From Extreme to Everyday - The Unreachable 99% Savings

This is a post from one of my favorite couponers...Nathan Engels or aka Mr. Coupon (www.weusecoupons.com).  In 2010, Nathan was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. He was interviewed for ABC’s Nightline and filmed an hour long special which aired on TLC. His mission continues to be one of education. “The more people we expose to couponing and frugal living the more people we can liberate from the chains of debt.”   Enjoy :)

From Extreme to Everyday - The Unreachable 99% Savings
So many people watch Extreme Couponing and say, it's not real. No one can really save 99% on their grocery bill week after week and in fact they are RIGHT. You see people on TLC's Extreme Couponing save a lot of money. They buy things that are free or extremely cheap and in some cases are money makers, but they don't generally buy meat, bread, eggs and cheese. They don't buy tortillas, flour, fresh fruit and vegetables. If they do, they are using a few tricks. But are those tricks doable in everyday shopping? Before we answer that lets talk about last week's episode.

Kelly Charles from Georgia was featured on Extreme Couponing. She is a great lady, very sweet and has a blog called Working Mom Coupons. She also has developed an app for Apple devices that helps with shopping list organization and she uses that app on Extreme Couponing. I have spoken to Kelly before and we exchange emails occasionally and she is an extremely kind person! So I want to touch a little on how she got to over 90% and how others on the show do it.

Kelly shopped at Kroger with a friend. Both had totals over $800 (Kelly's was over $1300) and brought them down very low. So how did she save over 95%. Well first things first, she planned, clipped and prepared herself before she went shopping like all of us do. For this specific trip she probably left things off her list that she would normally need like eggs, meat, cheese, flour, fresh produce because those things rarely have coupons. She would simply go back to the store after the cameras leave and buy those items like everyone else. So right there is one way she can get over 90%, by NOT buying everyday essentials.

Now Kelly also did something very SMART. We encourage all savers to work their stores prescription transfer programs. But those transfers again aren't every day things. They are once in a while, maybe every month or two or three. Kelly got $150 in store credit by doing this. If she had any milk, meat, eggs, cheese or items that weren't entirely covered by the coupon, that $150 helped tremendously to lower her out of pocket expense and increase her savings percentage! Am I saying she was wrong to do this, absolutely not! But what I am saying is that the total would have been higher if she hadn't. Instead of having a total of $16.90, her total would have been $166.90, and instead of being a 99% savings, it would only have been a 88 %. That's 11% right there. Now I don't know if Kelly used any catalinas at all, but let's assume she used $20. (The reason I'm assuming this is because she had a total of $16 but was aiming for zero, but it's just an assumption!!) That would mean her total would have been $186.90 instead of $16.90, which would mean her percent saved would be 86%.

Now why do I bring this up? Well I admire Kelly for transferring her prescriptions and getting $150 in free groceries. That's great!! But when people watch the show, they don't understand the little tricks of the trade that bring the grocery bills so low. Kelly's friend used a $75 prescription reward. If she had not used that her savings would have gone from 86% down to 77%. I save anywhere from 50-60% weekly on my groceries. I buy fresh produce and meat. I get eggs and milk. Those items are hard to find with coupons. If there is an overage on something that week, I can use that to help pay for some of my basic needs, but often times there isn't. That means I actually have to pay for something (gasp!!).

The point, no one saves 99% every single trip. No One. Rarely will people save over 90% because they have to buy real food! But it is very possible to save money with coupons. I personally think 50% off my grocery bill is a pretty darn good percentage don't you!? So don't believe everything you watch on TV. After all it is TV! I hope that I brought a little bit of the 'extreme' element of couponing you see on television into a little more every day context!!