I feel so sorry for most of you.

It's always the same old thing..."I don't have time because I have so many kids...Store brands are always cheaper... the coupons are always for things I don't purchase... coupons are always for processed foods...etc. etc.

The truth is most of you probably would not use coupons if all of them had FREE on it.

I just checked and only 13% of the coupons for the last three weeks were for processed foods.

I know thousands of people that have a house full of kids, two jobs, (all the excuses listed) and still have time to save hundreds of dollars a week on groceries.

It only takes two or three hours a week it to clip, sort and plan your shopping trip. It's that you choose to do other things in your life instead of saving money. It's easier to have an excuse not to... than to have a plan to do it.

There are a ton of coupon sites out there and all the work is done for you. All you have to do is make a list and sort the coupons.

I figure I paid myself around $47.53 and hour, tax free money, using coupons last year. That's about $7.500.00 for around 156 hrs. How many of you complaining make that !!

Maybe this is why the average income of a coupon user is 70k or more. You have to get off your butt and work and SAVE for what you get.

Those of you that sit around and wait for somebody to hand you something for noting, will always be sitting there waiting for someone else to do it for you.

@AvonLady: They say you've got to spend money to make money. You won't buy coupons... I won't buy stocks. To each his own.

@HogwartsAlum: oh. i am from the midwest and it's so funny because people around here do talk like that if you get far from the metro area.

Bingo. That's why we rarely use them. It's a basic principle of tightwaddery in the spirit of the Tightwad Gazette...coupons are usually for brand-names and quite often do not cover the gap between the brand name and store brand product, and almost always for processed foods. Mind you, the processed foods are frequently cheaper than buying fresh ingredients to make your own from scratch, but that's by design of the US food system that subsidizes corn blah blah blah go read Pollan blah blah...

When there's a coupon for the store brand of frozen cauliflower or a grass-fed bit of meat, then I'll get excited.

But even then we don't do the meal deals very often here because they still have a lot of processed foods we wouldn't otherwise buy. However, two weeks ago Central Market had one where you bought their rotisserie chicken (which was smaller and fattier than the Costco ones we usually get) and got a free baguette, salad, and fresh-squeezed lemonade. And oh, the lemonade was orgasmic! The savings were $8 and change if you'd bought them all outside of the deal.

And we saw an HEB one once where if you bought some seasoning kit (which I couldn't eat because of allergies) you got a bunch of fajita stuff and a free cast iron pan! That was awesome! We considered getting it and giving the seasoning away but forgot before the time ran out...

Cereal & furniture polish are manufactured items which can be made in sufficient quantities to negate percentages lost from a coupon.

The biggest trick to coupons is saving them. When a coupon comes out the stores are charging full retail on them. Over the next few weeks the price is marked down as sales on that item slows. The coupon is still good and worth the same it was 3 weeks ago - now you've gone from saving say 10% to 50%. Multiply that to an entire weeks' worth of shopping

For a family of 4 that translates into $40-80 or more/week every week. Who could live with that?

Btw - this whole "coupons aren't worth what they used to be" is a bunch of crap. My wife ROUTINELY save 40-70% every single week using coupons at Kroger. You just have to know the tricks such as you should never use a coupon that is less than 3 weeks old (Expiration dates excepted of course) The reason? When it is in the Sunday paper the item is listed at full retail value. Once the sales drop off on the item in the following weeks it is usually marked down while the coupon value remains the same.

Oh and it take my wife about an hour per week to save those buck for our family of 4.

@lockdog: Ya know, i won't be going back until next week (i'll be traveling for the holiday), And it will be difficult to compare the cheeses because i've never seen anything comparable in a store brand, but I will definitely give it a shot a post a reply here!

