My wife and I watched the last 45 minutes of this show on TLC last night.
Did anyone else catch it? We saw 4 different people buy hundreds of dollars of food, then using their coupons the totals came down to under $10!
It was insane. This one guy found a loop-hole and got 1,000 boxes of cereal… for free! He said he would donate them to his church charity.
But he also has 300 bars of deoderant in his basement too. I think some of these people ride a fine line between hoarders and savy shoppers.
I want to know if this kind of “couponing” is possible in Canada, or if it was developed by the same minds who came up with the American mortgage rules?
I just can’t see Save-On Foods, Safeway Canada or Superstore doing this.
However if it is possible, it mightbe worth looking into to.
From following Canadian couponing websites I’d say no, mainly because we don’t have days where you can save double coupons and such. If you are diligent it is possible to get free items and you have to shop around and not be brand loyal. The sites I follow often have lists showing some of these awesome deals but you have to have the coupons and have those stores in the area (eg if I order coupons online they may take a week to get to me, if I didn’t have it already I miss out on the deal. They also mention No Frills a lot, I live in the city, we have Superstore not No Frills and despite them both being Loblaws have different deals.)
It is possible to save though. We try and get coupons for things we use or like the most (and if possible grab several) and when they go on sale use the coupons to stock up. You have to watch the store brands though since some are better deals even with coupons and sales. You know how the bottoms of receipts will sometimes tell you how much you’ve saved? I think the best I ever did was almost $50 on a $200 dollar shop.
If I could have such dramatic results maybe I too would be such an extreme couponer, as it is I use coupons as much as possible for everything from groceries and eating out to family activities and clothing (you can find them) but you’re right it is a fine line between savings and hoarding.
ETA: The two sites I’ve found most helpful are Canadian Free Stuff and Free Stuff Canada (I think… On my phone atm). I have them in my feed to keep me up to date on deals and not just coupons but genuinely free items or contests and heads up on good sales in stores in Canada and online that ship to Canada.
How do they do it? I mean, my wife cuts coupons from the weekly ads for everything that we need. She doesn’t use them as excuses to buy extra items that we don’t need, so we end up saving some money.
But it’s something like 5-10% off the bill, tops. Nice, but not insane.
By being practically rabid about it, or so I’ve gathered. Going to stores on double coupon days and price match (this store sells it for a dollar cheaper! Match it! Ok, now here is my coupon for a dollar off which is worth double today making that item free now…), making lists and poring over the circulars (we need TP, this store has it for this much and this one this much but add in the coupon and it’s double if I shop this day at this store so this is the best price I can get right now).
It’s a lot of work to save that money and if your time is worth it go for it. We can’t, but I manage to take some off the top most times when shopping and as a general rule looking through the circulars, making a list and sticking to it (no impulse buying! We make lists by the store also, depending what we want/need and where is the best buy) and buying the best deal coupons or no is the best way to save money.
I should watch this show, check if it will air again and PVR if it is.
I too have seen these shows and news segments about people who are able to get, say, $200 worth of groceries for only 20 bucks or so, but the only way I can see that happening is if you go on triple coupon weekend and buy only things you have coupons for.
My wife and I are also regular users of coupons that we get from the Sunday paper, and I think the most we’ve ever saved with them, coupled with the discounts we get with the store’s rewards card, is about $35 - $40 on an $100 bill. And again that was on a triple coupon weekend when a lot of things we had coupons for and that we also happened to need were on sale.
The problem we run into is that we buy a lot things that they usually don’t put coupons out for, like meats, milk and fresh produce. If you’re able to slash your grocery by upwards of 80 percent through the use of coupons, I’m guessing you’re buying mostly processed foods and not much of anything fresh.
Yeah, that’s our problem. I don’t bother with coupons because we eat almost no processed food. I guess I could probably save a few dollars on toilet paper and toothpaste and whatnot, but I’m not all that flexible about what brands I want, so it doesn’t seem worth it.
Stores in my neck of the woods limit items that become free with a coupon to one item per person and shopping order. On the rare times that coupons are allowed to be doubled, the coupon value is limited to 50 cents or less.
