How do you save your family money? Do you forego cable TV and stick to Netflix? Shop at Costco for bulk items? Limit how often you go out to eat? I’m with you on those, but what do you do if you’re craving something a little more extreme?
No, I’m not talking about selling your eggs or downsizing to a tiny home. I’m talking about couponing.
I have a confession. I used to be a (semi) extreme couponer. I lived on couponing sites. I’d go out of my way to find extra copies of newspapers with coupon inserts. I once went to three separate CVS stores because I was too embarrassed to do 6 transactions at one. I would sometimes take photos of my hauls. Staged photos…of shampoo, toilet paper, tampons, and toothbrushes. Riveting, I know.
It was a fun hobby. I loved calculating transaction scenarios, feeling like I was saving money on a grad student budget, and always having a stockpile of personal care products. However, around the time my son was born, couponing stopped feeling like a good fit for me. Perhaps not surprisingly, this was the same time minimalism starting its slow takeover of my life.
Sure, couponing has some definite benefits- the biggest being that you can save lots of money when you do it right. That said, it also has a good deal of downsides. Below are the 7 reasons why I feel couponing isn’t worth it when you’re on the path toward simplicity and intentional living.
1.It Takes Up a Lot of Time.
Couponing isn’t just flipping through a pile of coupons and cutting out a few that look good. Between scouring couponing sites and store flyers, cutting and printing appropriate coupons, writing up transaction scenarios, and traveling to the store (sometimes several), it can be a few hours of work every week. That was time I just didn’t have or want to invest once my son was born.
2. It Takes Up a Lot of Mental Space.
I used to think about couponing all of the time. ‘Where can I print or get more coupons?’ ‘When will the CVS flyer for three weeks from now come out?’ ‘ Can I come up with a different scenario that will save me an extra $2?’ I was probably running transaction prices in my sleep. Again, I enjoyed it, but there was no denying how much mental space it overtook.
3. It Takes Up a Lot of Physical Space.
Couponing and stockpiles go hand in hand. Even as a more intentional couponer, I had way more stuff in my house than I needed in the near future. I stored 2 years worth of shampoo, a year’s worth of tampons, 10 tubes of toothpaste, and so on. It wasn’t boxes and boxes of stuff, but it still took up valuable real estate in an 800 sq. ft. apartment.
Especially after I got rid of a lot of my possessions, it didn’t make sense to take up so much space with things I wouldn’t use for a year or two just to save a few dollars. Space saved became more valuable than money saved. Now all of my extra products are stored in a single Rubbermaid bin under my bed. I generally only keep one or two backups of each product and restock more frequently.
4. It Often Involves Buying Things You Don’t Need.
When couponing, you inevitably end up buying things you don’t need. Whether it’s because it’s necessary in a transaction to get other things for free/cheap, because it’s a moneymaker (where you make more store money back than you paid), or because you just can’t resist a good deal, unnecessary purchases happen. It’s easy to justify it by saying you’ll donate it or give it to a family member, but sometimes nobody wants it or needs it. It started feeling wasteful to buy products that weren’t really useful just for the high of a good deal.
5. The Savings Aren’t Worth It For Certain Items.
My family goes through 5 tubes of toothpaste per year. Say a normal tube costs $3 and I would coupon that down to free. That’s an annual savings of $15, or $1.25 per month. Every little bit counts for sure, but for a lot of items, I realized that the savings weren’t worth the time spent tracking the deals.
6. Couponing is Harder When You Use Very Specific/Natural Products.
Over the past few years, I’ve been transitioning over to more natural personal care products and fewer products altogether. I no longer had use for shampoo and conditioner, major toothpaste brands, and regular lotion brands. I could no longer coupon for these, which cut down significantly on what I could coupon for. This made it easier to stop when I did.
7. It Goes Against the Mindset of Simplicity and Consuming Less.
Altogether, couponing stopped making sense for me because at the heart of it is an obsessive focus on consumption, which contrasted sharply with my new interest in simplicity and minimalism. I wanted to spend my time removing things from my home and slowing the amount that entered. I wanted to store only things that I would use in the near future. I wanted to stop focusing on shopping. Couponing didn’t fit with these goals.
Wrapping Up.
Two years after stopping couponing, I still have some mild signs of withdrawal. I still get a slight rush inside when I walk into Rite Aid or CVS. I still find it fun to flip through a flyer to see how many deals I could stack on one item. I still cringe at the thought of paying $1 for a pack of gum (I used to get it for free or 50 cents at most.)
It really is addictive. It can certainly be a fun hobby, and it can certainly save you money. However, I realized that for me, it wasn’t worth it. Take an honest look at your spending habits, time constraints, and priorities. You may find that it doesn’t fit into your schedule and lifestyle either.
I’ll likely still coupon every once in a while for higher priced items like diapers, toilet paper, and razors, but other than that, I’m enjoying the mental space, storage space, and time I’ve gained back by hanging up my scissors and stepping away from the Sunday newspaper.
Note: If you like to coupon, find it life-giving, and feel it is beneficial to your family, please keep it up! If the reasons in this post resonate with you, then maybe consider taking a break or refraining from starting in the first place.
Looking for a Quick and Easy Jump Start to a Decluttered Home?
Subscribe to Space for Simplicity and receive the Declutter 911 Challenge worksheet for free! Declutter 9 household categories, down to 1 item, for a total of 1 week. Stop letting your clutter control your life! Unsubscribe at any time.
