🤝 Community Crazy Couponers

[Barbarella]

There were some people on the couponing show committing fraud, too.
One woman figured out the bar code for a full size $3.00 off coupon could be used on sample sizes, so the stores ended up owing her money. She eventually got caught, but threw a fit when her scam was stopped.

When I was doing it you couldn't receive cash overages, and stores wouldn't take home printed coupons.

I also agree that most people are jerks. I'd see others do it and bitch over a 30 cent coupon. (Even if it doubled, it's only 60 cents.) If one of mine didn't ring, I'd let it go and apologize. I always blamed myself.

I always had mine in order, with bar code facing the right way, small to big so they could swipe fast, and didn't argue about any perceived problems. I didn't want to be rude, and I wanted out of there too.

I saw evidence of rudeness on the aisles. I'd never clean out an item and etiquette said you should leave some for the next couponer, especially something rare (like soda, very hard to get free or cheap) But often the shelf would be cleared out and I'd see people with the goods in their carts. I'd never take more than my share.

Still, rudeness went both ways. Like I said, I did everything I could to make the transaction easy, including going at the deadest time of day and being very nice and friendly and apologizing in advance. And there were still clerks very rude to me for taking up more time than they thought I should have even though there was no line. I did what I could to make it pleasant for everybody but there is always one....

I think my mistake was going to the wrong homeless shelters. I gave a lot of toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss, packaged noodles and medicines away. But they didn't like the cans of spaghetti sauce and condiments and packaged spices and the pasta-so much pasta! They were apparently handing it to the street homeless, it wasn't a shelter that they could stay in. More of a distribution center I guess. My mistake, I should have gone to a food bank. When my hobby ended, (and it didn't last long), I gave most of it to my mailman to give to some halfway house, they do that yearly. . Poor guy, he had bags to carry, lol. I kept what I'd use in a reasonable time and gave the rest away and was done with that!

I understand the hate-I wouldn't have wanted to check me out, or stand in line behind me so I get it. Once I learned how it worked, and how you could actually get groceries for almost nothing, I gave it up. That's my specialty-learning and trying something new, then moving on. Jack of all trades, master of none! I'm more of a Whole Foods shopper and you cant do that there anyway.

All this was a number of years ago and maybe it's changed. I should watch one of those shows to see. .

Sorry this is soooo long-I'll check out of the thread now as I'm too long-winded. Just thought some might be interested. If anybody has a question though, just let me know, otherwise, I'll bow out.

 

[Cheesegirl78]

When I was doing it you couldn't receive cash overages, and stores wouldn't take home printed coupons.

I also agree that most people are jerks. I'd see others do it and bitch over a 30 cent coupon. (Even if it doubled, it's only 60 cents.) If one of mine didn't ring, I'd let it go and apologize. I always blamed myself.

I always had mine in order, with bar code facing the right way, small to big so they could swipe fast, and didn't argue about any perceived problems. I didn't want to be rude, and I wanted out of there too.

I saw evidence of rudeness on the aisles. I'd never clean out an item and etiquette said you should leave some for the next couponer, especially something rare (like soda, very hard to get free or cheap) But often the shelf would be cleared out and I'd see people with the goods in their carts. I'd never take more than my share.

Still, rudeness went both ways. Like I said, I did everything I could to make the transaction easy, including going at the deadest time of day and being very nice and friendly and apologizing in advance. And there were still clerks very rude to me for taking up more time than they thought I should have even though there was no line. I did what I could to make it pleasant for everybody but there is always one....

I think my mistake was going to the wrong homeless shelters. I gave a lot of toothpaste, toothbrushes, floss, packaged noodles and medicines away. But they didn't like the cans of spaghetti sauce and condiments and packaged spices and the pasta-so much pasta! They were apparently handing it to the street homeless, it wasn't a shelter that they could stay in. More of a distribution center I guess. My mistake, I should have gone to a food bank. When my hobby ended, (and it didn't last long), I gave most of it to my mailman to give to some halfway house, they do that yearly. . Poor guy, he had bags to carry, lol. I kept what I'd use in a reasonable time and gave the rest away and was done with that!

