applied toward the basket purchase. After getting out my coupon policy and explaining this, the cashier grabbed her copy of the policy and found the exact phrase I just mentioned above. Now, here’s the funny part. I went to hand my husband my coupon book to put back in the cart and he was nowhere to be found. He had mysteriously disappeared during the coupon controversy. I think he was already embarrassed because I kept examining all the items the family behind us had in their cart. I kept opening up that big coupon book and pulling out coupons for them, too. (Yes, I do this all the time. If I have a coupon for something you have in your cart and I do not plan on using the coupon, I will chase you down to help you save! I even have people stop me in the store to ask me if I have a particular coupon that they need.) The family behind us were very grateful for my sharing and did not seem to mind at all. I even went on to apologize to them for holding up the line when we had to wait on the CSM and the husband said it was no problem. Said he learned a lot and actually enjoyed it. Then he went on to ask what my total was before the coupons vs. the total after. I saved about 55%. He claimed that his wife would start clipping coupons, too.

One day last week Walmart.com had a $5 off coupon for a 5 count of Zyrtec. Walmart sells these for $5.23 each. I added quite a few to the stockpile as we all have allergy troubles in my family.

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