Bravo, Paul! THANK YOU for writing this article! Hey - I'm all for saving money and using coupons - don't get me wrong. But let's get realistic - the 'extreme' couponers have taken some of this stuff too far. Don't these folks feel guilty for clearing out certain items in a grocery store, just so they can pat themselves on the back about saving money? All I can hope is that they give items away to friends, family members and charities.
I buy from bulk bins and bulk stores like Costco. Bulk bins keep us from buying more than we need and saves money that way. Spices I think are the best buy (from the local DC market chain "MOMs), although I do buy other odd goods, like cat litter (from Petco).
Bulk stores save us $, but we do end up throwing away some fresh food (we don't buy dry food since it is too much for 2 people). A huge box of organic mixed greens costs the same as one of the two small boxes we would normally use in a week, but it is so much larger that we usually don't finish it before it goes bad. However we also save $ on alcohol, electronics, movie tickets, and non-food consumer goods (e.g. our mattress) with no waste. Last year we saved more than the cost of the membership just on eggs (which we eat most days for breakfast).
Absolutely. I also like a lot of store-brand products and "green" brands. After being laid off last year, I tried to use coupons as much as possible and found it wasn't worth the effort. Better to watch for sales and store promotions.
Which is exactly why I don't really ever "coupon". The vast majority of my grocery purchases are for fresh fruit, fresh veggies, deli meat and cheese, and the market's meat. I also prefer local eggs and dairy products. I discover that when I coupon I (a) buy something that I don't need, (b) buy something unhealthy, or (c) buy something that just sits there.
Last year I was in a car accident and spent four hours in the ER as a result. The cost for sitting on their cot for four hours? $6k. I was billed separately for all the actual services performed (X-rays, CT scan, setting of a broken bone, morphine given, etc.). That 6k was just for the pleasure of lying on their cot.
On the contrary - as healthier foods become more popular, there are many options out there for those of us who aren't interested in Hamburger Helper and Lucky Charms. Perhaps on "Extreme Couponing" they buy junk food, but I recently bought all natural cereal from the health food section of Kroger for $0.25 each thanks to sale/coupons. I can regularly buy frozen veggies - the plain veggies, no sauces, etc. for under $0.50 - often free. And they have been proven to be healthier than fresh when it's trucked across the country before it sits on the produce displays in the store, losing nutrients all the way.
Whole grain pastas, plain greek yogurt, organic coffees, all things I've bought recently with coupons (and actually, come to think of it, I got the pasta and yogurt for free after coupons...)
Like others here, I am the type of shopper who combines coupons and sales to get great deals on things my family will actually use in the next few weeks. Colgate goes on sale for $1 at the same time every month, and you get 50 cent off coupons in the paper once a month, and my store doubles coupons, so... free toothpaste once a month! But all I want to buy is the one tube, knowing the same deal will come around in another 4 weeks. There is no reason to buy up tons of papers and clip all the coupons and clear the shelf.
I have only seen one episode of Extreme Couponing, and there is no doubt that these people are ill. It's just another form of hoarding, imo. And I agree with the fact that if you plan all your menus based on coupons, you are going to have some serious health issues to deal with. It does appear that the families being featured are buying nothing but junk. That said, my family eats only fresh food and I still manage to get things like whole wheat pasta and wild rice for free using coupons.
Couponing is a tool like anything else, it can be used in a productive way or... not.
There is so much wrong with that show that it's disgusting. I am a stay at home and couponing is one way that we save money for me to do that. Also I coupon so that we can avoid all the processed food you see on this show. We do keep a bit in the house but not shelf after shelf. That's just silly. I use couponing to make sure we can eat healthy meat's, veggies, and organic products that you don't typically find a lot of coupons for. I save 70-80% per week. I spend about 15 hours a week meal planning, collecting coupons, shopping and organizing everything. It takes works. They don't really show that on that show. We only buy what we need for 3 months since that is how most sales cycles work. I also use rain checks to keep from clearing shelves, pre order so I don't clear shelves, and I help specific families instead of buying out a store just to donate to charity.
