Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Couponing to the Extreme

Last night I watched EXTREME COUPONING for the first time.

Anyone who knows me knows I enjoy using coupons and getting good deals, especially at the grocery store. But watching these women on this show made me realize why coupons are getting scarcer and rules at stores are tightening up.

Two of the women had hundreds of ten and twenty year old coupons their mother had clipped back in the days when many did not have expiration dates. And they had a dozen or more of each of more recent ones. The store they went to had a limit to how many coupons could be doubled in one transaction. So - these women went back in the store TEN TIMES (no joke) to make ten separate transactions. They got almost a thousand dollars worth of groceries for $20.

I do not think that is a good thing. I think that is outrageous. That is abusing the system far beyond what is intended. What if everyone tried to do that! There would be no coupons for anyone because the companies would quit issuing them - neither companies nor stores could make a profit. I've seen other people who abuse coupons over the years in other ways - such as splitting a family into three booths in order to use three coupons that each state "one per party." These things are wrong. I hope and pray that I will never abuse "the system" that allows me to save money on many items.

NOTE: Here is a link to a far more in-depth post on taking frugality too far, written by my blogging friend Barbara. She makes some outstanding points.

2 comments:

Barbara H. said...

That's incredible. I've been wanting to write a post about going too far with frugality.

Ann said...

Great! Would like to hear what you have to say.