What Do People Think of Couponers?

I'm a small time couponer myself - just 1 or 2 a week.

When I see those ladies with there little folders or envelopes full of coupons, I think they are smart and organized! I've even had nice ladies give me coupons at the store when I'm looking at a particular item like toilet paper. I don't think it's because I look poor, I think it's because they are very nice and generous. I don't care how much money you have, no one has enough to be wasting it!!!

Honestly, I think people who learn to use coupons are smart shoppers. I love coupons and have saved hundreds of dollars on products and groceries that I already buy. You just have to learn how to shop smart and at the right times. I get some things for free or close to free for using coupons. Anything that can save my family money, I want to do it. I really don't care if it annoys people. I have to do what I have to do to make things work for my family.

M

I like them, I keep forgetting mine, find them after they expire, or the last shame was when I try use 2 coupons and I didn't read well the "small" letter and miss that I had to buy 2 stuff instead of the 1 I had, the register took long then she start talking to me and all together I was holding the line for 10 min. and end up buying something I didn't needed but was going to buy only to use the coupon and I couldn't even use the coupon because I didn't have 2 of the things.
Yeah, I wish I was as good as them, sigh.

I do use coupons from the paper as well as downloadable ones from stores and coupon sites. If you time it right and use your manufacturer coupons along with the store coupons and sales you can get alot of your products for next to nothing..and some for free altogether. I have noticed some people a bit annoyed in the line behind me. They do tend to get a bit impatient...right up until they see my bill drop to next to nothing. Then they ask me how the heck I just saved $125 using coupons. I am by no means an "extreme couponer." I'm not digging in the dumpsters or paper recycling bins for coupons. But I do pay attention to the sale cycles at my grocery stores and I know what days are double coupon days for which stores. I only clip or download coupons for stuff we use. I'm not a person to buy it just because I have a coupon for it, to me that's wasting money. I stock up on things when they are on sale and that's when I use the majority of my coupons. Hubby and I were talking about our dinner last night - We grilled perdue boneless chicken breast , rice, and steamed broccoli. The entire meal for the three of us cost $3.75. Yes I said three dollars and seventy five cents. The chicken breast were buy one get one free, they come 3 to a pack with the avg price being $4.50 per pack so it was $2.25 for the chicken. The broccoli was 2 bags for $3 for the big frozen bags which we get 3 meals out of that size bag so it worked out to be 50 cents. And the rice medley was 10 packs for $10 so that was $1. It really does pay off in the end to know your stores sales cycles and use your coupons accordingly.

Well, I AM one of "them", and I think we're great ;-) I don't care how much money I have, I think it's absolutely ridiculous to pay full price for something when I don't HAVE to. Ever. I pride myself on how much money I save- in grocery stores, in malls, shopping online, in restaurants, etc. People often come to me for advice on couponing, shopping, grocery shopping, etc. Once they've realized that I've gotten the EXACT same thing as they have, if not more, for half the price, then they're interested in coming to the "dark side". :-)

I think the TLC show is giving us “real” couponers a bad reputation! The show is on because it wouldn’t get ratings if it were not “Extreme.” People tune in because it is extreme. You don’t have to be an extreme couponer to have extreme savings.

Using coupons, I have been able to get most (if not all) of my personal care products for free, including: shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand soap, lotion, tampons, razors, shaving cream, toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouth wash, and floss....all name brands. Why would I pay for generic or store brand body wash when I can get Nivea or Old Spice for free? Same with shampoo and conditioner…I have had Garnier, Renpure, Hydrolicious, Aveeno and more all for free. Granted, it is not salon brands, but it is not the cheap stuff either. I use free Gillette and Schick razors, free Eos shaving cream, free Crest and Listerine mouthwash, free Colgate Sensitive and Crest toothpaste, and free Reach toothbrushes and dental floss. Oh, and did I mention they were all FREE?!?!!!

