Since I did not want to watch the convention last night, I watched a show on extreme couponing. Even without double coupons people can save a bundle. Two of the couponers were youngsters, and managed to buy like a 700 dollar purchase for next to nothing. Of course, most of the products were things like soda's,vitamin water, maxi pads and junk food type stuff. Still it was impressive. They had lots of help though, one even had a coupon robot! What do you think of extreme couponers?
Well, my impression of extreme couponers of course would be that they are indeed cheap, but they are quite shrewd too, because they get free items. Unfortunately, there is a stigma attached to it, especially if you use it too often.
Personally, I could care less about any "stigma" I mean when you are getting 700 dollars worth of products for 1.71 or some absurdly low number,,that is just saving on a massive scale. However, I don't have a warehouse to stockpile all the items, nor the time to cut out huge numbers of coupons. Plus the people that were doing this enlisted a whole army of volunteers/family members to help them. One thing that was funny, was that one of couponers was a college student in a dorm room. He enlisted the co operation of his roommate to keep the items there in exchange for product.
True, the stigma is just a minor thing, because what you get to save is well worth it. I just remembered a fellow poster here, Dreek Lass mentioning that she went out on a date with someone who used coupons all throughout the date, so it turned her off. Who wouldn't right? It's a date, so the need to impress must be implemented, yet the person used coupons.
I wouldn't care about any stigma if I could save $700. My issue is that I don't know a single real live person who has ever been able to pull off any of this stuff. I've seen it on TV, read about it online, but I've never seen a real life version. Some places are really stingy about letting you use coupons (which I don't understand, since they get their money back). I also think it would take so much time to work it like that, that it would be like working a full time job. If I could pull it off, I'd do it, but I don't know how.
I am pretty sure there is a couponing club in the area. I think a lady teaches a class of sorts in this. However, she is not located anywhere close to me. I also don't know if you have to pay for the "class" but it is mostly common sense anyway I think, just matching coupons to store sales and taking advantage of it. Seriously, I am not going to go dumpster diving or whatever, to get the best coupons, like I saw on one show.
I think the OP's example was rare. In fact, if it were really true to coupon your way into 700 dollars worth of goods all the time, then everybody would do it and stores would go out of business. I mean, a store is sort of like a casino - in a sense. A casino cannot let everyone win big. In fact, only a very small percentage does. Anything more and then security will come out.
