Extreme couponing

[Racket_Man]

Quoth Merriweather

What I find amusing is all the talk of "extreme couponing" like it was something new. Nope, just better PR in the 21st century, what with the internet & reality TV shows

Something very similar was quite popular back in the late 70's, early 80's. Most people referred to it as Couponing & Refunding. Articles in the "ladies" magazines, pen-pal type groups to talk about it, etc.

speaking about back in the 70's and 80's

there was a group at my old church that did this exact thing. they would send in X number of lables for a refund (with the proceeds going either toward things like postage or such) or if you sent in X lables and $1 you got some promo item (like a HUGE Jolly Green Giant kite I still have one of these). they would stock all of the promo items and use them as prizes for booths at the annual Homecoming or Xmas breakfast

they had 2 rooms at the closed school devoted to this activity and the whole community/parish participated and they had a HUGE mailing list of people who would received the checks/promo items.

[MoonCat]

A couple other tips:

If you have a discount grocery store in your area, like Save-a-Lot, Price-Rite or Aldi, shop there. If we cut back on junk food and impulse purchases, we can buy most of the week's groceries at Save-a-Lot for under $60. That's for 3 adults. Cat food is extra because I don't buy the cheap generics (but I usually buy it at PetSmart because it's cheaper than the supermarkets).

Check dollar stores. The Dollar General here has a lot of grocery items. Things like ketchup, spaghetti sauce, pasta, bread, cereal, cookies....for less than the regular supermarket chains. Their dairy stuff is pricey so I buy that at Save-a-Lot or Aldi (Aldi has the cheapest price on dairy in this area).

Check the store websites. Some of them have printable coupons every week for their store.

Shop from a list and stick to the list. I save the most money when I strictly follow the list and ignore all the tempting extra goodies that I don't really need. The more fancy extras in a store--in-store bakery, coffee & donuts to go, snack bar, etc--the more expensive that store usually is (Wegmans has a lot of great stuff but they are very expensive).