Extreme Couponing

[mrwash]

So this series premieres today and can't wait to see it. If coupons would be so famous here in Germany as they are in the US I would definitely be an extreme couponer.

Is there anyone here who uses coupons for grocery shopping? We just have few coupons available over here, there are numerous laws that regulate couponing in Germany. Too bad for us.

 

[peterh770]

I tried once to be a couponer, but it is time consuming and you buy a lot of things you wouldn't normally buy or that are not particularly healthy. Now I just look for the coupons for the things that I use.

 

[runematic]

This show was on over here a few months ago.  The folks in the show are nuts!  The lengths they go to coupon is amazing.  The thing that was really weird was the "stash" that they all had.  I'm talking more TP than could be used in 2 years, condiments to last a decade, deoderant to keep an army smelling fresh.  Some folks were definitely addicted to the deal.  One guy "buying" handfulls of tooth brushes for free.  One guy getting cases & cases of ceral free that he donated to the local food bank.  I only saw one episode, but came away glad I do not coupon!!!!  I'd hate to get behind one of these folks in the checkout line.

 

[hunter]

I use them sometimes.

Mostly, though, they are for things I would never buy.  Prepared foods, 'convenience packaging' and the like are things I would never buy.

 

Now, give me a coupon for a 25 pound sack of flour, and I am on it!

 

I have no issue with storing lots of toilet paper (it doesn't spoil), but ketchup and such to last a long long time?  It goes bad! 

 

I DO buy laundry powder in 1-2 year lots 'cause the postage makes it cheaper to buy a lot of it.  Ditto for soap and dishwasher powder (I buy them all from Calben) but they don't spoil either. 

 

But since I don't use hair color, hair spray, air freshener, eat that much cold cereal, don't eat frozen pizza, don't drink blue energy drinks or anything like that, coupons are of limited use to me

 

[joe_in_philly]

I use coupons all the time and think it is fun. Target recently had several $1 off coupons on up and up brand products, so I stocked up on the daily shower cleaner for just 97 cents each. I also got a few dozen dental floss and ibuprofen boxes for free to share with my friends and family. Combining coupons can get you great deals or free things. At BJ's Club or Target for example, you can use a store coupon combined with a manufacture's coupon on the same item.  Often, coupons come out at the same time items are placed on sale, so the savings can be significant. I save about 1/3 to 1/2 on my shopping bill with minimal effort, and if I spend a bit more time, save significantly more. Because I stock up and buy things before I run out, I rarely ever have to buy something at full price. Persihables like fruits and vegtables are an exception, but I usually buy them at a farmers market so I get higher quality w/o the grocery store markup.

 

Right now I am on a bit of a cleaning product sabbatical. I have at least two years worth of dishwashing detergents, laundry products, and household cleaning products, so I am not buying any of those for a while. At least that is what I keep telling myself. But I can't resist when I can get a 12 pack of Finish Quantum for less than a dollar, like I did over the weekend. Most cleaning products will hold, except those that contain bleach. They tend to degrade relatively quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

[franksdad]

Southern Savers

I do 80% of the grocery shopping in my household and I find the older I get the more difficulty I have keeping up with a grocery list...much less a handful of coupons! My wife is a coupon clipper and user. I've bought stuff and when I'm come home she asks why didn't I let her know I was going to buy that item as she had a coupon for it. Anyway, there is a web site here called SouthernSavers.com. Each week it lists all the specials at the area stores, BiLo, Publix, Ingles, Bloom, Food Lion, etc. . She goes to each store's sales sites, choses an item that is on sale, then if there is a coupon for that product you hit print and it gives you a coupon for that product. Once I was with her at Publix and we saved approximately $30.00. I don't know if any of you all have similar sites in your areas.

 

[bugsyjones]

I do use coupons on occasion.

But, 80% of them are for products I rarely or never use.

I only usually clip them if it's $1 or more savings on ONE item.

For example: Tide Stain Release in the big bottle is normally $6 and some change. I often find and clip a $3 off coupon. That's a real coupon.