You'd also be surprised how many coupons are for basic items. Milk, bread, blocks of cheese, eggs, butter, sugar, flour, baking soda, tea bags... some places are even lucky enough to get coupons which for $ off any meat purchase. When people tell me that they don't buy anything that they print coupons for, I tend to ask them if they've been going without toilet paper or toothpaste.

you'd also be surprised how well some things freeze... come thanksgiving time, there will be flour and sugar coupons and sales that can be stacked. I'll buy a years worth, plastic bag it, and throw it in the bottom of our chest freezer until I need it because it's the cheapest price all year!

as for staples like fruits and veggies on sale, i hit up the farmers market about 1/2 hour before closing... they'd rather haggle and give me things for a huge discount than not sell them at all. Earlier this summer I picked up all the fresh peas they had left for about $5. Sure, I had to pick out some of the not so nice ones, but I was still left with about 5lbs. Freeze in a single layer on a cookie sheet then dump into a freezer bag and i've got peas for 6 months!

people who don't know me tend to think i must have like 5 kids to feed from the way i talk about my shoppping, but it's just me and the gf, theatre-geeks in their mid twenties.

I tend to only use coupons like "buy one get one free" on food items or other items. It's the best way to frequent certain restaurants as well. Most coupons the cost comes out to more than the generic equivelant, so I don't see the point. I guess I am not married to "brand name" products. Sure some generics aren't as good, but I have found many that are.

Often grocery stores have their own coupons that can save on their brand products or brand names. When I find a good deal I go for it...but I won't spend money to get coupons. That doesn't make "cents" LOL

@Skankingmike:

"why is New jersey so damn expensive?"
I ahev a simple answer to that, that I think many people ignore--it's the most densely populated state in the nation.

Well, all you'uns come on over, we'll slap some ribs on the bar-bee cue!

@Ayarkay: Sure, but income doesn't really matter if you spend it all. It's net worth that really makes the difference.

@bohemian: That's a good angle. If you don't use "heavily processed foods" (does anyone on Consumerist confess to eating HFCS?), then you can usually save a bundle on the non-food items you buy. I don't remember the last time I paid much of anything for a razor (they give away the razor to sell the blades -- just keep getting the new razors with a few blades included).

There are other, similar deals quite often as well. Also, occasionally things you buy will trigger a separate machine to spit out coupons for similar or the same items, so days that I stock up on soups for lunch, I'll often walk out with a decent coupon or two for the next time I stock up.

@HogwartsAlum: If you are really in the Ozarks, you wouldn't be using that fancy subjunctive mood. Hillbilly correct speech is "If I wuz makin' that..." or even "If I'z makin' that."

Of course, I can make fun of people who talk funny since I grew up an Arkansas flatlander.

@RandomHookup: Note to self -- never start reply to one thread and walk away. Duh...

@morganlh85: Unplanned shopping always costs more@Pinget: Americans love promotions, but we don't like to haggle. In many parts of the world, it costs what you negotiate.

I watch those shows on HG all the time and go... why is NJ so damn expensive?

@aloria: and 65k isn't going to cover the cost of a 1475 apartment is it? then again they most likely do not have a car.

@lockdog: Most of the time with smart shopping (which psychocellochica mentions), you can get brand name items for cheaper than store because (1) the item goes on sale (more common with brand vs. store items) and (2) you use the coupon at the same time. If you absolutely need the item and can't wait for a sale, then yes, it's often cheaper to buy the store brand, even with the coupon. But psychocellochica buys a lot of an item when it's on sale and waits until the next sale comes around (called "stockpiling").

Though I admit the experiment you propose would be an interesting comparison. Perhaps a good blog entry for someone to take a stab at.

@Ayarkay: Lol. I didn't consider that.

He's a 4yo gold capped conure [www.basicallybirds.com]

He's delightful, but a total handful.

Yeah, but no coupons. @tbax929:

Single person, black, and low-income families are more likely to make last minute shopping trips on a more frequent basis, and without a plan in place other than "Get something to eat tonight, get milk, get laundry detergent" so clipping coupons doesn't fit into that routine as well.

and since i use a lot of brown gravy mix in cooking [awesome worked into ground beef before making burgers or meatballs! use it to thicken beef stew!] i figured out once that the sams club brown gravy bulk pack at $4.75 is the same as 28 mccormicks packets at $1.79 each. plus less waste without 28 little packets.

