Coupons: Are They Worth The Hassle?

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This is a guest post by the wonderful Heather Sokol. You can visit her where she writes for Inexpensively.com and also, you can follow her on twitter @justheather. She’s also a member of the awesome Yakezie group. If you enjoy her post, please let her know in the comments here and by adding the post to your favorite social bookmarking site, like StumbleUpon, Digg, Tip’d, or Reddit.

If I told you, I would give you $5000 for groceries every year, if you’ll spend an extra 30 minutes planning your shopping list, would you do it?

That’s exactly what the stores & manufacturers do every week with sale ads and coupons. Yet, nearly 90% of coupons go unredeemed each year and countless shoppers buy products without ever glancing at the sales ad or price tag. A little extra effort, a bit of advanced planning and mastering the art of couponing can go a long way towards reducing your monthly expenses.

Coupons are a multi-billion dollar industry – last year, over 500 billion dollars worth of coupons were distributed. Most of them landed in the garbage (or, hopefully, the recycle bin!). So, why are consumers throwing all that money away? The answers I hear when I ask readers, friends & family this question typically include “it takes too much time,” “it isn’t worth the effort” and “I can’t find coupons for the things I buy.”

Coupons take too much time.

I spend an average of 20-30 minutes clipping coupons each week. I spend about half an hour in the store doing the actual shopping. I don’t count the time I spend putting together grocery lists for Inexpensively, since there are literally hundreds of blogs dedicated to creating coupon ad matchups. The average shopper can completely skip that step (but, for the record, I spend about 30 minutes per store). Grand total? One hour for coupon clipping & shopping.

How much time do you spend wandering the aisles at the grocery store?

Coupons aren’t worth the effort.

We’ve already discussed the time spent, which I think is the bulk of the “effort” people refer to with a statement like this. Clipping coupons isn’t too taxing – I promise. I typically cut coupons in front of the television. I’ve even let my children help out now & then. If a 7-year-old can handle it, I think most adults could manage as well.

The question becomes one of time again – does the money you save really justify the extra time? My grocery bill typically shows a “total saved” (including sales & coupons) of around 50% – sometimes way more, sometimes less. I once tracked every penny saved & spent in Quicken. My monthly grocery budget was $400 per month. That year, I saved over $3000 in store sales & $2000 in coupons. It breaks down to about $95 per hour.

How much do you make for an hour of your time?

There are no coupons for {insert your favorite product here}.

Maybe not, but I promise it will eventually go on sale. Everything does – even the pricey gluten free foods my own family requires. Even if you don’t use coupons, pay attention to the weekly sale ad, check clearance racks and know where to find manager specials. You can find discounts on meat, produce, bakery goods, deli products and organic foods.

Plus, you’ll be surprised at the wide variety of coupons you can find if you start to look. Contact your favorite companies, and they may add you to their mailing list, send you loyalty offers or tell you where to print their coupons online. The store coupon machine (called a Catalina machine) will frequently spit out coupons for $2 off your next $25 purchase – you can buy anything you want!

Why would you throw away a coupon that’s good on anything in the store?

Getting Started with Coupons

Once you start to see the impact coupons have on your budget, it’s easy to dedicate an extra 30 minutes to planning a shopping trip. Here are a few quick tips to help you make the most of your time:

• Collect multiple coupons so you can really stock up on your favorite products.
• Don’t stress over clipping every coupon or missing an expiration date – it will cycle back around again soon enough.
• A sale is great and a coupon is awesome, but using a coupon on a sale item will cut your costs drastically!
• Google “your favorite store + weekly deals” to find a grocery deal site that covers the stores in your area – they match the weekly sales with coupons so all the hard work is done for you.
• Get into the habit of carrying your coupons everywhere you go – you’ll be prepared for spur of the moment trips and ready to take advantage of unadvertised specials & markdowns.
• Sort the coupons for your weekly grocery trip in order of the store aisle – you’ll save time, using the stack of coupons as your grocery list as you shop.

I have been using coupons for almost 15 years now, and I know they’ll be a part of our life no matter how far from broke we become. Hey – if it’s good enough for Warren Buffet, it’s good enough for me!

Heather Sokol is the married mother of 3 beautiful, active girls. While they do their best to keep her broke, she’s beating it with money saving tips, deals, coupons and grocery lists at Inexpensively.

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