I see all the time, especially for General Mills cereal $1 off THREE boxes. How is that a good deal? I rarely ever eat cold cereal and never eat the sugary-type cereal that they advertise (except for the occasional Quisp).

Today it's all about the one stop shop and grocery shopping once a month. I see all the time at the supermarket, 'busy' Moms with a mounded over cart load of processed, frozen, and pre-packaged products. Not to mention the 24 pack of Diet Coke for Mom and the trail of thoroughly dissatisifed younsters following her.

I buy groceries on a weekly basis and I do that on purpose. For one, it gives me a chance to go to town and I only buy what I think I will need that week. I found that there's less waste with highly perishables that way.

I saw a video clip from an 'extreme couponing' show (or something) and it showed a woman who used to have a very successful custom picture frame business. When customers slowed, she began clipping coupons. Now, her basement workshop is a storage area for shelves and shelves of paper goods, cleaning products, canned food, etc. She could open up her own grocery it seems. She goes to the store with THREE count 'em THREE 3-ring folders full of coupons.

She admits that it's become such a habit that she overbuys products she doesn't need. I guess that means coupons are in a way good, but don't over do it.

~Tim

 

[whirlcool]

Over the years we've tried couponing. Most of the time it never works out for us.
It seems most of the coupons are for things we never use. Certainly not for the brand names we buy. On occasion we'll find a coupon or two for something we do buy.

One of the times we tried couponing we found that we actually spent more at the grocery store than without the coupons.

Karen went to one of those coupon websites. Besides giving our computer a severe case of spyware, she only found ONE coupon on the website for something we use. And it was only for $.25 off! Hardly worth the effort.

Sometimes you'll find those "instant" coupons attached to goods in the grocery store.But after the last shopping trip we had we found that when we unloaded our groceries, the coupons were still attached and not taken off of our bill! So it seems now you have to tell the check out person that you have these. It's not like they are disguised or anything....

I did see that extreme couponing show. What I wanted to know is did this guy have ONE coupon for each item he had, OR did he just have one coupon that covered 25 like items? I know here you can use a coupon for one item only.

 

[spookiness]

don't do so much anymore

I go through phases with coupons. Sometimes you can get deals on certain things, but its time consuming. Also, they expire much more quickly now, usually only good for 6 weeks or so.

Since I started shopping at Aldi more often, I pretty much stopped couponing.

 

[washerboy]

Since I seldom buy the name brand there's not much reason to coupon; and like a lot of comments above..coupons are usually for things I never buy. There's a few things like dish soap, laundry detergent, tolet paper and crackers that I'm a stickler on a certain brand; but as luck would have it, I seldom if ever see coupons for my brands. I saw the tail end of the Extreme Couponing show. I too was amazed at the massive quanities of cerial and paper products they had; but what I though was instering was the husband had bought (I don't remember the number) an large quanity of hot dogs...yeah...hot dogs for dinner every now and then is okay..but I really wouldn't want to feed my kids a steady diet of them. It seems if you're purchasing that many one would have to serve them regularly before they either spoiled and got freezer burn.

 

[booandsue]

Couponing

I used to do coupons, but over the years, the availability is not too good. Coupons for products I don't usually use, that are way too expensive, even with the coupon. Most grocery stores used to double coupons, and then they started to back off, or double only up to .99 cents. I'll bet there are ten or more coupons a week out in the papers for all the Glade or Airwick room freshner products. Occasionally I may run across a good coupon, but then I always forget to bring it with me, and it eventually expires. That was another turn off with couponing, the expiration dates. I never could figure out why they had to have expiration dates. Either they want you to buy the product or not. Once you start to use something new regularly, a new product comes out, and the item you get to like ends up getting discontinued.

 

[dogboy44]

They used to double everything and have store coupons

You could combine. I have to say, I was pretty great! Sometimes getting 3 carts full of stuff for very little money. There was a huge incentive for me at the time, my partner's family was staying with us when they first moved to LA, and no one had a job. We ate like kings. When they bought their house and moved out, I felt like I could get off the treadmill. It takes extra time and planning, trips to the store are not quick and can be pretty intense. We don't need the extra groceries now with only 2 of us. The idea of having a giant stash of stuff doesn't appeal to me.

