I haven't really done much with coupons but I check sites for free samples all the time! I go to freakyfreddies.com. They have a section for coupons there too!
Very interesting thread. I use coupons, but nowhere near like this show. I use discounts also at BabiesRUs, Bed Bath and Beyond and not just grocieries. I think it's great to stock pile toilet tissue, paper towels, etc., but I couldn't eat 50 bottles of mustard in my lifetime so even if they are free why get them and take up all that space. I think couponing is great when you can save and get what you need, but to stack up so much stuff that would go to waste is not what I think couponing is all about. I see some of the couponers buying 20 or 30 boxes of cereal. If it's the Duggar family then I can see that, but if you have two children when are you ever going to eat it before it goes stale. I guess they could donate it to a food bank or a church pantry, but I'm not sure I could stand around in a store checking out for four or five hours. I have to admit I am totally amazed by some of their savings. My youngest daughter is an avid couponer and saves big dollar amounts, but she never buys more than she can use before it spoils, or things that she doesn't regularly use. I've seen her save $75.00 or more dollars at a time on groceries and am proud of how great she is with it. I think couponing is great to save money and get what you use at a bargain price.
These folks should balance the federal budget.
I cannot even be bothered clipping a coupon, let alone inputting the time, planning and organization that these people do. I can't even imagine being that devoted to a "hobby" of sorts. Wowsers.
I am all for saving money, but I do not think it is necessary to have a $30,000.00 stockpile in my garage. Why have a five year supply of dog food, or 110 bottles of ketchup ? I still think this is a form of hoarding, why buy things that will expire long before you need them ? In some cases they are doanating to charities, I think that is admirable but I think most of them are just stockpiling them. One lady said she had enough femiinine product to last her into menopause, yet at the next shopping trip she bought more because she had coupons.
I used to volunteer for a local food pantry/emergency needs nonprofit agency. There was an older retired woman who did extreme couponing type stuff as a hobby, and instead of hoarding all of it, she would donate the extra free stuff to the local shelters and food pantries. That woman seriously probably gave us more stuff than most canned food drives produced!
So that could be a real option for people who like the thrill of the bargain but can't use everything they get.
ITA with the donating part. We've seen that throughout the show but not often enough IMHO. The one with the 16 yr old boy who was going on 1 last shopping trip before school started was a bit disconcerting. Yes, his family benefited and I think that is great. However, he seemed to be stockpiling tons of feminine products just because they were free. Why? Why were then in his hoard and not in the closets, drawers or wherever they're kept with the women in the family?
Having said all that, it is Saturday and we get the Sunday supplements today. We need to replace some paper products. I'll probably go out and spend $40 - $50 before the coupons. LOL.
Have you ever paid attention to what those people buy though? Seriously one woman bought a crap load of butterfinger candy bars...why? Gatorade? The shows I have seen it really was a ridiculous amount of unnecessary stuff. And I agree with the hoarding...just because you can buy a stockpile of something doesn't mean you need to or should. There were two shows I liked because the people were buying the stuff to donate...that was awesome!
I actually talk with a woman who was on the show. The shows are staged quite a bit. The people buy loads of coupons from amazon etc and because of this they are really not getting all of those items for just a few bucks. They do save a ton but not as much as they make it seem.
Since replying to this thread back in April I have gotten a lot more involved in couponing. I have a nice assortment of items stocked up and can now shop for my family of 4 for under $75.00 per week which is a lot better than what I was doing. I don't stockpile but I do shop for deals and really hate to buy anything without coupons now.
I actually talk with a woman who was on the show. The shows are staged quite a bit. The people buy loads of coupons from amazon etc and because of this they are really not getting all of those items for just a few bucks. They do save a ton but not as much as they make it seem.
Since replying to this thread back in April I have gotten a lot more involved in couponing. I have a nice assortment of items stocked up and can now shop for my family of 4 for under $75.00 per week which is a lot better than what I was doing. I don't stockpile but I do shop for deals and really hate to buy anything without coupons now.
Another good site to check out is coupons.com,
Now that is very interesting about the staging. It makes perfect sense that they would do it that way. It's just like Storage Wars. They film all the time but only show the dogs or big ones. In fact on one episode they showed a unit that had boxes overturned and a real mess but when they clicked back to it, all the boxes were stacked. LOL.