No, but the kind of thrifty behavior that coupon clippers exhibit is right in line with the mentality of those who tend to do better financially. Beyond that, there's probably some correlation with education and therefore higher salaries (I know there are plenty of exceptions to that rule, though.)

Yes, there are premium foods there - I look at it as a way to splurge and try something new. We used to eat out a lot, so when I compare the costs, we're really coming out ahead.

@tsume: I have to say that I was a little surprised that my perspective inspired such hateful and vitriolic responses, however.

You weren't spiteful, though. Thanks!

@tsume: Perhaps on a national scale, that is true. My point is that we are not provided the areas where Neilsen took its samples and therefore the data is difficult or even impossible to evaluate.

1) As someone who used to be on the nielsen homescan panel, I wouldn't be surprised if their sample is flawed. It's time intensive to participate and you don't get paid for it. You earn points toward prizes, but it takes a while to accumulate enough for anything decent. I'm a welfare caseworker and many of my clients who live below the poverty line use coupons. Problem is, they don't have the time (or the internet or land-line phone connection) required to be part of the panel when it holds so little reward for them.

2) The secrets to saving money with coupons are 1)being organized 2)combining sales and coupons and 3)stockpiling what you actually will use when it's on a good sale. There are tons of great sites like couponmom and afullcup that will help you match up the sales and coupons to maximize your savings, so I actually spend less time than you'd think figuring it out.

I'm not one of those people who claim to feed a family of 4 for $4 a week, but I do regularly save up to 70% on my groceries. I actually just got home from Superfresh (part of the A&P family) about an hour and a half ago. Nothing was store brand except the sugar.

What I bought:
11 packs of baby-bel cheeses (good until next february and packed every day in my lunch)
2 lbs of bacon
1 pack of all beef kosher franks
3.25 lbs of chicken breasts
5lbs of plain sugar
10 boxes of fruit snacks (again with the packed lunches)
1 bag marshmallows
1 large box of rice krispies
1 loaf of bread

Total before coupons and sales: $130.12
Store Sales: -$30.03
Coupons: -$49.13
Total out of pocket: $50.96

I'll also be completing a mail in rebate for $10 cash rebate and $70 coupon for Dell (which I'll trade or sell).

It takes me at the most 2 hours per week to clip and file my coupons. If I saved myself almost $50 this week, that's like paying myself $25/hour (more than I get paid at my real job).

And save the comments about the lack of fruits and veggies... that's what farmer's markets are for.

Or like me they may have a computer but not the newest and maybe not a printer. The sites that offer coupons make you download their software so they can track you and like me, maybe us low income people are not able to access the coupons because of this. I get coupons from newspapers and friends at work but alas cannot get the good ones that are online.

Sometimes there is a perfect coupon storm where a store runs a special at the same time that a coupon is available. Those are halcyon days indeed. But for the most part, smart shopping certainly involves looking at coupons, but also comparing store/generic brands versus the coupon-priced brand names and checking weekly circulars for sales.

That having been said, I just finished sharing som Pillsbury Savorings artichoke/spinach breadbowl appetizers with me friend. They were on special for two dollars and fifty cents (usually run 3.99). I had a coupon for a dollar off of that. Boo-Yah.

If nothing else, I suspect it benefits them substantially by way of getting customers introduced to their house-brand items (my family swears that their macaroni and cheese is far superior to the major national-brand items).

@Mr.Duke: Actually, you can use coupons with food stamps, at least according to people I know who use them. Why would the government care if you put a little effort and save money? The store still gets reimbursed.

I'm a single busy guy and I rarely use grocery coupons. The only coupons I use are the ones the grocery store gives me based on my discount card usage. The reason I don't use coupons generally is because they are never for anything I buy and because I end up not using up the larger quantities of stuff I need to buy at the grocer in order to get the coupon to pay off. I buy enough stuff that I need to consume within a week, I'm not one who needs to buy 5 pounds of ground meat at a time, or 3 gallons of ice cream, or save half off a bottle of Febreze. I don't do a lot of cooking, and buying extra stuff isn't going to do me much good because I'm not one of those people that cooks a month's worth of food over a weekend. So, coupons on perishables are worthless to me. And I also have a Sam's Club membership, so I get more savings than I could ever get from coupons by buying in bulk the things I don't need to consume in a week.

