In my short time couponing, I have met TONS of other couponers, talked with them, chatted with them, watched their videos, etc And let me tell you, there are ALL kinds!!:) But the view that seems to be held by most of the publics eye is not pretty to say the least:( Its like alot of things here in this life...it only takes a few bad seeds to ruin the reputation of all the others who are good and on the up and up:) This blog post was triggered by a incident inside CVS this week that my lovely husband started. Afterwards I thought to myself..Hey this would be a great blog post, so...here it is:)
The 5 Misconceptions About Couponers:
#1: We will buy anything and everything we see as long as its on sale and we have coupons, regardless.
I was in CVS this week getting just a few items along with my husband and teenage daughter. I was looking at the finger nail polish, trying to decide on which to get. They were .99 each, buy 2 get 1 free. I had coupons for $1 off each one, so that made them all free:) Normally, I would not be buying this but my daughter loves nail polish and since it was free, I thought I would treat her to a few bottles:) My daughter had asked something and my husband spoke up and replied to her..."Darlin, dont you know? It doesnt matter whether or not you need it or will use it. If its a great deal, you buy it regardless!" Now...luckily I know him well enough to know that he was purely joking but I had to speak up and defend us "couponers" out there:) I told him that is NOT the case for most. The only time we will buy it, is if its #1...a great deal, like dirt cheap to free (that we'll use), #2 If it will make us money to go towards our other purchases, or #3 If we plan on donating it to a charity, family or a shelter.
If anything I would venture to say that we are even more strict on what we allow ourselves to buy due to couponing. I couldnt believe myself the other day, I had a friend tell me of this deal going on with body wash and it was name brand expensive body wash too. I misunderstood her breakdown on it and thought she was saying it was gonna end up being 2 bucks a bottle and I was like...ahh well thats not all that great, if it was a dollar now, THEN we'd be talkin! LOL Come to find out it was a dollar but it shocked me that I had become so corrupted by couponing that 2 bucks a bottle for a name brand body wash just wasnt cheap enough for me...it will go lower, just have to wait ROFL. The thing is..some couponers may very well be this type to go and buy up everything just because they can, but thats a very small percentage of all of us out there!!:)
#2: We clear the shelves and are greedy hoarders.
This one I will say is done by some, but not by all or even the majority. Want to have the proof? Just go onto any couponing forum or FB page and say that you just got finished clearing a shelf...and you have just unlocked the gates from hell and wrath on yourself LOL. The majority of us frown very heavily on this practice and consider it very "wude":) Most of us get what we need for that item to stockup for several weeks..or till that sales cycle comes around again which is about every 6 to 8 wks here in the South, 8 to 10 in the North. And if for some reason, its just an awesome insane deal and your wanting more or your going to be giving it away to charity or shelters...almost all will call ahead and pre-order theirs so they arent taking any off the shelf from the other possible customers:) I for one, cannot clear a shelf with a full conscious. I just cant. I have even had it to where there was only 4 left, planning on getting 4 and I would only grab 2.
#3: We are cheats/scammers who cheat the system.
This one by far is the most troubling and disturbing one for us to hear:( Alot of it comes from the very few who DO abuse and mis-use coupons, but also...alot comes from the non-couponer not knowing their facts or exactly how it all works. One of the worst things a couponer hates is to hear someone say is..."your stealing from the store or your a thief!" That is SO not the case! This is how it is done...Manufacturers who make the products put out coupons to be used for their products, in order to entice people to buy them. What that manufacturer is saying to the stores is that anytime this coupon is used, we will pay you (the store) the amount of the coupon along with .8 cents just for your trouble. So if I buy shampoo at walmart thats 2.00, I have a coupon for $1 off. Say that coupon came from P&G who makes it...P&G is going to pay walmart 1.08 back. So the store is NOT loosing out on any money, they are actually making a few extra cents off of each coupon! So no...I am not stealing or a thief!! Coupon fraud is very real though and it is a problem. Most couponers loath folks who mis-use coupons on purpose and have no tolerance for them. I have seen many banned off of pages due to this. Why? Because its the small minority of people who mis-use them on purpose that ruin it and hurt all of us others who are only trying to save some money and have enough to put food on their tables each night for their families. Because of them, is why some stores have become intolerant to couponers and rules have gotten stricter. AND its shows like "Extreme Couponer" that causes cashiers to have an unrealistic viewpoint of us all. There are MANY rules that a couponer has to follow. You have all the "written" rules which are on the coupons (by the manufacturer), the stores coupon policy which can be found online and even then you have alot of times the individual stores policy which is sometimes a bit diff! Not only do you have all those but then you have the "unwritten" or what I like to call the "Rules of Ethics" that need to be followed. So theres many and each couponer..for the majority are extremely hard core on all of these simply because they want to make sure everything is on the up and up so that they can continue helping their families out by couponing:) I also can say this..that alot of the mis-use could be drastically lowered if stores computers were improved in how coupons are rung up and scanned. Seems to me a very easy fix but then again, I dont know much about that, just that it seems like a small task compared to everything else we do with technology:)