I almost forgot to mention the free dish soap, laundry detergent and fabric softener! I have enough Dawn, Purex and Snuggle to last until the next time it goes on sale for free. I have not paid for that stuff in well over a year. Once I really learned what I was doing, I didn’t have to pay for diapers or wipes, or if I did I would get them for at least 50% off. I could buy Huggies for cheaper than any store or generic brand. (I checked regularly and figured price per diaper and price per wipe.)

Now, as for groceries, I don’t get nearly that much for free. I am a little lazy in that area, but when I get all the other stuff free, I am still cutting my budget significantly. I know things I will not pay too much for, such as cereal. My price for Kellogg’s or General Mills cereal is $1.00 or less a box before I buy. I have gotten Cheerios, Smart Start, and Rice Krispies (etc) for a dollar and sometimes less. When you save in one place, you can have enough money in other areas where you can spend more if you choose to….like fresh fruit and veggies.

I am not very good about collecting and using coupons. Thank heaven for my grocery rewards card! When I am standing in line in the grocery store and the person in front of me pulls out his/her coupons, I usually think that they are very smart and respectful of their hard-earned money.

The only thing that I don't like is that the majority of the coupons are for junk food or processed food. I'm not a big fan of food that is full of sugar, salt, peservatives and dyes. Wish they offered more coupons for fresh fruits and vegetables but, luckily, our neighborhood Trader Joe's has really good prices on fresh produce.

If I stumble across a coupon that is good, i will clip it. If I hear where I can get a coupon for something I really want, I will get it. Some couponers spend SO much time collecting coupons that they are wasting their lives. If you sit down a figure out how much your life is worth by the hour and then see how LONG you spend clipping and searching for coupons I think many of these ppl will realize they are wasting their lives..So if you decide you are "worth" $25 per hour (making this up) and you spent two hours to "Save" 15 bucks...then you wasted time. if they worked that hard on something more productive, they'd just have more money!

I love coupons!!! Last week my Coach wristlet only cost me $25.00!!! It is my only Coach and I bought it as a treat to myself.
Last year I stopped working because my in-laws needed help (mother in-law had alzheimer and my father in-law is fighting cancer) and other personel reasons.The coupons have been a life saver!!! All my floss and toothpaste have been free. I have paid only $1 for Pantene and Head and Shoulders shampoo which I have enough for the whole year now. Every week I get a few items free like yogurt, frozen vegetables, etc...Yes it takes time but I consider it my hobby. When I go back to work I won't do as much.
I try to be considerate of the other people in line. I usually go at a off time of the day and if someone behind me only has a few things I will let them go ahead of me. If a coupon does not work the first time I tell them not to worry about it since I only buy what I want anyway.

Oh and for the person who said " Most coupon people are overweight" sounds like you are a little jealous to me. :)

Crazy coupon lady and loving it!!!!

I don't coupon and when I am getting in a check out line, I avoid couponers, especially the ones with the big binders and boxes of coupons.

I shop at my local specialty grocer where there are very few couponers, I boycott WalMart/Sams, and occasionally shop at Target and Costco.

It takes a lot of time to coupon and some people do really well with it. HOWEVER, for me.... time-= money and I can make a lot more money with my time vs couponing.

No offense to those who live by couponing.

I think they are smart! i recently started using the coupons in the paper and i love it! especially when the store doubles it. Its crazy to pay full price when you don't have to. Sometimes i think people might think I am cheap when using them, because I live in a nicer, wealthier area- but that doesn't stop me!