As far as coupons for other things (clothes, electronics, etc.), I find I buy things when I need them and have the time to go shopping, not when a coupon is available. I always get coupons from Kohls but it is always a stupid scam to get me to spend more money (gee, if I spend $50 now, I get a coupon for $10 which I can only use on another purchase on some other day). I don't want to make multiple trips to take advantage of the coupon and I don't want to have to spend a set amount of money in order to get a small amount of savings. Best Buy always seems to send me coupons but they are only good for a weekend starting three weekends from when I get it, and I never remember to use them. If the coupons were just a general, here's $10 bucks off or 5% off and you have a year to use them, I would use them more but being forced to do my shoppping on any particular day is not going to work for me because I am busy.

I've seen rebates for beer and liquor here in Massachusetts a lot. Buy four bottles of liquor made by the same company, and get $10 back by mail, that sort of thing. I think a beer company a while back had a promo for 100% back by mail, but I couldn't find the exact product in any of my package stores.

@picardia: @Preppy6917: Yes, there are areas in Chicago where the median household income is less than $70k. However, where I live (in the suburbs of Chicago), $70k is below the median and in some areas of Chicagoland, $70k would be laughable.

Using Preppy6917's source for Lake County [factfinder.census.gov] where the median is (somewhat significantly) below the $70k threshold and compare that with Kane County [factfinder.census.gov] with McHenry Country [factfinder.census.gov] & DuPage County [factfinder.census.gov] where the medians are more in-line with $70k and you see that there is disparity even within the suburbs of one metropolitan area.

And that's my point. If the data was all (or the majority of it) taken from the poorer county, it skews the numbers. This data may have value, but without knowing how it was obtained, it is worthless.

For for those of you gnashing your teeth and rending your clothes about how I'm damning the Consumerist for this piece, that was not my intention (as the moderator seems to understand by not disemvoweling me). It is valid to report that Neilson is reporting this even if there is not enough information to take very much away from it.

@Coelacanth: From the article: "More affluent consumers ($70k+) are considered..." & (further down) "affluent suburban spreads include consumers living in a
suburban ring of metropolitan areas, annual household income over $94k...". I interpret this to mean that affluent starts at $70k up through $94k and beyond.

@mbz32190:
I actually load coupons onto my bonus cards. That's the easiest way to do it.

@Rusty-Shackleford:
I've never seen a beer coupon, either. But I do get ads for places that have beer on sale. I'm sure you do, too.

@Skankingmike:
$70K in Tucson is making good money. I don't know what the median income here, but that's in line with what I make, and I'm considered well paid here. In fact, the house we're buying just under 2X my salary, and it's a nice house.

@osiris73: really? at our aldi, the produce is pretty good, but some of the private labels are, ahem, weird.

There's no mystery here. Off-brands and store-brands cost less than name-brands, with or without coupons.

Coupons take time and effort, but I've found that the $2.50/month I spend on thegrocerygame.com, combined with the half hour/45 minutes each week I spend making my list saves me the money I'd typically spend on say a Costco membership.

Last week, using thegrocerygame.com, I spent $75...after I'd saved $95.50.

So yes - they take time. And yes, they can be useful, but chances are, it's all about what value you place on time as it relates to money...

The local grocery store doesn't do discount cards or double coupons or any of that. Their weekly flyer will come with coupons sometimes but usually only 4-6 total.

What helps is almost every week they have sales anyone can get. They did a peanut butter sale of buy 2 for the price of 1 we jumped on that. They did a huge multi-week sale where you could get 10 for $10 on certain specality meat cuts so we got some and froze it.

But best of all, the store brand items are very good and always cheaper than the name brand even with coupon. Anything canned or pre-packaged is far cheaper. Pasta is always $1 for a lb. Canned fruit is half the cost.

