I have never met an extreme couponer. That is one of those people who supposedly takes a handful of coupons into a store, buys hundreds of dollars’ worth of food and items, and then pays only pennies on the dollar for them. About the best I have seen is where someone reduced their grocery bill by about 50%. So you buy $100′ worth of groceries and pay like $50-52 for them. Now that’s a nice savings, but it’s not EXTREME.
And yet I know people who clip coupons and hunt for great coupon deals on the Internet and they say they are saving a lot of money. But I just don’t see the savings because the ones who buy the most stuff with coupons end up with a lot of crazy stuff they don’t use. You’re not saving money if you are spending it just to use the coupons.
Some people swap coupons with each other but I don’t know if that is really worth the time and trouble, either. Why should I bother buying baby food coupons if I don’t know anyone who needs them? And if they do need those coupons, what am I going to get in return that they don’t need.
I can see where if you were following a meal plan for some diet and you needed to buy only certain kinds of food then you might benefit from using coupons that other people don’t want. But let’s stop and think about that. Why kind of decent food will you give me coupons for, where you don’t want to enjoy that food yourself?
Now a lot of grocery stores allow you to use digital coupons from their Websites. This kind of makes sense because if you’re a loyal customer at that store anyway then any savings they pass on to you through their coupons program should be worthwhile, as long as you only buy what you need, not whatever is on sale.
But what is the purpose of the coupons in the first place? Isn’t it just to get you to come and shop at that specific store? I think it’s important to understand why retailers use coupons because I just feel like the couponing masses are being led around with rings through their noses.
When the store makes it easy for you to grab a coupon that is available only in limited supply, then I think it makes sense to use the coupon. But if you’re just chasing coupons for the sake of using coupons you are probably not saving any money at all. Coupons work best in my math when they are used opportunistically. I just don’t need 20 cases of baby formula sitting around in my garage waiting for someone to need them.