Wouldn't have crossed my mind to be judgemental of that "type" of person. I remember being younger (um, in my parents' home, lol) and thought I'd be embarassed to have coupons or whatever. Then newly married and both of us working, I was too "lazy" to do it. But once pregnant for our first baby, and me deciding to be a stay at home mom, things changed! I took it on as a challenge: since I wasn't working to bring IN income to the family anymore, I thought "a penny saved is a penny earned----how much can I save us, how much can I stretch what we have?"
What I do: I check my weekly sales ads to see what's on sale, to determine which of the 2 stores I like I will be shopping at this week. (Who's got the best deal on what I actually want this week?) My routine is that we always have certain things in my house all the time, and replenish every week (2 cereal boxes, 1 honey, milk, juice, tomatoes, etc). If there's something I run out of, it gets written down on the $1 magnetic pad that hangs on my fridge. We record Amazing Race on Sundays so we can start watching it at 8:30 after we've put the boys to bed. When the show starts, I take my coupons from the Sunday paper and cut what I want, file / organize them, use the coupons I have + the inventory in my house + what I know is on sale at the store to make a weekly menu (all 3 meals, snacks, and incidentals I may need in the cleaning closet or bathrooms). I am always done by the time Amazing Race is over, so I know that even distracted with TV and talking to my husband, it only takes one hour of my week. I would be sitting there watching that show anyway (one of the 3 shows in the whole week that I watch), so NO it's not a waste of time.
I bought a little file folder thing that is about the size of a checkbook, and labeled my tabs as food, bathrooms, cleaning supplies, baby stuff, miscellaneous (batteries or whatever), and going out (restaurants, events, etc). I not only put things in the right tab, but also organize them according to date of expiration. It's not hard. Every Sunday, during that 1 coupon hour a week, I throw away the coupons that will expire before I need them, and pull out the coupons I will use that week and put them up front together.
When at the cash register, I just put all the coupons that are up front together (that I know I will use) and have them ready (while waiting to be checked out, I have plenty of time to quickly run through them to toss whatever I ended up not buying for some reason). Basically, they say the total and then I hand the coupons and they scan quickly and efficiently. No big deal, it doesn't take more than a minute.
We only buy what we need, whether I have a coupon or not (I toss things I don't need, or sometimes give them to other people if I see them buying something that I'm not gonna buy soon). I buy store brand on some things, but other things, nope, I just prefer the name brands on some items. And no coupons aren't just for junk food, lol. Toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorants, mouthwash, pretty much all toiletries; all cleaning supplies; organic hormone free milk, some canned goods that are basic staples, brown rice, yogurts, etc for food; batteries, formula, juice, oranges, all of those things I REGULARLY buy with coupons. And we've made a game with it where at the bottom of the receipt when it shows how much I saved in coupons, I put that amount of money in a bank and it's for fun family outings, or an occasional pedicure for me.
All that to say NO I am not crazy (I don't know how they do the saving $175 in coupons.....my weekly budget TOTAL is $140/week now), but no people don't annoy me when they save. I think people are strange to be against saving, to tell the truth. It's one thing to just not do it, but to be annoyed with someone who's trying to be responsible and take care of their family is...well.....annoying. :P

What I think is: WOW. I wish I was that good at it. LOL

Seriously, I do use coupons and I am rather proud of some of the good deals I've found on things at times. I'm not "hard core" like some, but I admire the ones who put in the effort and are able to pull it off.

I am jealous of couponers b/c try as I might I cannot get the hang of it. Something always goes wrong for me. One time I even set them all down on the conveyor belt and they went through and dissapeared!!!

I am with Laurie...the coupons are for processed foods and it seem to me that these "extreme couponers" are usually overweight. OK, so, you bought 13 boxes of pasta and got it for 12 cents...um, ok. Lets carbo-load everybody!!! Or, what about the couple on TLC that got 40 free Butterfinger bars....yeah...THAT is a savings.
The only way that I MIGHT do massive couponing is with cleaning products..then again, my time and space is worth MORE than giving me Softsoap for 5 cents a jug.

I think its great ! I would love to be a great couponer but the coupons seem to be - to me - for alot of stuff that I don't use or it is cheaper to get the generic. If I could figure it all out I think I would be alot better at it.

It really depends on the person. Some are smart and organized. Some don't compare prices across different brands(ie: it would have been cheaper to buy the store brand even with the coupon for the name brand) or they buy something they would not have if they did not have a coupon. They brag about how much they "saved" when in fact they spent more than they would have had they not "couponed." Those people bug me.

