Are Extreme Couponers Crazy, or Smarter Than the Rest of Us?
Some call themselves shopoholics; others are simply couponers. And others are admittedly dealnews addicts. We're talking about the people who spend 30 hours a week at their craft, clipping coupons, searching for deals or even jumping into Dumpsters. It's essentially a full-time job saving money.
In the new TLC series Extreme Couponing, which started Wednesday night, coupons are an obsession that helps one woman get a few hundred candy bars for free, and another to buy $238's worth of groceries for $6.92 after discounts and the grocery store's loyalty card discounts were subtracted from the bill.
"Coupons have allowed me to be absolutely debt-free. I don't owe anybody anything," one woman says in a preview on the TLC website.
Even though coupons save money, what would move someone to clip enough coupons to buy more than 10,000 items and fill their garage so it looks like a grocery store? One person in the show bought enough deodorant with coupons to last 150 years.
It is not, as you might suspect, the pure thrill of saving money, according to the psychologists and marketing experts we consulted. In the mind of an extreme couponer who is obsessive about the habit, saving money is only part of the reason, according to Elliott Jaffa, a behavioral and marketing psychologist. More important is the thrill of the chase and beating the system. "Psychologically they're getting something for free where they feel they beat the system," he says.
It is also "really about not wanting to be left out" and being able to brag to their friends that they saved a lot of money, says Michigan psychiatrist Sally Palaian. People who can't pass up a bargain are compulsive shoppers, and they go overboard on couponing and buy things they don't need.
"The marketing purpose of coupons is to get you to try something you might not normally try," says Jaffa. If you'll use the item (and use it up before it expires, breaks or goes bad), then saving money with coupons is a healthy pastime. Extreme coupling, however, can be turn into an obsession that's no different from overeating or being an alcoholic. Beating the system is great, Jaffa says, "but beat the system with things you're going to use, not store in your garage."
Diane Schmidt, who runs a website that helps people find coupons, says that some people in the online couponing community aren't happy with the TLC show because it goes too far. Some couponers profiled in the show are on the verge of hoarding, with garages filled with products they won't use, such as a childless couple who buys diapers.
The show could end up actually encouraging hoarding by showing how much money people can save, she says. And it could even lead to shortages on store shelves, she foresees. While some people on the show are getting groceries for free — or almost free — by using coupons, that's actually a difficult goal to reach for on a regular basis, because it often requires store sales, combined with triple or double coupon days at the stores.
"Everything has to line up perfectly," she says.
One: read the coupon, item(s) it CAN and CAN NOT be used on.
Two: follow the dates its good for. (out of date coupons are not good. I do not have extra ads or coupons in the store, that is part of being a savvy shopper being pre-paired with coupons and or digital ones if the store your shopping in takes them)
Three: follow the store your using it in policies not what the other guy would do or does...
I mean gee if your gonna travel to a store from way out of town to use a 50% off coupon on a .67 item try to follow the rules...
Even though limits are in place, some customers (Maybe like the ones on this show) argue that they can just split every transaction to get around the limit. Where I worked at least, typically it was fairly difficult to restock a hot sale item once it was sold out. Items arrive weeks in advance of the sale and by the time the sale actually occurs the distribution chains for the stores are completely out of the item because they're now working to get product for the sale in two weeks.
What I usually noticed is that the customers who hoard items (Like the lady from the show that bought 200-some boxes of pasta) would shop as soon as the sale hits, then everyone else would be SOL because the item wouldn't be in stock until later in the week or until after the sale ends. Normal people would accuse the store of "false advertising" because the advertised item wasn't in stock. Instead of losing customers, we would usually substitute a similar item, or offer rainchecks - Both cost the store money (which is passed to customers) just so someone can buy 200+ boxes of pasta for no reason other than its free.
I'm not saying using coupons to get things for free is a bad thing... I'm just saying that hoarding items because they're free is just greedy and disrespectful to other customers.
At the very least, if for whatever reason you feel that you need to stock up on 15 years of toilet paper, please call the store like the gentleman at the end of the show did who bought the 1000 boxes of cereal. This will let the store's purchaser order enough for your stockpile and regular customers' pantries.
If you think this isn't possible, you aren't thinking about how much money the coupon doubling can cost a company. I can tell you they have been doing this much more often in the past 2 years; at least for The Kroger Co. I used to be able to get many things for free with coupons and they have definitely smartened up. It seems the best I can do now (except some rare circumstances) is 75% off the normal price.
The latest thing I have noticed is where they are using technology against the shopper -- if a coupon was available in the newspaper they will not run specials on those items. They coordinate the coupons and the sales where the shoppers can no longer get the coupon discount on top of sale priced items. I used to believe it was just a coincidence that the coupons expired the day before the items went on sale. Now I know better.
The best I ever did with couponing was to save $48 on $250 worth of groceries and that was over a year ago. Now I average coupon savings of $2 -- $5 if I am lucky.
TV seems to have an obsession now with hoarding and I'm not at all surprised that Extreme Couponing is riding those coattails. If my collection of 22 toothbrushes and 10 deodorants gets any larger, I'll re-evaluate my mindset. :-)