“Dear Wenchypoo,
Have you noticed that the "cents off" coupons we generally get in our Sunday paper are getting more & more ridiculous? I never shopped without them, 'til recently, when now you must purchase 3 or 4 of an item to save a mere 5 to 10 cents on each item! Forget that! Also, there are more & more merchandise flyers rather than legitimate "cents off" coupons, making the $2 I have to pay for the Sunday paper hardly worth it anymore. What gives?”
Dear Disgruntled,
I gave up the coupon habit years ago, when the items they wanted you to buy were becoming more and more outlandish—green ketchup, confetti-covered Pop-Tarts, and wholly unnecessary cleaning products with that “reeking whorehouse” scent.
As for the face value of the discount, I must point out the obvious: inflation has come to coupons as well as the products they hawk. Downsizing in product size, and downsizing in coupon savings are the hallmarks of inflation, and it all means one thing—they want you to buy more product for less incentive. This is a price increase, plain and simple.
Judging by your coupon findings, inflation has hit pretty hard. When they want you to buy more of the item and offer less incentive to do so, that’s a big red flag NOT to buy that particular product—the company wants your money more than your repeat business, and isn’t ashamed to advertise their desperation on the face of every coupon they issue.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ll spell it out for you: you save more money by not using coupons. What you need to do instead is alter your shopping habits and food choices so as not to NEED coupons. The most nutritious foods don’t even offer coupons on a regular basis—milk, meat, and fresh fruits and veggies. You might be able to find some for eggs, but only rarely have I seen them by themselves. When I come across coupons for milk or meat, it usually has a requirement to buy another product as well, making the meat or milk component useless to me. Why should I have to buy a box of Chocolate-Covered Sugar Bombs just to get a free gallon of milk? Why should I have to buy a barbeque grill to get free meat? Even a coupon for bread asks you to buy peanut butter with it!
Skip the coupons and rebates, and hone your shopping list to “super-foods” and bleach for your cleaning supply. Your wallet will thank you.
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2 comments:
I gave up on coupons a while back also. Sometimes I have found some for cooking oil or charcoal that were useful but they do seem to be mostly for items I don't use.
I don't even look through them anymore when I read the paper.
BTW "Chocolate-Covered Sugar Bombs" is what Calvin of "Calvin & Hobbs" fame ate as his normal b-fast. True, he had to put sugar on them to get them just right but they did provide 100% of his daily caffine allowance!
I remember Calvin well--and I believe he ate Chocolate-Frosted Sugar Bombs. Fearing a lawsiut from a fictitious cereal manufacturer, I changed the name to protect...something. Don't ask me what. But yes, he had to "heap sugar on 'em so they taste like something."
I really enjoyed his Snowman Gallery of Horrors book. Sheer genuis, he is!
Speaking of useless coupons, I opened a new zippy bag box today and a coupon popped out--buy peanut butter AND jelly, get .50 off a box of zippy bags. Now, if they'd mentioned TUNA instead of PB&J, I'd take 'em up on it--I like tuna and buy it regularly. However, the .50 discount would've offset my tuna cost, so nobody would benefit monetarily from my transaction, except maybe the store.
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