My wife does the couponing thing, and there’s a few tricks that work, such as using the various web sites that tell you which coupon to use where and when (i.e. wait three weeks and use the Gilette coupon at Walgreens on razors when the sale cycles) which are helpful, but there’s a few things that aren’t as obvious at first.
When they talk about “free” they’re being slightly disingenuous about it. They often mean things like Shoppers Reward coupons that you’ll be issued (or not, the coupon systems are notoriously wonky) for buying with your own cash now that does result in a net gain over time, but a net loss of cash on hand. Example: Buy three Dial body washes at CVS and combine those with a coupon to make the price, let’s say $2 to keep it simple. Then you’ll also be rewarded with $3 in CVS Bux or whatever they call them that are credits that can be used towards a later purchase, making the overall cost -$1 but still making you lay out the cash out of pocket. You’ll also have to not lose your receipt with the credits or it’s gone, so it’s really just a rebate system that the store counts on people not totally fulfilling. If everyone did this it would disappear overnight.
You have to build up a base of things to get really going. To take advantage of gaming the system the way they teach you you’ll have to be willing to buy mass quantities of things and have a place to store them to get the math to work. If it’s toothpaste and dish soap this week you’ll need to buy $100 worth at once, but it makes your yearly average cost over buying them individually much lower. You’re still spending a lot of up front money. This is the kind of math that they use to talk about “Getting $1000 worth of stuff for $100” or whatever. You’re not getting to amortize the cost over time, you have to spend it all at once. Yes, you’re set for a year or whatever, but the initial costs in building up your Bunker of Bargains can be huge.
You have to act like a huge jerk to take “maximum” advantage of things, including harassing store workers and getting management involved in some cases to save a dollar if the cashier doesn’t like your interpretation of how you should be allowed to game the system by trying to stack coupons (use more than one for the same item) or the other kind of weird stuff they require you to do. You can get a reputation at certain stores as a Coupon Asshole and you’ll never get the benefit of the doubt on anything and everyone will want you to get hit by a truck.
This stuff takes a lot of time out of your week. You have to not only comb through junk mail and newspapers and circulars to find all the coupons but also be willing to pounce on deals the minute they become effective in order for the stores not to sell out of all the things you have to buy in combinations to get the most savings. So clip all day on Sunday, and hit the store for crap every day of the week. If you think you’re saving more money than your time is worth, then great! I personally would rather do other things than bargain hunt all the damned time.
You can succumb to buying crap you don’t need or even like because it’s a deal. For example I only like Reduced Fat Jiff peanut butter. However if you’re going to be a coupon nut you might have to switch to Bob’s Crushed Nut Paste because you can get a super deal. It really limits your choices on what you buy (and makes you buy a ton of processed junk foot corn syrup filled nonsense that you’d be better of not eating) because it’s cheap.
It does work to an extent, and we do save some decent money, but to really do it like the pros you have to be a little……off. And by a little I mean a whole goddamned lot.
Yeah, I don’t have anywhere around here that does double coupons.
One thing that helps is using both a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon to get bonus savings off the same item; it’s even better when you can use them when the item is also on sale at the store.
Some stores will also give you “register refund” coupons for money off your next purchase when you buy certain items (Walgreens is one chain that does this); depending on how good the deal is, you may essentially be getting the cost of that initial item back at your next visit. If you’re really lucky with the sales, you could go back each day and use the reward coupon to pay for another of the same item, and really stock up on your deodorant or whatever.
Obviously you can’t have a lot of brand loyalty, and you need to sign up for the saver/club cards of the various chain stores, keep a file of coupons on hand, and check the weekly flyers for the big combo savings. Sometimes the coupon flyers in your Sunday paper will even alert you, putting a notice next to a coupon that there’s a sale on it this week at, say, Target.
Plus to avoid being a scary hoarder type, you either do have to be turning over some of this stuff to food banks or carefully planning your shopping needs and being reasonable about your purchasing.
