It always seemed mind-bogglingly difficult to achieve the kinds of savings portrayed on the TLC show “Extreme Couponing.” Thanks to tougher supermarket policies and the proliferation of less valuable coupons, extreme savings through coupons seems downright impossible.
The best coupons have two key features: They offer discounts on the products you like and would be buying anyway, and the discounts are substantial enough to justify the time required for clipping them.
Increasingly, however, American
consumers are coming across coupons that have neither of these features. A
NCH Marketing report released earlier this year indicated that there was a
17% drop in coupon redemption in 2012. Among consumers who used fewer coupons last year, the most popular explanation given for the decreasing in couponing was this: “I can’t find coupons for the products I want to buy.”
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MORE: Former Extreme Couponer Admits: ‘It’s a Waste of Time’)
What’s more, it’s getting more difficult to find coupons that save the shopper a decent chunk of change. In early May, Kroger, one of the world’s largest supermarket companies, lowered prices on thousands of items in its stores in
Virginia, North Carolina, West Virginia, and elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic region. You’d expect that news like that would be greeted with applause and gratitude from consumers. Instead, many shoppers have been grumbling that recent changes at Kroger will make them more likely to frequent dollar stores and
Walmart—because Kroger’s price drops were accompanied by a ban on double couponing.