If done in moderation it is WELL worth it. But this show like most t.v. shows only shows the sensational and negative aspects of a topic. I don't watch it and ask everyone on my Facebook and as them to pass on the there friends to not watch it.
It's that 'get get get' mentality. Drives me crazy. And imho the people who do it are crazy. Life is short, there are better ways to spend it. My 2 cents (with coupon, 4.5 cents)
I'm so glad that you found the article! I tried explaining the experience to my father, who is a neurologist, and he didn't believe me! But I've heard many other people express the same feelings of calm after having Botox injections.
I'm actually due for another round, now that I think about it! Been getting rather cranky as of late.
I'll admit that I was drawn into this show one night, and I was shocked at how they not only received many items for free, but also money back on many items. Profiting from shopping is virtually unheard of. After some thinking I realized that they were either using unethical ways of obtaining coupons, or spending a ton of money on those as well, which typically didn't get added into their "operating costs" if you will. Also, often times these were wasteful people. They buy tons of perishable items, or non-perishable items that they would never use, just to receive the deeper discounts. Sorry I'm just not a fan...I would say to spend your extra time getting a second job and contributing to the economy.
I don't get it either. I'm all for saving a buck or two when I can, whether it be through Coupons, Groupons, whatever; but the wannabe minimalist in me says NO WAY! The thought of having that much 'stuff' around just stresses me out!
My wife is an extreme couponer and she probably spends about 2 hours a week on it. This may seem like a lot to some people. To say it is a waste of time is both relative and a matter of opinion. For example in the time it takes to watch “Extreme Couponing” you could have done extreme couponing. So when compared to watching TV, I would say time spent doing extreme couponing is not a waste.
Americans are funny about the things we “need.” In the example of medicine maybe I could see using the term loosely. Although most people overuse over the counter mediations as it is and if you reach for a bottle of pills every time you have a headache you need to grow a pair. But being upset because the mustard you ‘needed’ is out of stock is asinine. The term you are thinking of is “wanted”. In this case it turns out that the person that did the extreme couponing simply wanted the mustard more than you did. Neither person “needed” it.
My wife and I frequently donate extreme coupon items to people that actually do need them. So to say extreme couponing is greedy is again both relative and a matter of opinion. Say the brand of shampoo that you use is out of stock because an extreme couponer took advantage of a sale. It is likely (from the extreme couponers that I know) that the person that purchased them donated at least some of them the charity and they will probably end up being used by someone that hasn’t been able to shower in a week because they are homeless and can’t afford soap. In this situation, you being mad about the shampoo being out of stock makes YOU greedy, not the person that purchased them.
In sum: So if you like getting things free, helping people that need it, and don’t waste all of your time watching TV shows and then making generalizations about the groups people based on them in articles you write, give couponing a try.
What about the fact that these people never buy anything remotely healthy? Cupons are all for boxed, caned, processed, sugary stuff. No produce, no meat, fish or dairy. This is for the most part the extra junk you don't even need - I certainly don't need it filling up my house! I'd rather spend $5.99 a year on Advil than deal with having 200 free bottles in my house.
I agree with that. I tried using more coupons, but they are for a lot of processed food that my family does not eat. You don't see coupons for fresh veggies/fruits/etc. very often. :/
What do we do when my husband has been offered a fabulous new job out of country and we can't move because we are under water on our condo? We cannot rent it out like you mentioned because of the HOA rules in our complex. We are currently on a waiting list because they only allow a certain percentage to be rented. We cannot stay in our condo any longer because we want to have kids and we own a very small one bedroom. So we don't have the option of just living here forever like you mentioned. We also cannot just walk away because we have two loans and we read that the second can sue us. Even though we live in Oregon and we could walk away from the first.
Is there some hardship clause or can we declare bankruptcy if we move for the job and have to pay rent somewhere else and cannot afford to pay our mortgage anymore? We have to get out of this tiny place because we cannot have a family here. My husband hates his job and is getting offers out of state and out of the country. Should we just leave and try bankruptcy? What can we do?
