Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label budgeting. Show all posts

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

Adventures in Couponing (Pt 4 of 4) - Myths, the Unexpected





Myths...
Many people believe that items purchased with coupons must be off-brands, expired or damaged. Largely, this is untrue. Junko purchases the same things as everyone else. Occasionally, she will buy a chocolate bar or bag of potato chips that may have expired, but only because we believe that those dates are more of a marketing tool than a warning.

For the most part, we ignore dates on fertilizers, detergents and toiletries, judging that they may become a little less effective over time, but not critically so. Largely, this has proven true, though we have had a couple of surprises. Liquid drain uncloggers and liquid fabric softeners coagulated and became unusable, after two or three years. So far, those have been the only losses, and they were minor because Junko is careful not to overstock as she always has new deals that could use our limited storage space.

Some think that couponers gratuitously stockpile and perhaps some do; but not us. Junko never buys items that we will not consume. Sometimes, we've had to be creative in order to use large quantities with nearing expiry dates. For instance, when she purchased 30 pounds of cheese we grated it all and froze it for use in cooking, because cheese goes bad quickly and, once frozen, it only regains its original texture when melted.


Downsides, and the unexpected...
For us, Junko's couponing has been a completely positive thing. In fact, our little family has become dependent on it. If she ever decided to quit, I'd probably have to get a second job or pray that the books I've written start selling—yeah, it'd be the second job. But there are some downsides:

• Whenever I make a purchase, whether it be a stick of gum or a load of gravel, I am aware that Junko would have spent less for the same thing. She is also aware of this and tends to grimace whenever I come home with something store bought.

• We eat more frozen products than we used to.

• Our recycle bins are always overflowing.

• We had to buy a larger freezer.

• We have a walk-in closet, half of the attic and much of the garage dedicated to stockpiling.

• My nephew decided that it would be fun to jump all over 700 rolls of toilet paper. For two years I thought of that kid every time I went to the bathroom and had to use paper that did not roll smoothly because the cardboard tube had been crushed. Harbouring that much resentment toward a 6-year old is an uncomfortable feeling.

• We don't always get the brands we grew up with. So, often we don't get the flavours we prefer.

• Junk food is one of the easiest and cheapest items that we can get. Our junk-food cabinet is the malnutrition capital of the world. Also, we have a junk-food cabinet.



• The day after Valentine's Day, Easter, Hallowe'en and Christmas the junk-food cupboard overflows to the walk-in closet.

• Some things are more potent than you might imagine. We once stored boxes of fabric softener sheets in the same room as everything else and, within weeks, the smell had infiltrated some of the food, including sealed boxes of crackers and breakfast cereal. We've since relegated all of the offending products to the garage. It's been more than a year but the storage room still smells like Bounce, which is a pleasant smell in the air, but an unpleasant taste in the food.

• In order to get extra coupons, Junko has borrowed the identity, email addresses and physical addresses of everyone in the family, close friends and our tenants. I particularly resent the coupon notifications on my smartphone that make me think, for an instant, that I am popular enough to receive a text.

• Our son and I had grown up on Kraft, largely-unnatural, peanut butter but our daughter was just starting solid food when Junko purchased about six jars of Adams all-natural peanut butter. I didn't like having to stir the oil back into the thick paste before I used it, and neither of us boys really liked the taste. Consequently,  household peanut butter consumption plummeted and those jars lasted about four years. Finally Junko purchased another jar of Kraft. Our son and I were elated, but our daughter, who had only known the all-natural brand, didn't like it. We now have a family whose peanut butter tastes are so far apart that we have to buy both. A similar thing happened with Miracle Whip and Hellman's Mayonaise.

• Because she can always get them cheap, we use baby wipes as napkins. They are particularly convenient for road trips but are mildly disconcerting on the dining room table.