I understand the hate-I wouldn't have wanted to check me out, or stand in line behind me so I get it. Once I learned how it worked, and how you could actually get groceries for almost nothing, I gave it up. That's my specialty-learning and trying something new, then moving on. Jack of all trades, master of none! I'm more of a Whole Foods shopper and you cant do that there anyway.

All this was a number of years ago and maybe it's changed. I should watch one of those shows to see. .

Sorry this is soooo long-I'll check out of the thread now as I'm too long-winded. Just thought some might be interested. If anybody has a question though, just let me know, otherwise, I'll bow out.

It never bothered me, I would be in awe of people getting $400 worth if groceries for $17.00. Just got fed up with the ones acting like not getting 15 cents off some TP was the end of their world and assuming I plotted with Big TP to ruin their lives.

 

[Red Velvet]

Couponing isn't a thing where I live. Stores just have sales that are automatically applied at the register (like buy 2 bottles of juice, get the third one free type of deals).

How does it work? Where do you get the coupons from? If someone doesn't mind explaining ( @Barbarella if you have the time and don't mind) the whole process it would be great because it's completely foreign to me.

What would the most useless thing be, or is it all grocery staples?

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

My mom and I always notice how uh....large... these people are on the show. It's surprising, it's not as if the foods you can get through coupons are exactly healthy food. A lot of the things they stock up on are sugary drinks.

 

[Sushinope]

I worked in a place where we sorted and counted flyers with coupons , it was surprising how many people would stalk the area and try to get into the recycling bins in the back or try to buy the extra flyers.

 

[yummy hand sanitizer]

I'll use the occasional coupon if it's for something I need/want to buy anyway, but there are definitely people around here that do it. They will go to the dollar store and buy a bunch of Sunday newspapers to get extra coupon flyers.

 

[HickoryDickory]

Couponing isn't a thing where I live. Stores just have sales that are automatically applied at the register (like buy 2 bottles of juice, get the third one free type of deals).

How does it work? Where do you get the coupons from? If someone doesn't mind explaining ( @Barbarella if you have the time and don't mind) the whole process it would be great because it's completely foreign to me.

What would the most useless thing be, or is it all grocery staples?

I get coupon flyers in the newspaper and they can be for a variety of things. They usually are for shampoos, toothbrushes, pet supplies, diapers, cleaning products, make-up, food, etc. Since it's Back to School time, there are coupons for lunchboxes, pens, markers, etc.

 

[Barbarella]

Couponing isn't a thing where I live. Stores just have sales that are automatically applied at the register (like buy 2 bottles of juice, get the third one free type of deals).

How does it work? Where do you get the coupons from? If someone doesn't mind explaining ( @Barbarella if you have the time and don't mind) the whole process it would be great because it's completely foreign to me.

What would the most useless thing be, or is it all grocery staples?

I dont mind, but it's a process. The main thing to remember is you are not shopping for what you need. Forget lists, You are shopping the sales, whether you need it now or not. . The idea is you can stock up on stuff quickly so you always have what you need and " shop your pantry"

So, First, you need a store that doubles couples. (You can still do it without but you cant get awedropping discounts without it. Still, you can save money.) Doubling means if the coupon says you get a dollar off, it'll be two.

Then you need a ton of coupons, I mean a LOT. I used to get the Sunday paper, and go to newspaper boxes people didn't seem to use in the evening, and take coupons from there, then go to Starbucks where people read papers and leave it and grab coupons. I asked all my cowworkers and neighbors for then. I was always on the lookout.

(The point of having so many is if you find Del Monte ketchup on sale for a 1.10, and you have six coupons for 50 cents that double, you can walk out with 6 bottles of ketchup for 60
cents. ) after a while, you know when stores have sales but not at the beginning.

I got a big binder with baseball cards pockets , and I organaized them by my store. If the left of the aisle as cheese, that's where my cheese coupons were, and so on. I did this aisle to aisle as it save a lot of time. You have to see what everything costs and compare with your coupons.