I do extremely minor coupon filing and price checking; it’s nice to save 75% or so on a few items at times, but I don’t get all crazy like these people. I wouldn’t know where to put all that stuff, for starters, plus I avoid buying too many premade foods, and I’ve seen enough episodes of “Hoarders” to get nervous about that kind of thing.
It depends where you shop. I had a Save On Foods card (where I live now doesn’t have one), Sobeys has a card where you earn points and the points stack up to get savings on groceries (you have base points which are earned on dollars spent, coupons for extra points on items and certain items which you earn extra points sometimes by buying multiples but not always… Very easy to get plenty of points and you get $5 off at first and goes up from there until you redeem them. If you do all your shopping there it would be very easy to get enough points to get a large shop free). Co-op doesn’t get you points but if you shop there enough you get a cheque back once a year (we don’t, but we get coupons for free eggs and if you buy gas there you get coupons for money off groceries and it adds to the total for your cheque). Safeway you earn Airmiles and have to have the card to get the sales.
I’m not too loyal to one place, but if Sobeys were closer I might lean more to them simply because it’s very easy to earn points and get money off.
Easiest way to get up to speed on couponing: Slickdeals & Fatwallet.
I once bought a portable DVD player for -$5, then picked up a 50" plasma for $300 (this was in 2008, when they were still $1,100), and a little later got 84 bottles of Panteen from Target for $0 + $5 Target gift card per 3 bottles + $1 off per bottle applied to anything else I was buying in the same order. It was epic.
And yes, we are still using the shampoo and conditioner 2+ years later.
The only points programs I’m familiar with (e.g. Shoppers Drug Mart’s Optimum card) effectively give you ~1%-2% of your purchase back, although there are sometimes “20x points” or “bonus points” deals that are an improvement. I suppose that if all the planets aligned, that might add up to effectively getting your purchase for free.
Exactly. None of my local grocery stores let you do that, either, AFAICT. Plus what others said about it being too heavy on processed foods.
I just buy stuff I regularly buy when it’s on sale at the grocery store (nearly everything comes on sale at least once a month) and use coupons only if they are buy 1 get one free or at least $1 off. I would say on average, my tab is ~15% under full price, which is about what I would expect.
I would also have to call into question quality of life, especially if you have kids, if you’re constantly obsessing, clipping, searching, shopping around, etc. just to save a few cents on shit you might not even really need. Blech!
I get tired of hearing hints about using coupons on double or triple coupon day. I have never lived anywhere that had a store who offered that. When you live in a small town you take what they give you. I’m about 2 hours from Indianapolis, but I have a feeling I’d eat up my savings in gas if I found a store there who doubled coupons.
We watched this show, and the one thing that struck me was the stores they were shopping at looked a bit run down, or at best were regional chains.
I suspect that national chains or at least those with the better market intelligence systems would filter these opportunities out, with regard to the in-store specials.
It can be really good if you buy makeup there, but I neither shop there enough nor wear enough makeup to justify having an Optimum card. Had one when they first came out but lost it fairly quickly.
I have quite a few cards and some are worth it more than others. You just have to evaluate what is really worth it to do.
National chains don’t care; there’s no penalty to them when people do this. In fact, they probably encourage it.
Here’s why- coupons and sales are generally a sort of price discrimination tactic by stores and manufacturers. The idea goes like this:
Assume an item costs 40 cents to make, is sold to the retailer at 60 cents, and is sold for $1.00.
Naturally, the manufacturer wants to sell the retailers the items at 60 cents, and the retailer wants to sell them for $1.00.
However, if the manufacturer or the retailer identifies that there’s a smaller population of people who might be willing to put out some effort to buy said item for 90 cents but will not buy it for $1.00 (a price sensitive customer), then they’ll either run a sale or issue a 10 cent coupon to drop the price to 90 cents.
The store still makes 30 cents on the item, or the manufacturer makes 10 cents (depending on whether it was a sale or coupon), instead of nothing at all, if they hadn’t dropped the price to snare the price-sensitive customer.
Doubling these up is still in their best interest- they could combine a sale with the manufacturer coupon and drop the sale price by 20 cents, and both would still make money, assuming that the customer would not have bought the item for $1.00.