Another aspect is printed coupons. Plz plz folks..if you are in line in a store and see someone try to scan a printed coupon and it wont scan, do not automatically assume its a fraud and they are trying to scam someone!! There is many aspects to printed coupons that affect this and its not always the couponers fault. Some scanners are not sensitive enough to be able to pick up the code on them...thats why some will use the hand held zapper thingy if it doesnt scan:) And if someone has only got about 1/4th of their ink left, even if the message hasnt popped up that they are getting low, it "can" cause that coupon to not scan. So unless you have just refilled your ink, it can "sometimes" be a risk in whether or not its gonna scan or not. Also, some reg printers are more "sloppy" in the printing of the code and it will cause it to not scan correctly. The laser ones are the best and almost never have one not scan:) I personally dont see why they wont just do away with printed coupons and make it all digital like ecoupons are. There are 4 major coupon printing sites and if each of them would allow you to "add" a coupon ( x2 per the rules for printed) to whatever card you want. That would be much easier to me and would save the world by conserving paper LOL.
#4: We are lazy bums.
Ummm..ok sure:) LOL Anyone who has couponed for any length of time knows this is SO far from the truth its pathetic:) Couponing is truly an art. One that takes time to learn and to master and it takes alot of hard work and dedication! One has to be a master at multitasking and having several thought processes going through your head at any given moment. You have to be good at Math and if your not...get ready because you will be in no time:) Its like having someone scatter a 100 piece jigsaw puzzle all over a room, everywhere and you only have a small window of time to go and collect all those pieces and put them back into place. It truly is! I spend about 2 hrs on Sunday evening clipping and filing my new coupons for that week into my binder. Spend about 15 mins on Sat purging my binder of expired coupons. And through the week I am constantly watching sales and matchups as I see them pop up in my FB feed from the matchup sites I belong to:) Takes me about an hr to make my list each week for my groceries and household items and getting all my coupons in order and ready to go:) That way when Im at the store, I have my list, my coupons, all in order and ready and it doesnt take me that long:) I actually spend less time in the stores now simply because I strictly go by my list, instead of going in and impulse buying or thinking of what we need as we go along:) So yeah...we are NOT lazy, it takes work and dedication and a tremendous amount of thinking to be a couponer:) But its all worth it to me when you walk out of the store with enough food to feed your family plus have alot of extras and only spent half of what you would have before:)..Or for some, it truly is a matter of survival, just simply having enough TO put onto the table for dinner each night so your kids dont go hungry:) One should never ever have the decision upon them of what is more important...feeding your kids that week or paying the electic bill or rent and sadly, we are seeing that more and more these days:(
#5: We are so engrossed into couponing that it has taken over our dreams at night.
Gotcha!!...Ok so I will admit that this one is TRUTH! HAHA. I had to sneak one truth into this and its too funny not to share:) Talk to alot of couponers and they will tell you that they routinely have dreams about couponing:) Myself included! Just the other day I woke up one morning realizing that I was right in the middle of heading to the fresh meat dept because I had coupons for $ off of fresh meat which is very rare and I was just elated over that!! ROFL Thats when I realized that Ive got it bad if Im dreaming of couponing in my sleep hehe:)
One Last Note: Most of us couponers are very kind hearted, rule following, caring folks so please dont lump us all together simply because there are some bad ones out there:) Theres many that are continually giving to others, helping their family members, will give coupons to others in the store if they see something in their buggy that they have a coupon for, will stick some extras on the shelf so that others can get a savings, sending expired coupons to our military moms on base, etc We are all just trying to survive this wild world that we live in now, so as my bestest friend would say....how about we all get into a circle, hold hands and sing some Kumbaya and get along and be kind with one another? :P
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