What's the Secret to Extreme Couponing? (2024)

FAQs

What's the Secret to Extreme Couponing? ›

Match up your coupons with store circulars.

Combining deals to score items for free or for pennies on the dollar. The key to extreme couponing is not to take advantage of just one deal but to take advantage of multiple deals at the same time. By stacking the deals available to you, you can get great prices on items.

Extreme couponing can be a good way to save money. It takes a lot of time and effort, though. You will often have to shop at multiple stores and may need to buy things you don't always want.

Extreme couponers primarily get their coupons through print sources such as store ads, newspapers or in the mail. These savers often shop with a binder filled with plastic sleeves containing hundreds of paper coupons.

Do Stores Lose Money by Couponing? In general, stores do not lose money from offering or accepting coupons. In fact, they are more likely to profit.

It involves deliberately modifying and/or using a coupon in a way not allowed by its terms and conditions for undue financial or material gain. This is almost always a violation of federal and regional laws in the US and other countries and can result in charges such as theft, larceny, and counterfeiting.

Many extreme couponers amass stockpiles of stuff by buying items when they are free or near-free. You'll have a lot of items you need to keep track of, rotate so they don't go bad, and either use, sell, or give away. All of this usually means you end up spending hours a week just dealing with your couponing habit.

As it turns out, certain metropolitan areas are particularly thrifty when it comes to shopping, according to a new report from Coupons.com. The site used couponing as a proxy for frugality. Some of the top 10 penny-pinching cities were Orlando, Florida; Washington, Charlotte, North Carolina; and New York.

Do millionaires use coupons? ›

Three out of four millionaires (75%) stated that regular, consistent investing over a long period of time was the reason for their success. Perhaps even more surprising, 93% of millionaires regularly use coupons when shopping.

Step 1: Find Your Coupons

The very first thing you need to focus on doing is getting the coupons you want to use. There are some key things to remember when doing this. You don't want to go shopping to use your coupons. You want to find coupons that work with the shopping you already do.

Walmart accepts Dollars/Cents Off coupons and BOGO (Buy One Get One Free). BOGO manufacturer coupons cannot be combined (i.e. you cannot use two BOGO manufacturer coupons on two items and get both for free).

Extreme couponing isn't for everyone. Most of us feel pretty good if we clip a coupon or two and save a few dollars on a trip to the supermarket, but it's difficult to work up the time and energy for hard-core couponing. Stacking, OYNOs, mail-in rebates, double coupons -- it just seems like too much work.

So, while you can try out extreme couponing to get certain items at no cost, you can't count on it to be a consistent, effective way to lower your grocery bill in 2024.

To capitalize on all the possible savings, time your shopping trips so they fall on days when a store is already having a sale. Depending on the store's policy, you may be able to add discounts and coupons on top of sale prices and save even more.

One participant in "Extreme Couponing" blogged about her experience after the filming, saying, "The entire show is scripted. The producer handed us coupons to give them and told us what to say. Totally fake. Sorry if it ruins it for anyone."

Coupon fraud is the use of fake coupons, or the misuse of actual coupons, to derive more value from a promotion than someone would usually be entitled to. This can include using a coupon multiple times, changing its value or expiration date, or redeeming it for the wrong (or even no) product.