Comments on: Why I Stopped Extreme Couponing

By: DH

DH — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 23:40:41 +0000

In reply to Mrs. Picky Pincher. I can't seem to manage it either!

By: Debbie

Debbie — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 09:55:08 +0000

Stay tuned for another chapter from the diary of a Cranky Coupon Collector AKA coupon junkie. What good is having 50 jars of peanut butter if they all expire next week? The best advice in the world: stay out of stores! See less, buy less, spend less! Shop at 1-2 grocery stores & use their sale inserts. Clip a few coupons only for items you truly use/need. Put the rest in the recycle bin. PS if you truly want to save $$, set up a budget, say $75 a week. Take $75 CASH to the grocery store & then you won’t/can’t spend more. It worked for us years ago when we were saving for a house, long before the coupon crazies took over my sanity!

By: J. Money

J. Money — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 15:52:40 +0000

In reply to Debbie.

Just… WOW. Haha…. I am more and more fascinated as you go! :)

By: Debbie

Debbie — Wed, 17 Jan 2018 19:22:56 +0000

In reply to J. Money. I remember once a month Harris Teeter had "Super Double Coupons". They doubled any coupon up to $2 (so a $2 coupon would double to $4). They were the only store in the area to do this. Lines of people added to my anxiety "forcing" me to get up at 4AM to arrive at the store at 4:20AM to beat the competition on the first day of Super Doubles. Store policy: no check out before 7AM during Super Doubles. Like an idiot, I shopped the store 2 hours & stood on line over 1/2 hour until they opened the cash registers at 7AM. Some sale items were out of stock by 7AM on the first day! And they almost never restocked during the sale (I knew this as I'd go back to the store 2-3 times during Super Doubles after I printed out more coupons or if my mother snail mailed me more coupons) so this added to my frenzy. Coupons were almost a narcotic to me. Today I'm proud to say I've attended Super Double coupons only twice since we moved & it was purely by accident that I walked into the store for something else I needed. PS I used to wait in the parking lot for drug stores to open at 7AM, especially on Sundays, when traffic was low & the sales started. Everyone knew me by my first name since I was a regular customer. Since we moved & I broke the coupon addiction, now no one knows me in any store, LOL PPS I found myself emailing companies asking for more coupons pretending to be a brand new customer wanting to try out their products. It worked every time. Presto, more coupons emailed or snail mailed to me. Lordy lordy, what a trap I allowed myself to fall into.

By: J. Money

J. Money — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 19:33:03 +0000

In reply to Debbie.

Wowwww that is fascinating!!! I need to save this comment somewhere and bring back to life in a future blog post – this is great!! Not to revel in your craziness here, but just that it’s such a powerful description of the downsides to this – that not many people talk about! It’s super helpful to hear, thank you!

By: Debbie

Debbie — Thu, 11 Jan 2018 08:04:48 +0000

Oh boy. Another doozie for me that struck my coupon addiction nerve. This was a real problem when we moved. Hauling 96 packages of toilet paper, 72 tubes of toothpaste, 66 sticks of deodorant, 84 rolls of paper towels, 69 bottles of body wash/shampoo, 57 bars of soap, 48 bottles of dish detergent was exhausting, not to mention countless cans of veggies, soups, tomato sauce, peanut butter, jelly, boxes of everything from cookies to mac & cheese. We have enough toothbrushes to last into the next century. The list goes on & on but the real killer was 46 heavy containers of laundry detergent. What a pain in the ankle (and every other bone it took to move all these treasures…cough cough). And yes, I had already donated a ton of my stockpile! This is when I FINALLY realized this obsession had gone off the deep end. God forbid I missed a sale or a coupon expired at one of the 10 stores I shopped, I’d cry in my pillow all night, LOL okay it wasn’t quite that bad but man, this was a drain on my time & emotions running from store to store & hoping to get there before they ran out of stock on a good sale item (I always fell for the fine print in an ad “while supplies last” = run to store immediately). Not enough room to store all that toilet paper so I was forced to pile it up floor to ceiling in the guest bathroom/sink/tub. NO MORE! It’s nice living off this stockpile but I now only clip coupons for things needed in the immediate future & only go to 2 grocery stores within 2 miles of each other. I stock up on sale items we use, with or without a coupon & no more big stockpiles. I no longer HUNGER for this FEEDING frenzy, LOL. No more extreme anything for me except regret for letting myself get caught up in this crap.

By: Young and Finance

Young and Finance — Thu, 04 May 2017 18:13:22 +0000

Couponing is definitely a time sucker. Cutting all of those coupons seems to take all day especially when you have just 1 more sheet left and then you have to file them (even the ones you KNOW you’ll never use). It has its benefits but it can be very time consuming.

By: Ms. Frugal Asian Finance

Ms. Frugal Asian Finance — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 01:12:35 +0000

The main reason why I don’t usually use coupons is because it takes such a long time to find a coupon for the things that I need. It could take me an hour to find a coupon for $1 off. Although I do feel guilty for not looking for great coupons out there, I have to stop myself for my own sanity.

That said, if someone handed me a coupon for something I need, I’d definitely use it. Thanks for sharing your story!

By: Matt Cullen

Matt Cullen — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 22:23:36 +0000

TIME is the reason I can’t be bothered with extreme couponing. We’re a busy family and always on the go, I can’t imagine dedicating 15 hours every week to couponing.

By: DJ @1000WaysToSave

DJ @1000WaysToSave — Sun, 26 Mar 2017 21:10:37 +0000

I can totally see how couponing would be a total time sucker. Keeping track of all those coupons, expiration dates, which stores double, etc. I’m not sure it would be worth the ROI. Regardless, good job on doing something creative to try to improve your finances.