A Moderate Guide to Extreme Couponing
Couponing is all around me from blogs to television shows, and I just can’t get away from it. It’s even on Facebook; one of my friends “Liked” Lunchables’ Facebook page just to get a free sample. And she even doesn’t have kids.
I’ve talked before about the costs of extreme couponing, including costs to your home and health.
But what do the numbers really boil down to? When calculating the dollar cost of an extreme couponing habit, are the savings and worth the sacrifices?
I’ll break it down for you, and offer a less-extreme alternative for those who want to start playing the coupon game.
Time
Based on the individuals featured on TLC’s “Extreme Couponing,” you’d have to spend 40-60 hours each week couponing to rack up the kind of savings they’re getting. Most save 90 or even 100% off their purchases, but they put in the time of a full-time job to get those savings.
Let’s calculate couponing hours like a job at the national minimum wage rate ($7.25 per hour). A 40-hour-per-week couponer will spend 2,080 hours—the equivalent of “earning” $15,080—on couponing alone each year.
Smart alternative: Imagine if that time was spent getting a side hustle, like freelance writing. A successful freelance writer will likely make much more than minimum wage. Payscale shows hourly rates for freelance writers between $11 and $70.
Space
The extreme couponers featured on the show typically dedicate entire rooms in their homes to their stockpiles, essentially creating their own mini-supermarkets.
If the average home in the U.S. is 2,000 square feet, with a monthly mortgage payment at an average of $1,500, let’s calculate how much an extreme couponer’s stockpile might be costing them. If a couponer devotes 400 square feet in the home to storing couponed items, that’s $300 of their monthly mortgage payment spent to store soup cans and toilet paper.
Smart alternative: A bigger pay-off might be using an extra bedroom or office space as a short-term rental. Sites like Room-A-Rama and airbnb let you list your space and make money just by letting travelers stay in your home. An added bonus? You’ll meet new and interesting people.
Health
The majority of the food items shown in stockpiles on TLC’s “Extreme Couponing” are high in sodium, sugar and preservatives. Most episodes end with a listing of the items couponed, and typically those lists include hundreds of bags of candy, cans of soda, and cans of soup.
It’s well-known that an over-consumption of sugary cola drinks is unhealthy, but there are some specific health dangers that are less-widely discussed. One study shows that colas are associated with low bone mineral density in older women. Additionally, couponers that make high quantities of sugary cola drinks available to their children are making it easier for their children to make unhealthy food choices later in life.
Your health (and that of your family) is worth more than what you could save with a few coupons.
Smart alternative: The time couponers spend clipping and sorting deals and discounts is sedentary. Instead of tracking down hundreds of coupons for free candy, why not get up and get outside with your kids, playing and encouraging exercise at the same time?
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