Couponing to the Extreme

Sarah Clark remembers one of the first times she approached the check-out lanes at Wal-Mart with a couple carts packed with stuff.

“The total came up to around $800 and I remember thinking we don’t have $800,” Clark said. “I was a little bit nervous.”

While she may not have had that much cash, she did have something worth just as much in the retail world: coupons and lots of them.

Clark and her best friend are two of a growing legion nationwide of “extreme couponers” who walk out of stores like Walmart with loaded carts for very little money.

“You’d be completely surprised. You get $700-$1,000 worth of stuff for $5-8.” Clark said.

The Professionals

Clark and Ranney perfected the science of buying in bulk without using money last summer after watching the television show “Extreme Couponing.”

They talked to a friend who also coupons and modified her techniques. They don’t buy any food, sticking to household items such as laundry detergent and air freshners, and personal hygiene items like toothpaste, deodorant, toothbrushes and lotion.

After taking an estimated 20-25 trips, the pair suspended their thrifty shopping sprees as they attended college during the school year. With closets and bedrooms overflowing, they started giving away their wares.

“We have family or friends stop by and take one, two or five shopping bags home with them full of stuff,” Ranney said.

Clark recalls visiting friends at a nearby college and taking several stuffed bags with them to give away.

“It was like Christmas for them (friends),” Clark said. “It was full of stuff they use and didn’t have to pay for.”

Early on, Clark and Ranney would buy dozens of Omaha World Heralds and Red Oak Express’s to get their coupons. However, after spending six to eight hours a week cutting them out, they have refined their methods to save time.

Now, they just buy a couple newspapers a week while purchasing a majority of their coupons on EBay.

“We can buy 25-30 of them at once for a couple bucks and they come a few days later pre-cut and paper clipped together,” Ranney said.

They also patrol websites to find additional coupons and leads as to where the best prices are.

“We find the best deals when we go through the store and look at what the prices are,” Ranney said. “People who don’t have the time for that can go to those sites and find the best deals.”

How They Do It

Ranney said people are always asking how they manage to walk out of a store with hundreds of dollars of merchandise at a fraction of the cost.

The secret to their success is overages.

Ranney and Clark shop nearly exclusively at Walmart for several reasons: their price match policy, being open 24 hours and their coupon policy which literally allows for cash back when the coupon exceeds the purchase price.

“I can get a $2 off coupon for Colgate and Walmart will sell the toothpaste for around $1,” Ranney explained.

So in addition to getting the toothpaste for free, Ranney can use the extra $1 per tube to pay for other items.

She said she once walked out of a Walmart with $90 more in her pocket than when she walked in thanks to overages.

“We don’t like to do that,” she said. “We feel like if they will give us the overage, we want to spend it in their store.”

To that end, Clark once used her overages to get a printer for her computer essentially for free.

“You honestly feel like you are stealing from the store,” Ranney said. “You walk out with all this stuff and not paying anything for it.”

The Amateur

Much like Clark and Ranney, Sonia Kunze caught the couponing bug from the television show.

“It’s my husband’s fault,” the Red Oak fourth grade teacher said. “He was flipping through the television channels and saw the extreme couponing show and he couldn’t believe these people were getting all this stuff essentially for free.”

Most of the coupons Kunze clips are used on food she uses to feed her family, which includes her husband Mitch and 14-year-old son Keatis, along with pet supplies and household items.

“I never pay for dog and cat treats anymore,” she said.

She’s been couponing since November and has a room in her basement devoted to store her surplus items, but she has never bought items she ordinarily wouldn’t purchase without a coupon.

“I was just looking for anything to help me on my grocery bill,” Kunze said.

She primarily shops at Hy-Vee, Fareway and Dollar General and tracks her purchases and savings on a spreadsheet.

So far, she’s saved nearly $1,000, accounting for more than a 30 percent reduction in her food bill.

The savings have had a direct impact on her family’s finances.

“I’m going to pay off my car a year earlier than we had planned,” she said.

Kunze relies on a couple Omaha World Heralds and Red Oak Express’s for her coupons and turns to the website krazycouponlady.com to keep her abreast of local sales.

“I always want to save more and I’m learning quite a bit as I go,” Kunze said. “Having this (spreadsheet) I look at it and I think I can do better and save even more.”

General Reaction

Disbelief, amazement and amused generally describes the reactions the women get at the stores and at home.

Ranney has had groups of people crowd around the cash register to see the total before and after the coupons are circulated.

“Mostly you get excitement. They are like ‘wow, you really are saving money. I want to learn how to do that,’” she said.

Clark jokes about her family members’ initial reactions to her new hobby.

“When I told them I was going to try this, they were like ‘no, you aren’t going to get this stuff for free,’” she said.

Kunze, while expressing respect and awe for Clark and Ranney’s effectiveness, said her friends are more amused than anything. What she isn’t sure of is if its because of the couponing.

“They just laugh,” she said. “They know me and just smile because they know what I’m like.”

Her students though are more impressed.

“I’ve taken the (coupon) binder to school to show friends and the kids think its really neat,” she said. “I’ve shown them receipts before that are taller than me … and they tell me I need to be on that show.”

Tips to get started

All three women agree on some basic tips for anyone who wants to get started couponing, including basic organization.

They recommend buying a binder to store and sort the coupons and to make sure and get rid of the expired ones.

They also recommend looking online and signing up for email updates regarding which stores have what on sale.

Ranney also strongly recommends keeping a copy of each store’s coupon policy in the binder as some cashiers need reminding of its details.

Of course, Clark points out they are still pretty new to this game.

“Last summer was more of a learning experience and getting into our own groove,” she said. “This summer, we are really going to get a ton of stuff.”