 

[maytagbear]

When I do "extreme couponing,"

which is rare now, I give the extras to my local public food pantry instead of keeping more than one or two of each item for myself.

If done carefully, a person can be a generous donor for very little or no extra money. Just something to consider.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[passatdoc]

Agree with others: usually the coupons are for things I never use. When the markets here place meat on sale, they don't require coupons usually, but they may require that you are a member of their loyalty card club in order to receive the discount. The club discounts tend to be applied to items that I DO tend to use: vegetables, fruit, frozen entrees to bring to work, etc. So I ignore the coupons mostly and just look for club card discounts on items I do actually use.

Exception: Costco prints and puts online coupons for stuff that normal people use (not prepackaged or processed foods) and I occasionally use these coupons.

But I think Mrwash is referring to someone who leaves a market with a shopping cart full of food for maybe $15. I've never seen something like that in real life. Those who buy a cart full of food usually pay $100 or more, even with coupon discounts.

 

[mrwash]

Thank you all for your replies. Well, couponing like shown on that TV show does just not exist over here. There are so many laws that regulate the whole grocery section and I think that it (coupons) is even limited by law. But on the other side we really have so low prices over here that in fact no one really needs coupons. It is known that the German grocery sector is one of the most competitives in the whole world. Wally Walmart had to withdraw from the German market several years ago as their strategy would not work. And we have lots and lots of discounters like Aldi (Trader Joe's) Lidl and so many more, lowering the prizes like several times in a few months.

The thing about couponing that I think is just cool or amazing is, that you are allowed to lower the prizes even more and in fact have products for free or at just a few cents. That for example is just not possible over here. The store puts for example brand stuff on offer and then you decide if you take it or not. You only have to think about if the offer is good or not. Sometimes other stores have even better offers for the same product.

And what became famous is "payback". In some stores you buy products and get points in reward. If you have enough points, you can trade these in for different items like coffee makers, toys, kitchen stuff, suitcases and so on or you get a voucher for a certain amount of points. And here you have the opportunity to double or triple points with coupons or buy a certain product and throw in a special coupon that will give you twice or more the amount of points than normally. I take part in that program but I am not so after it like other people, especially as I can't save much on grocerys and that is the only thing that would be attractive to me.

Ok, quite a post here, hope you have now a small impression about how it works in Germany,

 

[spiralator60]

Payback

Mrwash,

 

How does it work with exchanging points for products?

 

In the US, there was a similar thing that was popular during the late 1950s to the late 1970s, where trading stamps were issued at grocery stores and gas stations for purchases made. As you described, different items were available for a prescribed number of points, ranging from pillows and blankets to major household appliances (Washers, dryers, refrigerators, etc).

 

There were different companies that ran trading stamp programs, and the two that were most popular in the Southern California area were Blue Chip Stamps, and S&H Trading Stamps.

 

[mrwash]

spiralator60

you are correct the way you described it. You have a really big number of shops that take part in the payback program. Also shops like amazon or ebay take part. You get a certain number of points for your purchase and you can trade in these points for different items or vouchers. It is a bit like collecting miles with airlines.

 

[washernoob]

My brother has gone on a couponing craze.

He is 20, and is going into the airforce soon. He is crazy about saving all his money up so he can buy a new ford Raptor truck when he gets out of bootcamp in winter.

He collects all the coupons he can find. He says he is really starting to save quite a bit of money.

 

[mark_wpduet]

I watched an episode of this. Do you know that my Aunt in North Carolina is bordering on being this bad. It is very smart and you can get a LOT of things for free. The problem I have with it is that a lot of the things I would never use. EVER. I always look for coupons for the things I use and it's so time consuming. It is fun to watch to see how much they save. That guy who got all those boxes of Total cereal for free and then stacked them all in his driveway. Crazy (LOL).....But he donated ALL of them and that was good of him