I am not exactly an extreme couponer, but I save an average of 65% on my grocery bill by combining coupons and sales to get what my family uses - which is not all processed, sodium-rich foods. I have never cleared shelves the way they do on TV - but i have bought more than my family could use if something was free or very cheap - and my food bank loves the donations. My stock pile is reasonable, and I'm constantly checking to make sure we don't have more than we can use before it expires (if I think I have too much? It gets donated. and I don't buy more just because it's on sale).
I think the shows on TV make everything look more crazy than it is - I spend a couple hours a week max on this. And I share and trade coupons with everyone. But now everyone is giving me the side-eye when i pull my coupons out, thinking I must be one of those people who buy all the good deals and don't share.
Thank you for putting into words what I've been experiencing this past week!
People are acting so friendly to me. I didn't realize how pissed off I looked all of the time and how much I just wanted to be that way until I couldn't frown anymore. It's almost too much all at once to absorb. It's like a complete personality change has happened with this stuff. I never would have thought this was possible. I was curious if others had experienced this and I ended up finding your blog. The psychology behind botox... crazy stuff.
The base material that you use does affect the flavor of the result, even after distilling—it's the main difference between bourbon (corn), scotch (barley), rye (rye), rum (sugar cane), vodka (potato), etc. (Of course other things, such as aging in wooden barrels, also affect the flavor.)
From a historical perspective, people have always made their spirits from whatever was cheap where they were. Corn was made into corn whisky because corn was cheap (It was also hard to transport over the mountains in large enough quantities to make it profitable. One wagon full of whisky, on the other hand, was worth real money.)
So, the moonshine tradition is to use the cheapest source of sugar for the yeast to eat. Because of economies of scale, in many places right now that's probably granulated white sugar. But if that's what you ferment, it's not going to taste like bourbon. (Of course, corn liquor won't taste like bourbon either, unless you've got some oak barrels to age it in.)
Amen. I am too, and at some point time management systems are no longer the issue. We need to prioritize: decide what we can do, what we can delegate, what gets hired out and what just isn't that important.
Let me start by saying that I'm not an extreme couponer. However, I do save at least 50% on my groceries every time I shop, by writing out a monthly menu for dinners, shopping sales, and by using loyalty cards and coupons. It sounds like a lot of time, but it's only about 20 minutes a week, not including the shopping trip itself, which usually takes less than an hour. Anyway, while I do agree with much of what you say, I feel like you're lumping all of the extreme couponers into one group and that's not fair to anyone.
1. Full time commitment. There's another way of looking at this. What these people save on groceries every year is at least the equivalent of a second income. When you look at it that way, it kind of changes things.
2. You have to stockpile a lot of stuff. Um, no. Just because you have 77 coupons doesn't mean you have to buy 77 items. People who do that have other possible issues, because that sounds a bit like hoarding to me. Plus, again, it's lumping all extreme couponers into one small obsessive group.
3. You have to be a slave to coupons. Again, I would say that this is not necessarily the case, although I can absolutely see how couponing can become an addiction for some people. There's definitely a very fine line. When you see someone in a store who refuses to buy something they need because they saw it on sale somewhere else or have a coupon for it at home, that's when you know it's gone too far.
4. You spend hours at the grocery store. Actually, I would dispute this point. People who put that much time and effort into researching sales and clipping coupons, usually spend less time in the stores because they walk in with a list and their coupons, get what they need, and get out. However, in cases where this is true, I would go back to my earlier statement about it being the equivalent of a second income.
5. You are taking much more than you need. My guess is that this probably pertains to a tiny percentage of people who do extreme couponing. Those people are called hoarders.
The fact is that the percentage of people in America who actually do the extreme couponing is very small. Some people do it for economic reasons, and when you think of it, it really is like having a second income for stay at home spouses. It's a way to contribute to the household, while being home to care for children or parents, or whatever the reason is for not working outside the home. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some people do it for the challenge, to see how much they can save, and others are addicted to it, and that's where it crosses over into dangerous territory. I agree with the person who posted that the people you see on tv are probably showing their biggest payday to date. A lot of them say they save about 70% on average, which is still a lot, and I agree with the poster who mentioned that a lot of this stuff is processed foods, and really, I would rather have a lower percentage on savings and a higher percentage of fresh foods in my cart.
