By Kevin Meyer
Somehow I got roped into watching another mind-numbing show on TV… Extreme Couponing on TLC. How and why? If you're a married dude you probably understand. I was about to poke a stick in my eye when my lean lobe began to quiver – something just wasn't right, and there was a lesson in the madness.
Those of you who didn't have the pleasure to watch the show can probably figure out the premise. People with far too much time on their hands buy massive amounts of groceries, use massive numbers of coupons, and somehow get everything practically free. It is impressive – $638 worth of food for $2.64 in one case.
But it comes at a cost – an extreme cost – and one that is apparently hidden to these nincompoops.
First off they spend hours and hours researching deals. Then they spend hours and hours finding coupons – sometimes via dumpster diving or even paying a clipping service. Then they spend hours and hours making planning their attack on the innocent local supermarket. Then they execute – taking hours to find everything and check out – disrupting the store's inventory and a bunch of people's time. Finally they lug everything back home and find a place to store it.
And store they do. In almost all cases they had rooms and garages and such filled with groceries. Shelf after shelf. Meticulously organized, everything in reverse order of purchase or expiration. Everything their family needed for years… and years… and years. 150 years in one case.
150 years? Yes.
So explain that savings to me again. Tens if not hundreds of hours of time researching, clipping, executing, organizing. I don't know about you, but I do have place a financial value on my time, and it is far greater than "free." Hundreds of square feet of storage space. Expiring groceries that have to be thrown away. A decade or even century of extra inventory that will never be used, although a couple of them are actively thinking of how they have added their stash to their wills. Lucky kids. I hope Old Spice is still trendy in the 2060's. Maybe it will come back in style. Again.
Savings? Sorry, I think my wife and I come out ahead by going out to eat every night at one of our three or four favorite local restaurants. Nice places, not Subway or Big Boy. Usually a grilled local fish and glass of wine for me, a bowl of soup and salad and martini for the wife. We spend no time shopping, no time prepping, no time cleaning. And we get some nice relaxed conversation and great food prepared by pros who know us by name. Plus we have a lot of storage space we don't need. In fact just this past weekend we gave the Food Bank two more bags of canned goods from our pantry that haven't been opened in years – since our latest attempt at cooking. Which lasted about two days. Cupboards and pantry are bare. Maybe we can rent them out to these extreme couponers.
Sure it costs money, but my time is freed up and there's value to me in saved time, reconnecting conversation, great food, and a perpetually clean kitchen.
However I do need to say a couple of the people profiled in the show do have worthy goals. One really did just buy what she needed, and didn't maintain a massive inventory. Another bought hundreds of boxes of cereal – for a couple bucks after the coupons – and gave them to his church's food bank.
Good for them. But I'll still stick with seared ahi tataki at Giancarlos, mahi mahi with mango salsa at The Galley, or the cedar plank salmon at Windows. Thank you.
Tim McMahon says
So this tradeoff between too much and lower cost is common for all of us. Of course 150 years is a little too much. What considerations should you look at when optimizing this tradeoff?
Dan Leblanc says
Thanks for sharing your opinion on family household management.
Have you considered the current economic environment, and the strain it places on the average household family with kids? While eating out every night with yoru wife might be fine for your, the reality is that families with kids don;t have that luxury. In some instances, we have a stay-at-home parent, which even which makes your notion even more unrealistic when you are raising a family on one salary.
I like your articles, but I think you put your blinders on for this one.
Until I am in a personal financial situation that I can treat myself daily, I will continue to use coupons. But, I don’t condone your choice in the matter.
Thanks,
Dan
Kevin says
Tim and Dan – yes no doubt we are an extreme, with the other extreme being someone who believes having 150 years of stock is “saving.” Each situation is different leading to different but correct perceptions of value. My wife and I don’t have kids, not completely our choice, so what we value is different than someone with kids. My point is to think about value as more than just price – there’s the value of time (which is why families would occasionally order pizza in order to spend more time with the kids), the value of space, the cost of obsolescence, etc.
And just as in our personal lives we think of value different, consider how customers, suppliers, and manufacturers may all think of value differently – even for the same product.
Ron Pereira says
It’s too bad these people with 150 years supply don’t load up most of the stuff and head to the local soup kitchen… not THAT would be a great story and one I would definitely support since all the hours and time spent on this type of work would indeed end up adding tremendous value to society.
Rich says
I usually don’t respond to many of the articles I read on this site, but this one got me a bit. It’s true we all want to save money on groceries, but not to the extent that it becomes an obsession. I’m sort of like you Kevin, where I don’t want to spend all of my time worrying about how I’m going to save some dollars at the supermarket. I do use coupons sometimes, when I find them. I’d rather take that time to spend some money to enjoy the finer things in life!
Kevin says
Ron – one guy on the show did that. He bought hundreds of boxes of cereal for a couple bucks and donated them to his church. Interesting idea for a charitable activity – perhaps even team building. A tad more meaningful than making people swing on ropes!
Jim Fernandez says
Rich made me think about another angle on this theme. The large amount of time that these people spend buying groceries for nothing, could have been spent creating wealth (making money for themselves). And then if they paid regular prices for the groceries this would help create wealth for others. Could these coupon people actually be a burden on the economic system in some way? What if say 30% of all of us were doing what they do?
Can we consider them as people who produce nothing while living off the wealth someone else is creating?
Kevin says
Interesting point Jim. Presumably the cost of coupons is reflected in the price of the product via some estimate of use. When an extreme couponer goes to town it blows the model out of the water and really impacts individual stores – even if the store is reimbursed it jumbles up their inventory projections. But they are creating hidden inventory that is thereby an inefficient distribution of food resources, probably leading to a higher level of obsolescence which augments that inefficiency.
These are obviously bright people – the level of analysis and effort required to execute extreme coupon schemes was rather phenomenal. If those talents were used for good instead of evil… hmmm… I wonder how many Einsteins or Steve Jobs are sitting in their garages figuring out how to save a dime on deodorant.
Avijit says
I believe there is a medical term for this madness :OCD complex. For me,I will take Kevin’s side and eat out as much as I can to the point I can afford.meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how this glorified OCD on TV produce more and more converts. Medical bill is the only price to pay at some point if not indulged intelligently. Thanks Kevin for the humorous post.
Lost in the Northeast says
I learned long ago that coupons are a sucker’s gambit. They only exist to get you to buy something you normally would not. Yeah, so you get $200 of “food” for $2.65–what did you get? Hot Pockets by the truckload? Oh Joy! Buy fresh produce–fruits, vegetables, potatoes, etc.; meat; and do a little cooking. You will save way more than you ever would with coupons and eat much, much better. We don’t even shop at supermarkets much any more, but buy most of our food at farmers’ markets, which we are lucky enough to have in abundance and who sell a lot of organiz produce and meats. Think about this–if coupons are such a great idea, why don’t you ever see any for something good, like beer?
Dean says
Love the beer coupon comment.
I’ve never bothered with coupons unless it is a point-of-purchase coupon for something I’m buying anyway. Like Kevin said, the time spent in saving the money far eclipses the value to me.
That, however, is the point. This television show isn’t meant to be a “Look at what you can do” instruction show. It is just another in a long line of “reality” shows that exploits the foibles of people for the entertainment of others. To assume that it advocates “extreme couponing” is, frankly, naive in today’s media landscape.
But it works. Look at all of us laughing at these people, feeling all smug because we’re not suckers wasting our valuable (and righteously wealth-generating, according to Jim) time clipping coupons. Avijit had it right: these people are obsessive-compulsive, and have a problem. They probably don’t realize it, and I bet the producers of the tv show aren’t telling them, either.