Post: #1

Sup fellas. I saw this show on tv called Extreme Couponing where people use coupons to pay for almost all of what they buy. like $1.27 for $200 of groceries.

Somebody told me of going shopping with her friend and her friend used enough coupons to not only pay for the entire cost but the grocery store ended up owing her several dollars.

Sounds like a good way to save money. Question is where to get all these coupons? The sunday paper, mail inserts, friends, etc?

Post: #2

I think they are called food stamps.

Post: #3

ever notice its the fattiest, sugariest, unhealthiest shit that is on sale and couponable?

bullshit...

Post: #4

I could never justify spending time cutting out coupons. The time I'd spend doing that could be better spent making real money. Saving a couple hundred bucks (at the cost of spending more than 5 - 10 minutes on something) is petty.

Post: #5

It would be sweet if there was a program that you could fill with online coupons/other coupons you have then it would pump out the best deal$

wait. any programmers wanna help me do this?

Post: #6

That sounds like a business idea. Get paid to sell tailor made coupon books.

Post: #7

Coupons can save you money, but only if they're for stuff you actually need, not just stuff that you're buying because it's on sale. There's also the gas costs, if you have to drive to seven different grocery stores to get all your staples, instead of one place.

There's also, of course, the considerable hassle. Clipping coupons takes time, and is a bother. Arguably, though, unless you work from home, make a very good wage at it, and love your work so much that you do it for 12 hours a day, it doesn't hurt to take a few minutes to clip coupons, or to save money in other ways, like fixing something around the house instead of buying a replacement. Yes, you might make $60/hour when you're working. Your every minute is worth a dollar, and it seems intolerable to save 25 cents on oatmeal when it took you longer than a minute to find the coupon. But, realistically, were you working when you decided to sit down and clip coupons? If you weren't clipping them, you'd probably be sitting on your ass watching ESPN, or making a joke about fat girls on RVF. Point being, time is precious, and there are unfortunately almost never enough hours in a day, BUT we can't spend every minute doing extremely lucrative things, and in the moments when we're not, it's probably worthwhile to save an extra few bucks by going through the coupons in the mailbox every week or so. Takes five minutes, if you don't get drawn into the mania of buying stuff you wouldn't ordinarily in order to save extra money, and if you can shave $5-10 off the grocery bill, what's the harm in it? That's a hundred bucks extra at the end of the year.

Post: #8

(03-24-2013 07:17 PM)travolta Wrote:  I could never justify spending time cutting out coupons. The time I'd spend doing that could be better spent making real money. Saving a couple hundred bucks (at the cost of spending more than 5 - 10 minutes on something) is petty.

Quoted for truth.

And that's time you'll never get back. Time is a luxury. So these people actually pay more than they can ever imagine.

Post: #9

I was watching one of the episodes and the woman was bragging she couponed for about 35 hours a week and saved $1000 a month. That's a $12K/year full-time job. Worth it? Hell no.

Post: #10

Anyways, he spends about 40 hours a week doing this and ends up with about 40-50k a year of free shit. The stuff he gets is 20 bottles of the same shampoo, 30 boxes of the same cereal. There is no variety. He ends up selling the shit at a discount at a flee market or to friends and probably all said and done has 30k in tax free income, with and unlimited supply of toiletries.

Hardly seems worth it to me, but he collects disability and does this so he makes enough to support his obesity and satellite tv.

Post: #11

Do they have coupons for organic meat? Fresh vegetables? Eggs? Brown rice? Anything that is actually food and not in a cardboard box or plastic wrapper? Not really. In fact coupons are a way for the food industry to get you to keep buying their shit. It's actually not that expensive to eat well and healthy, especially if you're not trying to put on weight etc. The "problem" is that you actually have to do a little bit of cooking with your fresh ingredients, which appears to be just too inconvenient.

Post: #12

Yeah but how does couponing get you laid?

Post: #13

(03-25-2013 09:19 AM)Menace Wrote:  Do they have coupons for organic meat? Fresh vegetables? Eggs? Brown rice? Anything that is actually food and not in a cardboard box or plastic wrapper? Not really. In fact coupons are a way for the food industry to get you to keep buying their shit. It's actually not that expensive to eat well and healthy, especially if you're not trying to put on weight etc. The "problem" is that you actually have to do a little bit of cooking with your fresh ingredients, which appears to be just too inconvenient.

This is it. Coupons are flawed because they are only for shitty national branded foods. If you need boxes of hostess donuts then a coupon will help you, if you want cheaper carrots not do much.

If you really want deals you find out even your store gets shipments of your favorite foods and then go there a day or two before when they are trying to clear out the older stuff. Especially meat they will try to clear it out before new shipments or it's best before date.

Post: #14

(03-25-2013 09:19 AM)Menace Wrote:  Do they have coupons for organic meat? Fresh vegetables? Eggs? Brown rice? Anything that is actually food and not in a cardboard box or plastic wrapper? Not really. In fact coupons are a way for the food industry to get you to keep buying their shit. It's actually not that expensive to eat well and healthy, especially if you're not trying to put on weight etc. The "problem" is that you actually have to do a little bit of cooking with your fresh ingredients, which appears to be just too inconvenient.

The biggest health insurance company here has a rewards scheme where members get discounts on various foods listed as health. Unfortunately there's a lot of low fat this and low fat that, but they do also have some good items. They also offer steeply discounted membership of certain health club chains. Obviously the rationale is that these things will make you healthier and thus less likely to need to claim benefits from them. Also, the goods discounted are usually the most expensive items with the highest markups, so the retailer isn't losing much, and probably only gets a small amount of money from the insurance company as compensation.

I'm sure insurance companies in the US must offer similar schemes as well.

Post: #15

(03-25-2013 09:41 AM)Parlay44 Wrote:  Yeah but how does couponing get you laid?

never underestimate the power of a coupon to a fatty eying the row of hamburger helper drooling...you show her how for a dollar she can eat them all and you'll be knee deep in chins and rolls of fat...there's good pussy under all that

Post: #16

(03-24-2013 06:17 PM)Rolling Stone Wrote:  Sup fellas. I saw this show on tv called Extreme Couponing where people use coupons to pay for almost all of what they buy. like $1.27 for $200 of groceries.

Somebody told me of going shopping with her friend and her friend used enough coupons to not only pay for the entire cost but the grocery store ended up owing her several dollars.

Sounds like a good way to save money. Question is where to get all these coupons? The sunday paper, mail inserts, friends, etc?

And in these same shows the people say they are spending 30+ hours a week getting coupons. And they end up with huge stockpiles of shit. Your time is better spent working a real job. Cutting coupons only makes sense if you consider yourself unemployable.

Post: #17

Thank you for the input/comments guys. I understand the whole "time is money" concept but didn't know it was taking these people 30+ hours per week. It takes me seconds to flip thru a couple mailer or sunday paper insert and a few more to clip the coupon so I don't know why it takes them so much time. As Ovid mentions, I'd only do it if I had extra time like sitting around watching TV.

I do notice that a lot of food stuff is junk but that's probably because most of the food in our supermarkets is junk food. I'm looking mostly for fresh ingredients to my recipes/dishes that I cook.

kosko, thank you for the tip - that also accomplishes the goal.