Last Updated on February 28, 2019 by Dave Farquhar
I haven’t written about being a tightwad in a while. Not to worry, I’m still a big cheapskate–every dollar I save has a cascading effect. Remember, paying just an extra $10 a month on your mortgage is enough to shave a full month off the back end. So let’s talk about coupons.
The first thing about coupons is to resist the temptation to have to use them. Sometimes a generic still costs less than a name brand with a coupon. If that’s the case, put the coupon away and buy the generic. And if the coupon is for something you’d never buy anyway, resist the temptation to buy it just because you can get it for a quarter less.
The first trick with coupons is to know where to look. They’re everywhere, actually. Newspapers and magazines, certainly. You get some in the mail too. Take a few minutes to flip through them. You can find them online too. Try typing “coupons” into Google and see what you find.
I even found a coupon for Windex from 1982 in an old cookbook. I really wanted to try to use it just to see the cashier’s reaction, but I seem to have misplaced it.
Another place to look for coupons is the back pages of the phone book. The coupons may be the only reason not to throw out the McLeod book. Usually what you’ll find are coupons for services, such as electrical or plumbing work. But if you need those services, you might as well save money on them. The McLeod phone book even has an index.
Maximizing coupons is an art form. One trick is to not use them right away. Products tend not to go on sale right after a coupon is issued. They go on sale a few weeks later. So buy a few weeks later.
The other trick is to not be so brand-loyal. Usually my wife takes a Healthy Choice frozen dinner for lunch. But we have coupons for Lean Cuisine. Guess which we bought this week? (Both happened to be on sale this week too. Lucky us.)
Take advantage of double coupons when they’re offered, but stores generally don’t do that very often anymore.
About a month ago there was a story about a woman who shops for a local food pantry. She clipped coupons and got all her friends to save coupons for her too, and she became a legend. She combined every coupon and every offer she possibly could, and whenever she saw a good deal she bought as much as was allowed. She said one time she got a cart full of groceries for some ridiculously low amount of money–something like $3.
She had help. Since practically all the store employees knew what she was doing, they tended to tip her off on upcoming specials and other insider knowledge you and I won’t ever get.
But it’s still an art worth mastering, even if it still costs the rest of us more than $3 to fill a shopping cart.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
An adjunct to coupons we use is the so-called "loyalty card." A bar-coded card specific to a certain grocery chain which offers add’l cents off on various items when scanned at checkout (these savings are usually advertised on the shelf or in the store’s newspaper ad).
Yes, I know… privacy advocates scream about all the marketing info I’m giving up on my household by using these. My response is, "So what ?" I appreciate the savings and I *want* the store to know the things I like to buy, so that they’ll continue to stock them 🙂
I haven’t seen those in St. Louis. Interesting. I wonder what I need to do to get one. It’s usually easier to save a nickel than it is to earn one.
Personally, I don’t really care who knows how often I buy sirloin burger soup and clam chowder and that I’ve never bought tomato soup in my life. (And I guess I just proved it by posting it on the Internet for the whole world to see. Now we’ll see if anyone cares.) And like you say, if the marketers know it sells and who buys it, it’s more likely be on the shelf the next time I hit the store.
Come to think of it, I’ve done some paid surveys on that type of information. So I’ve been paid as little as $1.00 (and waited as long as 3 months to get that dollar) to tell all about my grocery shopping habits.
I know some products that people are sensitive about, but that’s easy enough to work around. Buy that stuff seperately, pay for it with cash, and don’t use anything else that can be traced to you. But the cashier’s going to see it. But my wife, who worked as a grocery cashier as a teenager, says the cashier usually doesn’t even notice what it is he or she is ringing.