Sorry to hear about your recent turn of events, but so happy the article is here to help you over the hump. We've been eating more and more of them as well. It was my goal this year to start eating them more often (beans included) than we already did. Really, the seasonings make the difference between boring and something you really are looking forward to eating. And they do store for ages in the pantry, so if you buy them in bulk, they'll be there for a while and you don't have to schlep to the grocery store as often. If you have a Patel Brothers store near you, you can get great deals on bulk lentils, beans and spices there. They are a chain that sells Indian and Pakistani food products that also has great produce deals.
I respect your answer, but I take exception to your stance on shelf-clearing. If I have a headache and need ibuprofen, and I am a person who is struggling financially, and I have done my research and found that I can purchase Advil on sale, with a coupon for only pennies, then that does not necessarily make me any more "super name brand focused" than the extreme couponer who cleared the shelf simply because they could. In this instance, I would not be happy with the non-couponed, more expensive generic product, and as a reasonable shopper, shouldn't have to just because someone else was greedy, even if it was ultimately for a "good cause."
Also, I don't know how you can acurately state that "most extreme couponers give a large portion of their stockpile to those in need." Maybe it is so, but there is a lack of empirical evidence, to be sure.
My only gripe with using coupons and buying on-sale items is that I tailor my eating habits according to marketing efforts. If my grocery store has salmon on sale this week, I'll eat salmon. If it's not on sale next week, I won't. If I have a coupon for a type of average breakfast cereal, and the healthier breakfast cereal that I like is not on sale, I might opt to buy the average cereal because it's "subsidized". For me, not using coupons and buying things when they are on sale is wasteful. But I hate having my options dictated to me.
Bravo, Paul! THANK YOU for writing this article! Hey - I'm all for saving money and using coupons - don't get me wrong. But let's get realistic - the 'extreme' couponers have taken some of this stuff too far. Don't these folks feel guilty for clearing out certain items in a grocery store, just so they can pat themselves on the back about saving money? All I can hope is that they give items away to friends, family members and charities.
I buy from bulk bins and bulk stores like Costco. Bulk bins keep us from buying more than we need and saves money that way. Spices I think are the best buy (from the local DC market chain "MOMs), although I do buy other odd goods, like cat litter (from Petco).
Bulk stores save us $, but we do end up throwing away some fresh food (we don't buy dry food since it is too much for 2 people). A huge box of organic mixed greens costs the same as one of the two small boxes we would normally use in a week, but it is so much larger that we usually don't finish it before it goes bad. However we also save $ on alcohol, electronics, movie tickets, and non-food consumer goods (e.g. our mattress) with no waste. Last year we saved more than the cost of the membership just on eggs (which we eat most days for breakfast).
Absolutely. I also like a lot of store-brand products and "green" brands. After being laid off last year, I tried to use coupons as much as possible and found it wasn't worth the effort. Better to watch for sales and store promotions.
Which is exactly why I don't really ever "coupon". The vast majority of my grocery purchases are for fresh fruit, fresh veggies, deli meat and cheese, and the market's meat. I also prefer local eggs and dairy products. I discover that when I coupon I (a) buy something that I don't need, (b) buy something unhealthy, or (c) buy something that just sits there.
Last year I was in a car accident and spent four hours in the ER as a result. The cost for sitting on their cot for four hours? $6k. I was billed separately for all the actual services performed (X-rays, CT scan, setting of a broken bone, morphine given, etc.). That 6k was just for the pleasure of lying on their cot.
