2 of 19

No

Write now Article Tools

Every so often a "woman's magazine" (that frequently have more interesting and better-written articles than "men's magazines") will run a story on "How I Feed My Family on Thirty Cents a Week" or some such thing, all through intensive "couponing." A recent "human interest" segment on a local news television program featured a woman who actually made money by purchasing multiple copies of the food or ad section of the daily newspaper, and using every conceivable coupon and rebate offer she could find after hours of research, clipping, cataloging, and carefully planning the logistics of the weekly shopping trip.

Obviously it is possible to come out ahead through the use of coupons. The issue boils down to whether it makes sense to do so - are the savings or even gains commensurate with the time and effort involved? Are the hours, even days spent achieving these ends worth the anticipated or actual return?

Frankly, what is your life worth? The woman on the local television program spent virtually every free moment working on squeezing the most out of every possible coupon, and roped her husband and children into the effort. She had files and binders stuffed with coupons for every conceivable product and service, all dated for proper "aging" (i.e., for discarding once expired), cross-referenced, correlated, and so on. She did not use coupons to make living her life easier, she lived her life around coupons.

The case is extreme, but it helps put coupons and their use into perspective. If a coupon happens to come your way that allows you to save a little on something you would purchase anyway, it is probably worth your while to use it. If the savings are more substantial, it might be worth your while to make an extra effort to obtain the coupon, much as I did to secure a coupon for the "box" to convert my television to receive digital signals - $30 is $30, after all, and it cost me less than two minutes to send in the necessary e-mail. Since my time works out to around $25 per hour, the effort was worth while, particularly since I have no plans to purchase a new television any time soon.

Applying that same rate to the effort it would take to collect, sort, and use a coupon for every possible purchase, however - there the "savings" become problematical. My food budget (and I include all grocery store items, such as cleaning supplies and paper products) runs between $30 to $50 each week - no kidding: I do a lot from scratch, and live alone; the time involved in, say, baking bread is mostly waiting, during which you can be doing something else.

Assuming I spent only two hours each week collecting and sorting coupons - a very unrealistic amount of time - I would only be breaking even if I managed to get everything for free. Since it would take much longer than two hours to be able to get everything for free, however, I would, in effect, be paying $25 for every additional hour over two that I spent couponing.

Further assuming that you have more productive ways to spend your time, such as recreation, a hobby, entertainment, church - whatever - the fact that you would be using that time to end up effectively losing money is, ultimately, a "no brainer." Coupons are nice, even beneficial if used judiciously, but to make them a way of life, or to expect them to significantly improve your overall quality of life is completely unrealistic. Life is meant to be lived, to be used developing more fully as a human person, and you don't do that by collecting coupons the way a miser accumulates gold.

Learn more about this author, Michael Greaney.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Are savings from coupons worth the trouble of collecting them??
We want to hear your view. Write now!