Gretchen Scalpi, RDN

Recently I came across a reality show called Extreme Couponing on The Learning Channel.  I don’t know how long the show has been on the air, but it seems to have quite the following.  The basic premise takes coupon redemption to an extreme to save money.  Each show highlights different stories about people who are very serious about the use of coupons.  Some have lost a job, or are supporting a large family, or just really motivated to save money.

The first step is to find an abundant source of coupons to clip from  newspaper inserts.  Couponers collect inserts from various sources, and the more they find, the better.  The next step involves serious study of the weekly store flyers to find the best deals where coupons can be redeemed.  The couponer crunches the numbers ahead of time to make sure that they are getting the item for free, for pennies on the dollar, or at a greatly reduced price.  Next comes the day of shopping and redemption of those coupons.

Each program I watched showed couponers who had converted a garage or spare room into organized stockpiles where they stored multiples of the “deals” they had gotten at the store.  The moment of truth was always at the checkout, when the final sum for baskets of merchandise was tallied up.  The result?  A staggering amount of stuff for not much money at all.

I applaud the effort and ingenuity of the serious couponer, especially when they get basic household essentials such as laundry detergent or toothpaste for little to no cost.  Clearly those are items in our baskets that really take a chunk out of the grocery budget. But something in the whole process really bothered me….that was the purchase of  food items with little nutritional value being bought in huge quantities.  Each story showed the couponer stocking up on massive amounts of edibles that have little to offer in the way of health or nutrition.   I couldn’t help but wonder if there was any money left to buy real food.

Manufacturers offer coupons for products like soft drinks, boxed macaroni and cheese, highly processed frozen foods, salty snack foods, etc.  The reality is, there are seldom money saving coupons for whole, nutritious foods.  If someone is using this coupon method exclusively, then buying nutritious food may very well be off the table.  So are coupon purchases for the processed foods a deal? Not if they are a big part of your life.   I really hope those very clever couponers have been resourceful enough to put some money aside to buy real, whole food!

Tags: extreme couponing