On the contrary - as healthier foods become more popular, there are many options out there for those of us who aren't interested in Hamburger Helper and Lucky Charms. Perhaps on "Extreme Couponing" they buy junk food, but I recently bought all natural cereal from the health food section of Kroger for $0.25 each thanks to sale/coupons. I can regularly buy frozen veggies - the plain veggies, no sauces, etc. for under $0.50 - often free. And they have been proven to be healthier than fresh when it's trucked across the country before it sits on the produce displays in the store, losing nutrients all the way.
Whole grain pastas, plain greek yogurt, organic coffees, all things I've bought recently with coupons (and actually, come to think of it, I got the pasta and yogurt for free after coupons...)
Like others here, I am the type of shopper who combines coupons and sales to get great deals on things my family will actually use in the next few weeks. Colgate goes on sale for $1 at the same time every month, and you get 50 cent off coupons in the paper once a month, and my store doubles coupons, so... free toothpaste once a month! But all I want to buy is the one tube, knowing the same deal will come around in another 4 weeks. There is no reason to buy up tons of papers and clip all the coupons and clear the shelf.
I have only seen one episode of Extreme Couponing, and there is no doubt that these people are ill. It's just another form of hoarding, imo. And I agree with the fact that if you plan all your menus based on coupons, you are going to have some serious health issues to deal with. It does appear that the families being featured are buying nothing but junk. That said, my family eats only fresh food and I still manage to get things like whole wheat pasta and wild rice for free using coupons.
Couponing is a tool like anything else, it can be used in a productive way or... not.
There is so much wrong with that show that it's disgusting. I am a stay at home and couponing is one way that we save money for me to do that. Also I coupon so that we can avoid all the processed food you see on this show. We do keep a bit in the house but not shelf after shelf. That's just silly. I use couponing to make sure we can eat healthy meat's, veggies, and organic products that you don't typically find a lot of coupons for. I save 70-80% per week. I spend about 15 hours a week meal planning, collecting coupons, shopping and organizing everything. It takes works. They don't really show that on that show. We only buy what we need for 3 months since that is how most sales cycles work. I also use rain checks to keep from clearing shelves, pre order so I don't clear shelves, and I help specific families instead of buying out a store just to donate to charity.
If done in moderation it is WELL worth it. But this show like most t.v. shows only shows the sensational and negative aspects of a topic. I don't watch it and ask everyone on my Facebook and as them to pass on the there friends to not watch it.
It's that 'get get get' mentality. Drives me crazy. And imho the people who do it are crazy. Life is short, there are better ways to spend it. My 2 cents (with coupon, 4.5 cents)
I'm so glad that you found the article! I tried explaining the experience to my father, who is a neurologist, and he didn't believe me! But I've heard many other people express the same feelings of calm after having Botox injections.
I'm actually due for another round, now that I think about it! Been getting rather cranky as of late.
I'll admit that I was drawn into this show one night, and I was shocked at how they not only received many items for free, but also money back on many items. Profiting from shopping is virtually unheard of. After some thinking I realized that they were either using unethical ways of obtaining coupons, or spending a ton of money on those as well, which typically didn't get added into their "operating costs" if you will. Also, often times these were wasteful people. They buy tons of perishable items, or non-perishable items that they would never use, just to receive the deeper discounts. Sorry I'm just not a fan...I would say to spend your extra time getting a second job and contributing to the economy.
I don't get it either. I'm all for saving a buck or two when I can, whether it be through Coupons, Groupons, whatever; but the wannabe minimalist in me says NO WAY! The thought of having that much 'stuff' around just stresses me out!
My wife is an extreme couponer and she probably spends about 2 hours a week on it. This may seem like a lot to some people. To say it is a waste of time is both relative and a matter of opinion. For example in the time it takes to watch “Extreme Couponing” you could have done extreme couponing. So when compared to watching TV, I would say time spent doing extreme couponing is not a waste.
Americans are funny about the things we “need.” In the example of medicine maybe I could see using the term loosely. Although most people overuse over the counter mediations as it is and if you reach for a bottle of pills every time you have a headache you need to grow a pair. But being upset because the mustard you ‘needed’ is out of stock is asinine. The term you are thinking of is “wanted”. In this case it turns out that the person that did the extreme couponing simply wanted the mustard more than you did. Neither person “needed” it.
