petitefrancaise

It seems to be a national pastime this business of collecting coupons!

Yesterday I was in bedbathbeyond and the woman in front of me seemed to be taking ages so I stopped looking at my phone and looked to see what was going on. Coupons, loads of them. This woman ended up knocking about $50 off her bill to a shade under $100. I usually can't be bothered to save a few bucks here and there, but this is serious savings in a store that didn't appear to have any kind of sale going on.

anyone else collect coupons? Do I really have to trawl through all the rubbish spammy stuff in my mailbox? Should I set up an email address specifically to sign up for offers?

Pulaski

I think you arrived in the US after this gem of "reality" TV originally aired in 2011-2012.

I'll use a coupon occasionally, but I can't be är§ed to hord and sort stacks of the things. Mostly I try to make sure that I am buying something I would buy anyway.

One local grocery I shop at seems to know that I only shop there occasionally so routinely gives me a coupon from the coupon printer for $20 off $20, $2.50 off $25, or even $4 off $20, and I'll pick up some bits and pieces to get the discount.

Nutek

She should be taken out to the back of the staff parking lot and set on by angry attack Badgers.
Along with anyone who tries to pay by 'kin check.

Shower of bastards. All of 'em.

Jerseygirl

I couldn't believe the old fashioned habit of cutting coupons when I first moved to the US. You can even by A to Z files to to keep them in. You see people wandering around the supermarket with their little files bulging with coupons.

Very annoying when you are in the check out line and when the cashier totals the bill...out comes the bulging coupon file. The customer then goes through all the things she has just purchased and tries to match them against the coupons. Then out comes the cheque book.

Anian

Certain stores will rip you off if you don't have a coupon. Bad Bath and Beyond always gives out 30% coupons, Michaels and Joann Crafts do 40% off coupons, JC Penny and Macy's, etc. Even Toys R Us have marked up a load of stuff well above MSRP just to give discounts that bring them back to normal prices.

It's absurd.

Pulaski

The thought of her being set upon by angry badgers is disturbing. .... Now that I know what an angry badger is, which I didn't two minutes ago.

Nutek

I'm not clicking on that.

Pulaski

Probably wise, it's an urban dictionary entry, and I would draw the line at illustrating it. .... Actually I would draw the line a long way short of illustrating it.

petitefrancaise

What gets me is that at the supermarket (HEB), I get automatic printouts of coupons for stuff I NEVER buy. Hint, if my basket is full of vegetables, meat and GF bread, not much point giving me coupons for readymade lasagne.

A neighbour gave me the headsup on Michaels when I told her I couldn't believe the cost of framing a picture. Now, of course, I go in there and buy something for a dollar or so and then get the 40-50% off coupon with the til receipt, then produce the other thing to purchase....

kins

How do you get BBB 30% coupons? I've only ever got 20%.

Pulaski

Maybe not you, but they know that people who buy products X, Y, and Z can be induced to buy products A and B, and they have invested a lot into the data collection, mining, and related technology to make it work. A former neighbour of mine is the head of IT at an outsource company that supports those coupon vouchers, and mining and exploiting the data collected from loyalty cards/accounts has been a huge growth area in recent years.

petitefrancaise

well, the guy in there trying to get me to buy an over-priced food processor told me that they will accept manufacturer's coupons along with their own.

tom169

I think couponing is fine. My wife tries to be on the lookout for deals and coupons to integrate with normal shopping.

We don't have the space to hoard goods, but have decent stocks of things like toothpaste from when they were cheap.

There are a few websites that find deals like southern savers that I know she uses.

I also find myself shopping at Walmart for usual groceries given they're just over the road from where we live and they have an app to scan the receipt to get a refund if it was cheaper elsewhere.

Pulaski

Sometimes you can stack price-match, rebates, and 0% interest deals. Now I sound like Tonrob.

Bob

I kind of casually do it. Wegmans, send out a bunch of coupons in their monthly magazine they send out, but now, they're being added to your loyalty card, partially I think because people weren't using them to get the two things or certain brands but till people just overode the things.

I'll set aside coupons for Picture People, or whatever and we'll compare prices at a holiday.

Local town paper, I'll keep the coupon page, which often has free appetisers or what not at various restaurants.

I don't go out of my way to use coupons and find them though, except for the Target Cartwheel app, which works quite nicely.