I totally understand your storage. You probably have some canned goods that will be used until they all go on sale again. You probably have some paper products, etc. There is nothing wrong with that. I recently used a coupon for toothpaste. I was going in to get 1 tube but they were on a bogo. I ended up with 2. Big deal. We will use the 2nd tube within the year. 2 not 200!
Don't those people who deplete the shelf anger you? If you are going to get that much, arrange for the store to order it for you. Inconsiderate louts.
I rarely use coupons, with some exceptions. If I'm going to purchase anything online or at JoAnn Fabric or Michael's crafts, I always do an online search for coupon codes and printable coupons.
For Michael's, I almost never buy anything full price. I'm eiter shopping the clearance racks, or I'm using a 40% or 50% off coupon and only buying one item (or sometimes my husband and I will each take in a coupon, so we can
buy two items).
We also shop very strategically for EVERYTHING. My husband and I are on disability, so we do have the luxury of time, although when I calculated the time we actually spent on shopping and cooking at home, they really didn't add up to more than we did when we were working. However, we do have the advantage of being able to go during the best time of day and week, a luxury we didn't usually have when we were working.
We have friends who can't believe we are living as well as we our on SSDI and my husband's disability pension. They have incomes as high as eight times ours, and have asked how we do it (and usually assume our income is higher and that we are receiving food stamps or using food banks, and we're not).
But we almost never buy anything new or full priced that can be purchased used or on sale.
We start our grocery shopping at a salvage store (Sort of like Big Lots, but privately owned. The stores buy stock from other stores that are either going bankrupt or are selling their overstock. Some stores only sell groceries, others sell a little bit of everything).
Most people assume that this is "outdated" food, but it's generally not (once in a great while you'll find food that is past it's "use by" or "sell by" dates, these aren't truly an expiration dates. If the food is properly stored, canned and jarred foods, and often boxed foods as well will maintain their quality many months and even years after the sell by dates).
There is a bit of an "art" to this kind of shopping, because canned and jarred foods are generally good years beyond their use by dates, whereas cereal and snack foods can become stale even before the use by dates).
Ethnic markets are often the best place to shop for staples (staples in our house, anyway) like rice, soy sauce, fish sauce, bean sprouts, cilantro, eggplant... because they're much cheaper than in supermarkets.
We do shop a lot more stores, but we also shop smaller stores, so we can "get in and get out" much more quickly.
We shop at Walmart and Aldi, but we shop strategically there too. In Walmart, the best time to go is during the late hours of a week day. At Aldi (a discount grocery) we avoid Wednesdays (government SSDI and SSI checks are direct deposited) and Saturdays.
We buy the cheapest cuts of meat (chicken thighs, legs or quarters, pork steks and roasts, and fattier ground beef), which we actually prefer, because they all lend themselves to low-and-slow cooking (crockpot or stove-top dutch oven, so that the actual work-time investment is minimal).
We add tvp (dried textured vegetable protein, looks sort of like grape nuts cereal. Per serving it's about 1/4 to 1/5 the price of ground beef) to cheap ground beef, so that we end up with the equivalent of expensive 85-98% lean ground beef at abouth 1/3 to 1/4 the price per serving.
When we see a good deal on anything, we stock up.
We shop Goodwill, consignment shops, and even pawn shops.
We've bought electronics that were floor models or have been returned to the store and therefor discounted (I would consider refurbished, but we've never had to). My husband's computer we bought at Sam's Club, and it had been returned by a user who just didn't like it, and returned it two days after purchasing it. It still had the same warantee, but we got it for less than half the original price.
It's really amazing how little you need to spend (not just money-wise, but time-wise as well).
I mostly buy generic brands from kroger (4 rolls of toilet paper= $.88). When I get kroger coupons, it works out pretty great, but they only really send them to me once every 2-3 months or so, which sucks. I also email companies and ask them to send me coupons, and most do. I also have purchased coupons from ebay, and get some from Sunday papers, but most of those are usually wasted, because they're not things I use. I need to get ink for my printer, so I can print out coupons.
Last edited by 3FCer344892; 11-19-2011 at 07:58 PM.
Ugh, shelf clearers tick me off! Save some for the rest of us!
I hardly every buy anything unless it is on sale AND I have a coupon. I used to shop at Walmart buying their brand for nearly everything but since paying attention to my coupons and sales I buy a lot of name brand items for far less.
My mom noticed that on these shows that most of the people stockpile a lot of crap food. She complained that you can't go all extreme couponer to buy fresh, non-processed things.
