Extreme Couponing: Is it Worth the Effort?
The latest television craze brought forth by TLC has gotten millions of people questioning whether extreme coupon hunting could in fact work for them. The easiest answer is yes, but upon further investigation the answer starts to lose steam. Not everyone can take advantage of all coupons, and not everyone will enjoy the arduous task involved with finding the deals to use on a consistent basis. When it is all considered, it’s easy to see why there are pros and cons to extreme couponing. While some people might find it fascinating, others will give up quickly. Consider the following pros and cons, and then consider whether it’s something worth chasing in your life.
On the pros side, people can save serious money. Extreme couponing has shown that people of all backgrounds can walk away from a store with a lot of different groceries and pay next to nothing, and in some cases pay nothing at all. This type of savings is a welcome thing for anyone who is living on a budget.
Another pro to extreme couponing is for everyone that is looking to stockpile things in case of emergency. Natural disasters can strike at any time, and with coupons a family or individual can stock lots of different non perishable items just in case.
On the cons side is the time required to collect enough coupons to gain the type of savings that are displayed by television. In order to walk away with a lot of groceries, a person has to put in hours of time looking through coupons, organizing coupons, and putting them in an order that will be easy to access during the next shopping trip. An extensive catalog needs to be made, or else the coupons will expire, without use.
Another con is that many coupons require name brand items to be purchased and the savings don’t even add up all that well. Yes, extreme savings can be had, but most name brand savings require purchasing two or three items, and if the super market isn’t having a sale, the coupon might not save quite as much money.
There are a lot of ways to save money at the grocery store, and coupons can really help families stretch their grocery budget. However, the extreme side of coupon saving is not going to find a welcome home for everyone. There is a great deal of time that needs to be dedicated to clipping, saving, organizing, and cataloging savings for future use. Without extra time, storage, and know how, the task can be quite painstaking.
Is extreme couponing for you? If you have the time to put into it then you can go ahead and give it a try. You will either find it highly stressful or perhaps you will get a rush from the big savings you accumulate. The good news is whether you decide to go the extreme route or just make small changes, we can all slash our grocery budget through proper meal planning, using coupons on items that we actually use and of course, stocking up on non perishables that are on sale.
Do you want to learn to become more efficient with coupons? Learn the secrets from this power couponer.