Then you learn to read the coupons bar codes. This means you learn who owns each company too. So, you have a Betty crocker pie crust coupon for 50 cents, but the code says it will ring for anything the company makes, then you can get plastic bags or foil or something that Crocker makes but still works. that is onsale for .75. You have a quarter left over but they don't usually hand out money.

Getting fruits and vegetables is mostly because of wine hangtags. You've probable walked into your store and suddenly seen tags on wine. Well, we'll snatch them up (although the unwritten rule was to leave some for fellow couponers. I always did but I'd say most wouldn't.

These hang tags are great because they say buy a wine and get lemons and acacados, ot fruit or whatever they imagined would be good with their wine. So a tag was coded so it was worth any produce. And, you can't make people buy wine, many of them were even worded to scare you, so you could use the coupon and not have to buy the wine, probably because of minors. So grab wine tags land you can get your meat and veggies.

I remember when monostat was coded 992, anything in the store, anything. And it was a five Doller coupon.that doubled. Ten free bucks! Anything that is not the packaged food in most stores.

Have a couple of them and it's steak and lobster. .
Sadly, they stopped that in my tenure.
Soda sometimes the cans of soda went in sale, five for five buck and you'd have five coupons for 50cents. Awesome. Free soda. That didnt happen often and when it did, it got wiped out. People like soda! But the liter bottles were easy, they were always 89 can't and you get a 40 cent coupon.

Stuff like deodorant,shampoo toothpaste, mouthwash, pads, makeup, you could always get them free.always. Took me a long time to want to pay for something I know I shouldn't.

There are websites that teach you this, sorta and code checkers. I'd be interested to see how much it's changed in five years. Not that it popular.

What the weirdest thing? Pretty much anything in a grocery store is available. I guess I got some night lights I never used used, but is that very weird! I got some kids medicinrvtoo. Mostly, just stuff.

It was cool to watch stuff ring up so high and then coming gown so low. But it was work getting coupons, spending hours in the srore

I'm glad it did it.

I'm tired and messing up so if it's not clear, ask me in there am.

 

[AnOminous]

Still, rudeness went both ways. Like I said, I did everything I could to make the transaction easy, including going at the deadest time of day and being very nice and friendly and apologizing in advance. And there were still clerks very rude to me for taking up more time than they thought I should have even though there was no line. I did what I could to make it pleasant for everybody but there is always one....

This. If you're going to do this maddening coupon thing where you get two carts full of groceries for $5 or whatever, at least time it so you aren't fucking up the lives of a bunch of innocent people whose only crime is that they need groceries as soon as their paycheck clears, and all they want to do is get home and feed their kids.

 

[Red Velvet]

Thanks for the rundown @Barbarella , couponing sounds serious business.

From the sounds of things it's all name brand items, not the generic supermarket low cost no-label items. It sounds so crazy that a person could walk out with a trolley load for $5! Does anyone know how the store make up for the money 'lost' on the coupon?

 

[AnOminous]

Thanks for the rundown @Barbarella , couponing sounds serious business.

From the sounds of things it's all name brand items, not the generic supermarket low cost no-label items. It sounds so crazy that a person could walk out with a trolley load for $5! Does anyone know how the store make up for the money 'lost' on the coupon?

The vast majority of people just show up at a store for one coupon they have and then spend a bunch of money on other shit. If everyone did this crazy shit of figuring out every single coupon and maxing out the value of them and then fleecing the store, they'd stop doing it.

This is also why most coupons are packed with fine print so if stores really decide they've had enough of your bullshit, they just refuse to honor them and ban you from the store and make you go away.

This is why the good crazy couponers do it in a way to minimize the harassment of store personnel and not be utter jerks about it.

 

[Barbarella]

Thanks for the rundown @Barbarella , couponing sounds serious business.

From the sounds of things it's all name brand items, not the generic supermarket low cost no-label items. It sounds so crazy that a person could walk out with a trolley load for $5! Does anyone know how the store make up for the money 'lost' on the coupon?

