Coupon Myths

No matter what you think you know about coupons and couponers, it is time to dispel some myths that cause people to NOT coupon. Changing your mindset is an important part of coupon success!
  1. “Store brands are cheaper.”
    Not true! When you use coupons correctly, national-brand items are usually cheaper or free. Store brands are not free!
  2. “It is cheaper for me to shop at a wholesale club or Walmart.”
    Not true! Buying items in bulk does not guarantee a better price- most of the time, you are really just wasting your money. Often, the items you are really saving on are the house or store brands, and in item-to-item comparisons, you come out ahead buy matching coupons to sales in grocery stores. As for Walmart, check out this post from one of my favorite blogs: Southern Savers. 
  3. “Only poor people use coupons.”
    Not true! Actually, studies done on coupon demographics show that well over half of couponers are from household with income greater than $60,000 a year.
  4. “There are no coupons for things that are healthy.”
    Not true! There are a lot of organic coupons available, especially if you sign up at the manufacturer websites. Not only that, but often when you get an item that has overage, the overage acts like a coupon for the other stuff (milk, produce, meat) that you don’t have a coupon for. Some stores also send out coupons for meat and produce quite often.
  5. “None of the products I use have coupons.”
    This may be true, but it may be that, in order to save your family money and make a difference in your household budget, you need to try different products. When you become an Extreme Couponer, brand loyalty becomes a thing of the past. You should try to become more open to trying different brands- it is all about changing your mindset! Do you HAVE to have the $20 laundry detergent just because that was what your mom used, and her mom before her, and her mom before her...?
  6. “I don’t have time to clip coupons.”
    We all have busy lives. It is a rare person who doesn’t have time to make $30-$40 an hour for their family. If you devote two hours to clipping and organizing coupons a week, and then save $80 at the grocery store, it is like having made $40 an hour for clipping coupons- and that is just one trip! There will be many more trips that benefit from those 2 hours! You can devote as much time as you want to couponing, but if it saves your family hundreds of dollars a month, can you really afford to NOT do it?
  7. “It is too overwhelming.”
    That can be true. However, you  now have a ton of information and support at your disposal, so there goes that excuse! Seriously though, if you stay organized, that is more than half the battle. Devote a bit of time to it each week and it will not be overwhelming when you get the hang of it- it will actually be quite fun!
  8. "Getting free stuff is wrong- if you aren’t paying, the stores are not making any money."
    Not true! Stores are actually making money off of each coupon that is redeemed. They get reimbursed for the face value of each coupon, as well as making a handling fee- so they are making a profit right there. Not only that, but many people who “use” coupons use them on items that are not on sale, and they also buy other items that were not on their list- thereby spending more money than they had planned, and making the store more money. The manufacturers also put out coupons to convince people to try their items and to become loyal to them- and many times, it works! This more than makes up for the very small percentage of the population who practices “extreme couponing”.  Rest assured that if stores were losing money, they would no longer accept coupons. If manufacturers were losing money, they would no longer put out coupons. Be aware, though, that intentionally misusing coupons and abusing store policies IS wrong, and if too many people engage in this, stores will be more unwilling to allow us to use our coupons.