My wife and I frequently donate extreme coupon items to people that actually do need them. So to say extreme couponing is greedy is again both relative and a matter of opinion. Say the brand of shampoo that you use is out of stock because an extreme couponer took advantage of a sale. It is likely (from the extreme couponers that I know) that the person that purchased them donated at least some of them the charity and they will probably end up being used by someone that hasn’t been able to shower in a week because they are homeless and can’t afford soap. In this situation, you being mad about the shampoo being out of stock makes YOU greedy, not the person that purchased them.
In sum: So if you like getting things free, helping people that need it, and don’t waste all of your time watching TV shows and then making generalizations about the groups people based on them in articles you write, give couponing a try.
What about the fact that these people never buy anything remotely healthy? Cupons are all for boxed, caned, processed, sugary stuff. No produce, no meat, fish or dairy. This is for the most part the extra junk you don't even need - I certainly don't need it filling up my house! I'd rather spend $5.99 a year on Advil than deal with having 200 free bottles in my house.
I agree with that. I tried using more coupons, but they are for a lot of processed food that my family does not eat. You don't see coupons for fresh veggies/fruits/etc. very often. :/
What do we do when my husband has been offered a fabulous new job out of country and we can't move because we are under water on our condo? We cannot rent it out like you mentioned because of the HOA rules in our complex. We are currently on a waiting list because they only allow a certain percentage to be rented. We cannot stay in our condo any longer because we want to have kids and we own a very small one bedroom. So we don't have the option of just living here forever like you mentioned. We also cannot just walk away because we have two loans and we read that the second can sue us. Even though we live in Oregon and we could walk away from the first.
Is there some hardship clause or can we declare bankruptcy if we move for the job and have to pay rent somewhere else and cannot afford to pay our mortgage anymore? We have to get out of this tiny place because we cannot have a family here. My husband hates his job and is getting offers out of state and out of the country. Should we just leave and try bankruptcy? What can we do?
I am not exactly an extreme couponer, but I save an average of 65% on my grocery bill by combining coupons and sales to get what my family uses - which is not all processed, sodium-rich foods. I have never cleared shelves the way they do on TV - but i have bought more than my family could use if something was free or very cheap - and my food bank loves the donations. My stock pile is reasonable, and I'm constantly checking to make sure we don't have more than we can use before it expires (if I think I have too much? It gets donated. and I don't buy more just because it's on sale).
I think the shows on TV make everything look more crazy than it is - I spend a couple hours a week max on this. And I share and trade coupons with everyone. But now everyone is giving me the side-eye when i pull my coupons out, thinking I must be one of those people who buy all the good deals and don't share.
Thank you for putting into words what I've been experiencing this past week!
People are acting so friendly to me. I didn't realize how pissed off I looked all of the time and how much I just wanted to be that way until I couldn't frown anymore. It's almost too much all at once to absorb. It's like a complete personality change has happened with this stuff. I never would have thought this was possible. I was curious if others had experienced this and I ended up finding your blog. The psychology behind botox... crazy stuff.
Yep, for me time is more important than money, and this takes a lot of effort.
The base material that you use does affect the flavor of the result, even after distilling—it's the main difference between bourbon (corn), scotch (barley), rye (rye), rum (sugar cane), vodka (potato), etc. (Of course other things, such as aging in wooden barrels, also affect the flavor.)
From a historical perspective, people have always made their spirits from whatever was cheap where they were. Corn was made into corn whisky because corn was cheap (It was also hard to transport over the mountains in large enough quantities to make it profitable. One wagon full of whisky, on the other hand, was worth real money.)
So, the moonshine tradition is to use the cheapest source of sugar for the yeast to eat. Because of economies of scale, in many places right now that's probably granulated white sugar. But if that's what you ferment, it's not going to taste like bourbon. (Of course, corn liquor won't taste like bourbon either, unless you've got some oak barrels to age it in.)
