The case AGAINST couponing...

I have always felt that 'couponing' was more of a hassle than it's worth. Sure, I look over my wife's shoulder when she pulls the flyers out of the paper. And if I see something I'm going to buy anyway, I tell her to save the coupon.
But there is no way in hell I will ever believe that my time is less valuable than a 'buy one get one' offer on something that I could just BUY two of in the store brand...
And the gas to go to THAT store to buy THAT item? I'll take my savings in gas use, please.

Anyway, here's a lady who used to do the whole 'extreme couponing' thing, and then woke up. And she's a prepper, so you don't get to use the excuse that you're buying 32 cans of butt cream to put away for a TEOTWAWKI event...


From Jennifer at Are We Crazy, Or What?

But let’s just see what all these free things really cost. Before I go on, I am assuming that you value your time. Even if you don’t work outside the home, you could still be doing things to save your family money, which in a roundabout way is actually making money.
Ok, so let’s just say you clip coupons out of the Sunday newspaper. You don’t have to clip them all but I always found myself clipping all of them. After all you never know what’s going to be on sale (that’s the idea for you non-couponers – use the coupon in conjunction with a sale and walk away with a product that is free or close to free) and heck, you’re already cutting and going through the paper, right? Well, in my case that was 6 papers; in the coupon world it’s recommended you have one Sunday paper for everyone in your house.
I only have 5 in my family but because Wal-Mart sells a bundle of two papers at a discount, I would get 3 bundles (or 6 papers), and sometimes more if I thought there were good deals to be had. So my average was about 8 papers. My local Sunday paper runs about 5 bucks for a two pack so that’s $20.00 a week. Yes, there are ways to get your coupons for free but it’s not the norm, you have to have a connection or dumpster dive.
I tried for years to get a good connection and I also tried dumpster diving. Dumpster diving is not all it’s cracked up to be, yeah, there is the dumpster *trash* aspect but again, I hope you know me better than that by now. The fact is people just don’t read the Sunday paper like they used to and the people who do hold onto their coupons so dumpster diving does not pay off for the average couponer. There are exceptions to every rule but for the average person obtaining coupons is not free.