We picked up a Sam's Club membership as well and go there for certain items and watch the cost carefully if its a good deal. We made back the yearly cost in allergy pill savings on the first trip so at this point its all yearly savings. Razors, paper towels, some canned goods, dry stuff and bulk frozen stuff is the best deal. We got a large container of onion flakes instead of wasting half a fresh onion every time I need onion in a recipt. It lasts forever and you get the exact amount every time.

The secret isn't coupons vs not coupons. It's planning everything and comparing cost. Do it for a few months and you get a feel for what you spend and where to change. We planned a month out and I estimate that alone dropped our monthly food expenses by 1/4 and its just a start.

@mbz32190: I haven't seen a store that doubled coupons since the 1980's.
Internet coupons are good, if you can find ones that are for products you'd actually BUY, and then throw in stores (or individual cashiers who raise a fuss) that don't accept internet coupons, but only find that out after you're all checked out.

@zombies.like.lattés.too: Once you get past the coupons for air fresheners, lotions and potions, and various vitamins, there's not much left. The ones for actual food usually require a purchase of 3 items at $2.00 each to save 50 cents. Ummm, NO.
And I haven't seen a store that doubled coupons since the 1980's.
The only good deal I've found is for cereals, when the store has them on sale. Sometimes I can get 3 cereals for the price of two, another $1.50 off with a coupon, and a free gallon of milk on top. SCORE!

Just in time though. "Ritual" being just another form of "rut".

If you mean 50 cents per box then that rocks. If you meant 5 cents per box then I'd be calling a hazmat team.

@pecan 3.14159265: I LOVE Swiffer!! I have a conure who throws his food for fun, aims his poop outside his cage when he's angry and splashes around in his water bowl so being able to quickly and easily clean up after him without breaking out an arsenal of cleaning supplies or lug the full vaccuum around saves me oodles of time.

See, the way this website works is that the Consumerist finds interesting articles that are written by or released by other publishers. So complaining on the Consumerist forum about a Reuters wire report seems...well, see the above paragraph.

I included this brief description of the website for you and others, as it is evident that at least one person here doesn't know how the website works.

@Preppy6917: Add to that the fact that this is $70k PER CONSUMER. I live in a ridiculously high cost area and according to your link our household income median is only $71k and again that's HOUSEHOLD.

The disdain is totally unnecessary. Hopefully this is just a bad attempt at sarcasm.

As for coupons, my experience is the same; none of the coupons are for products I buy. i clip them and hardly use them.

I do like Stop and Shops Milk coupons it gives me and the free milk promotions it has.

One way i cut my bill by a significant amount was going to a farmers market for my produce.

@pecan 3.14159265: I'm not sure how people keep coming back to "heavily processed foods". A couple days ago I paid $0.50@ for 10 boxes Grape Nuts

@HiPwr: According to the article, Neisen defined "affluent" households as mkaing more than $94k/year.

Yes, I generally agree. Coupons aren't as good for savings as they used to be either. Consider the times when you might find a coupon for 40c off a box of pasta. If you were lucky and your grocery store doubled the coupon (none near me do this without a rare doubling coupon), you might get 80c off. Now, the coupons are being printed as "Save $1.00 on 3!"; not only can you not double the coupon, since, AFAIK,the stores that do double or triple coupons generally only double up to $1, you are also forced to purchase multiple packages to use the coupon at all.

According to the Census Factfinder, average household income in Chicago was $38,625 (in 2000). At 181% of the city's average houshold income, I would have to say that $70k a year is sufficient to be considered affluent. Now...what people DO with that money is a whole different story...

[factfinder.census.gov]

@xay: Even if you don't get the newspaper you still get those "Clipper Magazine" papers. I sometimes take out the pizza ones if I know I have people coming over, only because they are on the front or back covers and dont require a lot of extra time. Otherwise I don't bother because coupons just don't offer a discount on anything I'd buy.

@mdoublej: You'll never be able to convince Mr. Pi that the Swiffer is not one of the world's greatest gifts to clean freaks. I exclusively safe Swiffer coupons because he insists on the Swiffer brand "wet jet" packs, instead of the generic kind.

@WiglyWorm: Dude, we get it already.

