Coupon clipping is on the rise
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Anyone who pushes a grocery cart these days knows that more people are using coupons to reduce how much money they spend.
Coupon redemption rose nearly 10% in the last three months of the year from the same period in 2007, marking the first increase in redemptions since the early 1990s, according to Inmar CMS Promotion Services, the nation’s biggest coupon processor. For the full year, 2.6 billion coupons were redeemed, the third year in a row at that level.
Another trend: Coupons were used more at mass merchandisers, such as Target and Wal-Mart, which saw a 15% increase in coupon redemptions last year. Supermarkets, which traditionally accounted for nearly 70% of coupon redemptions, took in less than 64% last year, Inmar CMS says.
I’m a big believer in the power of coupons. This week, I saved $27 off a $289 supermarket tab. (I know -- that’s pretty big, but I was doing a bit of stockpiling of things on sale and for which I had coupons.) I used coupons I clipped from the Los Angeles Times, found online and received in the mail because I’m part of the store’s shopping club.
Remember the basic rules of supermarket savings:
- Make a list and stick with it. That way, you avoid impulse buying.
- Stockpile when things are cheap. Even better, combine sales and coupons.
- Be shameless. I used a vitamin coupon to buy a nutritional supplement. The cash register complained, but I talked the checker into it.
- Be flexible. I had a coupon for 50 cents off a name-brand cleaning product, but I had to buy two. My supermarket doubles the value up to $1 -- an annoying but common practice -- yet even with the double value, the generic cleaner was cheaper. So I went generic and left the coupon, which was about to expire, on the shelf for another shopper to use.
My savings this week didn’t come anywhere near my all-time best of $142, but I was pretty happy with it. And the woman behind me in line was impressed enough to vow that she would start paying more attention to coupons.
-- Nancy Rivera Brooks
