How Extreme Couponing Has Affected Us

TLC’s Extreme Couponing may be gone for now (they renewed the contract for a second season ), but not before taking a huge toll on our coupon policies nationwide.  What will a second season do to more coupon policies nationwide? EEK!

With so many grocery and drugstore chains nationwide hitting back in the recent months with new coupon policy changes already, how many more are soon to follow?  In my opinion it’s because of the show, but that’s just my 2 cents.  TLC’s Extreme Couponing did not showcase couponers in a good light and now we all have to pay the consequences (or should I say our pocket books and families pay the price).

Will these changes affect how we shop with coupons?  You bet they will.  We just have to get more strategic with how we do it though.  I am not saying to commit coupon fraud like the show blatantly portrayed one of their members doing so on nationwide television by any means.  Committing coupon fraud can land you in jail with fines that you don’t even want to think about.  What I am saying is that we have to really watch for our weekly sales and it may take us shopping multiple stores now instead of maybe a couple select stores that we love.  Or our other option is to just price match at Walmart, which really has become the store to shop these days.  I used to dread shopping there until their recent coupon policy changes.  I just wish they would bring their double coupon policy to the Houston area.  The Houston couponers were hit hard with the changes to the Kroger coupon policy back in April, but we didn’t let that get us down.  Did we? Nope, we just got more strategic.

While everyone would say that I am a “extreme couponer” because I blog about it here @ Frugally Thrifty, but I hate to break the news to you guys…I am really a very conservative coupon shopper.  I only buy 3 papers each week, not 10 like I used to back in 2008.  I don’t dumpster dive because I am too scared to do it.  I don’t purchase 50 “like” coupons from a clipping service because the sale will come back around before I use all 50 of the products I purchased with those “50 coupons”.  I only really go shopping once a month at this point because I have been building and replenishing my stockpile since Oct. 2008 when I first started couponing.  *My rule of thumb is when purchasing newspapers each week that you purchase 1 newspaper per person in your household unless you have kids.  For every 2 children under the age of 12, I would buy 1 additional newspaper each week.*

I did some checking to find out exactly which stores have changed their policies since the show aired in Dec. 2010 and you will see all the changes over the course of the next couple of weeks (including some that haven’t changed).  It may not seem like much, but these changes don’t just affect one market, they affect our nationwide market.  We are already being hit with higher prices at the pump and groceries, but then to add the changes being made to the coupon policies only adds fuel to the fire.

Can these coupon policy changes be reversed?  They probably can, but really I don’t see that happening anytime soon.  Kroger had been doubling and tripling coupons since the 80’s before they made the switch to a more digital market take on couponing.  Did it benefit the residents in Houston?  No, it didn’t, but who are we?  We are only the consumers that now are paying higher prices (if we shop there) and keeping their stores open.  I am guessing that doesn’t matter to them.  Sorry, it’s just a sore subject for me (*hopping off my soapbox now*)

Stay tuned later today to see the all the changes that Target recently made in the last couple of weeks.  Some of the changes you will see are beneficial, while other stores are not so beneficial.  It won’t be the end of the couponing world, I promise!   We can still save money on that grocery bill whether it’s each week, biweekly, or monthly, but we just have to make each stores coupon policy work for us!