As a middle-road couponer, I admire some who are better at it than I am, and I am judgmental toward the ones who make us look bad. ;-)

Yes, I'll buy 2 dozen boxes of pasta when I can get it for a quarter or less. But those boxes will last my family of 7 (well, 6 eaters, one being a growing tween boy) 2-4 months, depending on what we're in the mood for each week. We'll freeze whole juices (not the concentrate stuff), yogurts, cheeses, and, my big junk splurge, coffee creamers when they're on sale and coupon-ready. It works out well for us.

Some can be obsessive, but saving a ton of money is addictive. Its a super rush. There is a show now called Extreme Couponing, or something. This lady went shopping bought only what was on sale and she had a coupon for. She even passed out coupons as she saw people. Her total before coupons was $190+. After the coupons, it was around $6. It was amazing.

I love going to Kohl's Department store one Super Savings day with my 20% additional coupon. I love it when they say your total is $30 and today you save $73!

My sister has gone shopping, parents are now on limited income, and her total was $90 and she had saved $90. That was amazing!

i clipped 'em a lot in the days when we were biting our nails over every penny. it was worth it. i'm happy not to any more, as it was a lot of work. i do still clip an occasional one for something special, like an ice cream cake or something from the fish store, but i buy most of my groceries in bulk and/or organic and local any more, so coupons rarely apply.
i hadn't heard of extreme couponers until this question! i don't think they'd annoy me particularly (smart shopping is just....smart) but i'd try to avoid getting behind them in line!
khairete
S.

I see them, and don't really think anything of them. I don't mind being behind them... Especially in this economy. If they can save a few bucks, more power to 'em! I personally don't have the patience to hunt up all the coupons, or to wait for the sales. The only time I am annoyed by them is if they have a HUGE cart full of stuff, and they have to nitpick everything the cashier is doing so that it takes FOREVER to finish their transaction. I don't mind if it takes an extra minute or so, but if the person is going to be standing there second-guessing every ringup, then they should break their shopping up into a couple trips. I was stuck behind one woman who stood there and argued with the cashier for 15 minutes about the expiration date on one coupon. Blegh.

I've never thought of it as a type of person honestly! I can say, that I don't use coupons unless they are for diapers or formula. I find that I spend more using a coupon, I buy a lot of store brand stuff that is less expensive than the name brand item WITH the coupon. If I could save money, I would definitely do it. Maybe I am just coupon challenged!

Cupon Suzie makes me ill.

I have a Safeway card and that give some savings. In California we also have Smart and Final which is like a small Costco, but you don't need a memebership.

I'm sure there are similar stores in most states.

I'm doing more casseroles or beans with ham hocks, fried potatoes and cornbread these days. Along with a nice salad, that kind of dish goes a long way and tastes good. I prefer pinto beans because I can make burritos with the left overs.

I find you don't have to be rich to eat well.

Blessings.....

I do coupons for groceries. I've saved as much as $20 in coupons for a 2 week period. I'm not someone who joins clubs and swaps coupons and all that but I will print from coupons.com and if I happen to see a flyer with coupons I'll clip those.

I use online coupon codes whenever possible when ordering things online.

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

ha-i was just about to ask if anybody uses coupons and do they really save you money at the grocery store. I desperately need to start saving more, I want coupons. but not extreme like those ppl on tv ;/ yikes

How many coupons are we talking about?
Theres a new show coming out on TLC called extreme couponing. one lady said she racked up $647.00 worth of groceries (at walmart I think) and only paid $6.47. Yeah I would be annoyed standing behind her in line, but it just sounds excessive. I haven't watched the show but I can only imagine a ton of coupons, and it taking forever at walmart, lol.
If it's not excessive then I don't even notice. I think it's smart to save money on the items you need or can use. I only recently just started using coupons and wish I was better at it. =)

I think its great if it works for them. We have food issues in our household and eat as organic as possible (buying meat/poultry/seafood in bulk every 6mos and growing our own fruits/veggies). I rarely find coupons for food we'll eat, as opposed to always finding coupons for the highly processed/sugary foods/canned/other types of foods that we don't eat. We also do a ton of freecycling, so no coupons needed there :)

I just wish I could do it. I don't "get it." I'm not even sure where to find coupons ( is there a coupon fairy?!?!?) lol