Amen. I am too, and at some point time management systems are no longer the issue. We need to prioritize: decide what we can do, what we can delegate, what gets hired out and what just isn't that important.
Let me start by saying that I'm not an extreme couponer. However, I do save at least 50% on my groceries every time I shop, by writing out a monthly menu for dinners, shopping sales, and by using loyalty cards and coupons. It sounds like a lot of time, but it's only about 20 minutes a week, not including the shopping trip itself, which usually takes less than an hour. Anyway, while I do agree with much of what you say, I feel like you're lumping all of the extreme couponers into one group and that's not fair to anyone.
1. Full time commitment. There's another way of looking at this. What these people save on groceries every year is at least the equivalent of a second income. When you look at it that way, it kind of changes things.
2. You have to stockpile a lot of stuff. Um, no. Just because you have 77 coupons doesn't mean you have to buy 77 items. People who do that have other possible issues, because that sounds a bit like hoarding to me. Plus, again, it's lumping all extreme couponers into one small obsessive group.
3. You have to be a slave to coupons. Again, I would say that this is not necessarily the case, although I can absolutely see how couponing can become an addiction for some people. There's definitely a very fine line. When you see someone in a store who refuses to buy something they need because they saw it on sale somewhere else or have a coupon for it at home, that's when you know it's gone too far.
4. You spend hours at the grocery store. Actually, I would dispute this point. People who put that much time and effort into researching sales and clipping coupons, usually spend less time in the stores because they walk in with a list and their coupons, get what they need, and get out. However, in cases where this is true, I would go back to my earlier statement about it being the equivalent of a second income.
5. You are taking much more than you need. My guess is that this probably pertains to a tiny percentage of people who do extreme couponing. Those people are called hoarders.
The fact is that the percentage of people in America who actually do the extreme couponing is very small. Some people do it for economic reasons, and when you think of it, it really is like having a second income for stay at home spouses. It's a way to contribute to the household, while being home to care for children or parents, or whatever the reason is for not working outside the home. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some people do it for the challenge, to see how much they can save, and others are addicted to it, and that's where it crosses over into dangerous territory. I agree with the person who posted that the people you see on tv are probably showing their biggest payday to date. A lot of them say they save about 70% on average, which is still a lot, and I agree with the poster who mentioned that a lot of this stuff is processed foods, and really, I would rather have a lower percentage on savings and a higher percentage of fresh foods in my cart.
Hi Christine,
Sorry to hear about your recent turn of events, but so happy the article is here to help you over the hump. We've been eating more and more of them as well. It was my goal this year to start eating them more often (beans included) than we already did. Really, the seasonings make the difference between boring and something you really are looking forward to eating. And they do store for ages in the pantry, so if you buy them in bulk, they'll be there for a while and you don't have to schlep to the grocery store as often. If you have a Patel Brothers store near you, you can get great deals on bulk lentils, beans and spices there. They are a chain that sells Indian and Pakistani food products that also has great produce deals.
I respect your answer, but I take exception to your stance on shelf-clearing. If I have a headache and need ibuprofen, and I am a person who is struggling financially, and I have done my research and found that I can purchase Advil on sale, with a coupon for only pennies, then that does not necessarily make me any more "super name brand focused" than the extreme couponer who cleared the shelf simply because they could. In this instance, I would not be happy with the non-couponed, more expensive generic product, and as a reasonable shopper, shouldn't have to just because someone else was greedy, even if it was ultimately for a "good cause."
Also, I don't know how you can acurately state that "most extreme couponers give a large portion of their stockpile to those in need." Maybe it is so, but there is a lack of empirical evidence, to be sure.
My only gripe with using coupons and buying on-sale items is that I tailor my eating habits according to marketing efforts. If my grocery store has salmon on sale this week, I'll eat salmon. If it's not on sale next week, I won't. If I have a coupon for a type of average breakfast cereal, and the healthier breakfast cereal that I like is not on sale, I might opt to buy the average cereal because it's "subsidized". For me, not using coupons and buying things when they are on sale is wasteful. But I hate having my options dictated to me.