Are Coupons Worth the Time? 5 Reasons They Are!

Sometimes I meet coupon non-believers. You know, the types that think that coupons are a waste of time. Usually the non-believers tell me that they don’t clip coupon for several reasons. The conversation sounds something like this…

1. “Coupons are only for processed food and we don’t eat processed food”
   My Response: You don’t eat any processed food? Not even Chef Boyardee or Cheez its? Just kidding. Many people don’t know that there are coupons for a lot of non-processed food including organics, meat, dairy and even vegetables. We eat a lot of tomatoes and make a lot of pasta sauce, so we’re always thrilled when the Muir Glen $0.75 coupons come out on coupons.com. The cans of tomatoes retail for about $1.50-$2.00 so free or $0.50 after a doubled coupon at the grocery store.
2. “Coupons aren’t worth the time”
   I don’t think I’ve ever come across a person who wants to spend more money instead of less. But if you’re that person, then maybe coupons aren’t worth your time. I’m a pretty frugal person, so I can save myself even $5.00 at the grocery store using coupons, I will. Taking a quick look at the deal sites and blogs and matching my grocery list with coupons take as few as 20 minutes. If you’re not an extreme couponer and don’t aspire to save 99% each trip, then a simple clipping of your weekly coupon inserts will take very little time. Just clip the coupons for the products you use and toss the rest.
   
3. “You can’t eat shampoo and paper towels”
   Nope, but the money I don’t spend buying shampoo and paper towels,can be spent on food that I do eat and enjoy. Or better yet, I can save the money I would have spent buying shampoo and put it into my emergency fund.
4. “We just buy generic, it’s cheaper than name brand”
   If you don’t coupon, that might be true. But if you do coupon, you can almost always get name brands for cheaper than the store brand. There are some products that we buy generic because we like them better, but for the products we enjoy that are name brand, we can almost always pair a sale and coupon and get a much cheaper price. You remember the Johnson & Johnson baby products I got for $0.50 a bottle? Even if I bought generic brand lotions and powders, I couldn’t have gotten them for that cheap.
   
5. “But why would you buy products you don’t use?”Because they are free, and people in America are hungry. I might not personally eat tuna fish, but if I can buy 10 cans for free I will. I give them to friends and family or I donate them to our local pantries. Lets just say, the boxes of cereal, razors and coffee that I’ve dropped off at our local shelter have made me a very “popular” visitor.

While I don’t recommend going “crazy” with coupons or getting “extreme” and stockpiling 15 years of toilet paper, I do strongly encourage people to learn about couponing and to buy products they use with coupons.

Curious about the cat food and treats? I bought them this past weekend at Pet Smart. I was lucky enough to match a sale with a coupon. When I got to Pet Smart there was a coupon that gave me a free bag of treats when I bought a bag of food (what luck!). Here’s what the transaction looked like:

Yup, you read that right, $3.96 for 16 pounds of cat food and 4 bags of treats. Our cats are big eaters and will finish a bag in a little under a month. The expiration date on the food is next year, so you can bet I’ll be back at Pet Smart buying a few more bags to stock up. Why pay $8.00 a bag when I can get them for $0.99? Once I buy enough for our kitties, I’ll be buying some for our local shelter.