I do papercrete while my wife and daughters do coupons.
Here's the bottom line.
Yes, you can save a lot of money with the skillful use of coupons, but like with papercrete, there's a lot of labor required.
Not only does it take a lot of time to clip the coupons, but they must be cataloged (not just sorted) in order for them to be matched to future store sales and promotions.
Where you get the most bang for the coupon is matching an older coupon with a new sale where you can apply the coupon to the sale price. Done skillfully, savings of 75% on a particular product is very doable. Then, wherever possible, you buy in bulk during the sales to maximize your long-term savings.
The art of couponing is the adjustments to the ever-changing coupon policies. Some stores will double coupons, others restrict how many you can use in a single transactions. The latest variation is the mandatory use of electronic coupons before paper coupons, restricting your ability to decide which coupon you wish to use first.
Another dimension is keeping track of multiple stores, although if you live rural, as many papercreters do, this may not be an option. I'm a suburban papercreter, so the wife has three major grocery chains nearby and the savings more than offsets the few extra miles.
With all this said, the downside is that hard-core couponing requires 20-30 hours of work per week. Yes, it can be a full or part-time job and if you have a large family, but the potential savings can be the equivalent to working a part-time job. In other words, rather than picking up a minimum wage part-time job, you or your teen could "make" just as much money couponing 20 hours a week.
If you don't have that much time, then realistically you can still knock 25% - 50% off your typical grocery bill using coupons coupled with other frugal living techniques, such as shopping the sales, buying in bulk, canning & freezing, etc.
I hope all this helps.
Now my rant against the "extreme couponing" TV shows. Like the "prepping" shows, they are not representative of the community as a whole as they seek to sensationalize things using staged events. Most hard-working couponers are the humble hard-working type who detest the materialistic orgies depicted in the coupon shows.
While a serious couponer will have a shelf full of toothpaste or toilet paper, but they know they actually need such things and they'll be used over time. But for someone to clear out a shelf of diapers when they don't have any babies is discourteous to other shoppers and little more than vane trophy collecting.
In response, the coupon shows have emphasized that many couponers donate what they don't need to charity, which is often true, but that does little to excuse their crass, orchestrated sensationalism. Again, much like the so-called "prepping" and "survival" shows.
My two cents....
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "JayH" <slurryguy@...> wrote:
>
> I've used the occasional coupon, but from what I'm being told, there are people that get rather crazy about it and collect hundreds or thousands of coupons in an attempt to get truckloads of free or very cheap stuff. I guess there are people that are willing to even purchase coupons from others because it saves more money than they spend buying coupons.
>
> Anybody done it? Anybody partnering with a coupon collector?
>
> Could it be profitable for a papercreter to take the time to sort through their paper supply to set aside whatever coupons might be in there?
>
>
> I don't claim to be an expert on this topic. I'm just asking questions, and would be interested in learning about other's experiences.
>
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Wednesday, July 31, 2013
[papercreters] Re: Papercrete and Extreme Couponing, the perfect partnership?