@Ayarkay: This is me. Back when I drove (when we had two cars) I would hop in the car with my shopping list (separated into which store had the best deals) and my coupons, and drive to two or three stores (they were pretty close to each other) and get fruit for 80 cents a pound or onions for $1 a pound. The store circulars saved me so much money. The coupons were for shampoo, cleaning supplies, foil, cling wrap, etc.

@HiPwr: Sarcasm I hope?

@bohemian: Yep. Sometimes I'll find a coupon I'd actually use, and it's usually on razors, shampoo and cleaning supplies. And when that stuff goes on sale, I stock up using coupons and store sales.

Just a guess.

Don't get me wrong, coupons are great, but only if you have time.

Just a guess.

Don't get me wrong, coupons are great, but only if you have time.

Just a guess.

Don't get me wrong, coupons are great, but only if you have time.

I have tried to go through the sunday paper and clip coupons, and have found that most coupons are for things I don't like or need.

Like someone above mentioned, many of them are for "junk" foods, but I also would see many of them for premium cleaning and home products that I just dont use (like swiffers, air fresheners, etc.

I also find that many coupons make you buy more than one of the product to redeem it, which could be a barrier for lower-income folks. You have to spend more to save.

I pretty much only use coupons when the cashier is scanning them for me. I don't use them for all of the reasons listed here. I've yet to see a coupon for a fresh item or something that even resembles anything on my grocery list. I don't have time to sort through the papers and find the one or two coupons for toothpaste that may actually be useful and I'm certainly not going to make a special trip to CVS to save $.20 even if I did.

I do look ahead and see what items at what stores are on sale and I'll buy from that store over another, but that cutting business is not for me.

I'm a singal male that is affluent and I live in a comfortable country area and I want to know why I never see coupons for beer. It only makes sence to target slobs with money like me.

I also agree that it is the first reason. We use coupons but are in no means affluent. 95% of the coupons we receive are tossed because they are for name-brand, premium, high-priced products that still cost more than than comparable items even after the coupon. Every time we get a coupon we might use I do due diligence in making sure its actually a good deal.

And if I recall correctly, a couple years ago there was a study showing that coupon users ended up spending more than non-coupon users because they bought alot of stuff they normally wouldn't.

I fit right into the typical coupon-user demographic, but I haven't found that they work very well for me. I'll clip a few, bring them to the store, but then see that the generic or another brand is a better deal even with the coupon. Plus I don't buy much processed food so most of the coupons don't interest me.

plus i frequented 3 grocery stores, whereas now i live in a town that has 2 of the same chain. i'm probably more likely to use coupons when i don't have to keep track of 3 different sales. (yes yes i know there are computer programs that can do this for me).

@lpranal: yeah i really don't need to save 75 cents on fruit by the foot.

Also, the income bracket is unsurprising: at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder, not only is time scarce, but literacy and education are often lacking. At the very top of the socio-economic ladder, fifty cents doesn't make a damn bit of difference. It's that middle, where frugality pays off but there's the luxury of enough time and enough education (and access to the right kind of supermarkets, etc), where I would expect to see coupon use anyway.

I make shopping lists and then look to see if there happens to be a coupon for the item already on the list. That rarely happens with food coupons.

$70k is "affluent?" Perhaps in Tulsa, but not in Chicago. This story lacks information about where they gathered their data and is therefore, in my opinion, useless.

Low coupon users probably don't subscribe to the newspaper or frequent coupon oriented websites.

But I'm guessing this is a group of people who, many times, tend to think they have more money than they really do, and spend accordingly- maybe they have 400k mortgages on homes worth half that now.

As to why lower-income consumers don't use them, I can only speak for myself. The coupons tend to be on more "premium" items which cost more to begin with, and the products tend to be processed crap full of shitty carbs (HFCS and refined wheat). Also, the time involved with coupon-clipping is something I don't have enough of to make it a habit.

Usually I just use the (grocery) store circular as a guide to what's on sale rather than bothering with coups. I mostly only use them for razor cartridges, cosmetics, paper goods, etc. I've found that loads of coupons are for processed crap that I don't eat anyway.