The manufacturers pay the stores for coupons. Store only lost if they doubled, which even back when I was doing it, was only one store. I think they considered it advertising. So I don't think stores lost much, most people get three coupons and use those and that's it. Those who go insane, like me, are rare.

I know that others did it in my town when I was, because I'd see the shelves of the free items wiped out, hang-tags missing, etc. but I think only one time did I ever see anybody ringing stuff up at the same time as me. I really did have a very strong feeling I should go when a store was empty because it's rude keeping people waiting in line for my hobby. I think I was alone there though. .

No, generic stuff wasn't part of the game. You combine a coupon with a sale. Generic, off-brands don't have coupons. Sales were on a six week cycle so you could kind of plan, especially if you went to multiple stores, which I didn't. But usually, discontinued items were the best, they'd always be marked super low and with a coupon, you could get for free and sometimes it wasn't your typical item.

I can't tell you how time consuming it was though. I would spend two hours in the store, at least, looking at every price and comparing it to my coupons. Plus looking in the Sunday paper for sales, hunting for coupons, cutting them, organizing them, checking expectation dates... it was like a full time job. I guess if I got poor I might do it again, but it's hard to imagine. Once I learned how it worked, it really wasn't fun.

 

[Slowboat to China]

I used to wince when I saw a couponer coming through my line. We were a 24-hour store, and I was night shift, so it was good that they were shopping during off-hours there was always, always, always something that would go wrong with their orders or their coupons. Couponers seemed to trail bad luck like a mummy's curse.

I never got any of the truly hardcore professional couponers, though. Their local equivalents were the (sorry to say) ethnic moms, usually Chinese or Filipino, who had fifty billion crumpled coupons but no organization and would outright scream at you if something didn't scan up right. And since sales ended at midnight, we'd have people come in at 1 AM furious that their coupons were no longer good.

@Barbarella, thank you for being organized and polite during your couponing days. I'm sorry to say others didn't do the same.

 

[sparklemilhouse]

My mom and I always notice how uh....large... these people are on the show.

Also they age more rapidly. The girls who were like 23,24 on the TLC show looked almost 40 because they spent the last 2 years worrying about coupons.

 

[dunbrine47]

 

[GentlemanFaggot]

I never got any of the truly hardcore professional couponers, though. Their local equivalents were the (sorry to say) ethnic moms, usually Chinese or Filipino, who had fifty billion crumpled coupons but no organization and would outright scream at you if something didn't scan up right. And since sales ended at midnight, we'd have people come in at 1 AM furious that their coupons were no longer good.

Yep, I remember those days.

At least the Filipino ones spoke English usually. The Chinese ones would just start yelling in Mandarin until you gave up.

 

[Polexia Aphrodisia]

I really ought to get into couponing...thank you Barbarella for this amazing info!

That being said...you should never feel entitled to anything extra as a consumer. If something doesn't scan right, it's not the fault of the poor employee at the till. If you can't stockpile up on cheeseballs, that's no reason to throw a fit. If it's more than you need, which it often is, you shouldn't act like it's the end of the world.

The only reason I could see rationalizing a tantrum about coupons is if it were someone on food stamps or WIC who had spent hours getting coupons so they could have enough food to not have to worry about it for a while, and then the plan didn't work out. But I don't know how many people on WIC are that thorough about utilizing what they're given...

 

[Karl der Grosse]

Way too many extreme couponers enjoy the whole thing because they enjoy dominating their will (as they see it) over the cashier/store's desires, see above. Some of them live for the moment there's an argument. The same personality type that fucks with waiters/waitresses. Very controlling and aggressive.

 

[Caesare]

The only reason I could see rationalizing a tantrum about coupons is if it were someone on food stamps or WIC who had spent hours getting coupons so they could have enough food to not have to worry about it for a while, and then the plan didn't work out. But I don't know how many people on WIC are that thorough about utilizing what they're given...

If they were that efficient they wouldn't be poor.