• The most useless things Junko ever collected for free were pesticides like Off! and Raid! We have two dozen cans and no one we know wants to use any of it. We'll sell them at our annual garage sale, along with all the excess candy we think we will never be able to eat. If you have a sweet tooth or an infestation, you'll want to come to our garage sale. I may use that line on my signage.

• Junko bought me about a dozen sticks of an antiperspirant labelled, "clinical strength." It's so powerful that my armpits have friction burns and I swear that it sucks the moisture out of my mouth. Also, the back of my hands sweat. It is practically impervious to soapy water and I am tempted to use a scrub brush, each night. I suspect the label was meant to say, "clinical trial." I'm the only one I know who is hoping for a chilly summer.

• Once, while we on our way to visit a relative, my wife made me stop the car so that she could go dumpster diving to retrieve coupons from old newspapers. To be fair, it was a paper recycling dumpster and not a garbage dumpster, but people can't tell that when I show them the video on my smartphone.

• Since she began couponing, buying gifts for my wife has become near impossible. First of all, if she really wanted it, she would have found an incredible deal and purchased it on her own. If she has not done this, then she really doesn't want it. Further, we both know that she would have gotten a better deal than I did, and, though she's smiling, she views this gift as a waste of money she could have saved.

• Although she manages incredible savings on everything from toilet paper to plant fertilizer, so far, no deals on big screen TV's or computers. She did get a microwave, coffee maker, waffle iron and a digital camera for the kids, at huge discounts, so she's moving in the right direction. I'm going to put a bug in her ear regarding Scotch, as well.

• She once brought home eight bricks of unsalted butter. That's when we discovered that I have limits: You do not tamper with the butter or the popcorn!


When it comes to shopping, I am resigned to being the John Watson to my wife's Sherlock Holmes; following along behind, shaking my head in disbelief, and chronicling to friends and family her adventures in couponing—while munching on potato chips. I have been put in my place, transitioning from tolerant to awestruck to dependent. I may be the bread-winner, but she's the one who brings home the $1 bacon!


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More Junko-approved deals!

http://www.amazon.com/Married-Japan-Japans-Journey-Through/dp/1522891803

http://www.amazon.ca/Space-between-Thought-William-Dean/dp/1491752858

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Adventures in Couponing (Pt 3 of 4) - Dilemmas






Conundrums and dilemmas...
You might not think so, but, in couponing, there are dilemmas, which may, or may not, be moral. It's hard to say as there is little mention of coupons in the Bible or Quran, and the Dalai Lama has been conspicuously silent. The closest I've seen to moral guidance was a fortune cookie that said, "Today are golden human nicety. Choose Daily Special for $1 off! Your lucky number is G," but after eating the Daily Special, I don't put much stock in that.

The ethical grey area starts back with the very definition of a coupon. By one definition, a coupon is a discount offered by the manufacturer, targeted at people who have not yet tried their product in the hopes that they will become loyal customers. But for this plan to work, most loyal customers must pay full retail while newcomers get a discount. A darker view is that it is a kind of pyramid scheme which robs loyal customers in order to attract new ones. If all goes as the manufacturer plans, the loyal customers will never see the coupon and the newcomers will fall in love with their product and start purchasing it, even when they don't have a coupon. Once they are loyal to the brand, they will, in turn, be "robbed" to finance the next coupon-fishing expedition. It's the opposite of the idea of rewarding loyalty. But obviously, it works, because not only do manufacturers keep on issuing coupons, they are issuing them in greater numbers than ever before.

The Government has its own ideas about coupons, considering them another form of taxable income. If those coffers had their druthers, every consumer would be required to declare coupons on their taxes. Presently, this is impractical, not to mention that it would effectively undermine the entire coupon model. But they want their piece of the pie and so here's their compromise: If you have a coupon for 100%-off an item, you will pay sales tax on the full retail value. This seems rather arbitrary when you consider that if the store offered a 100% discount at the shelf, there would be no tax. It would be considered a free giveaway, and, moreover, a tax-deductible expense for the retailer. It gets even weirder once you know that if your coupon had saved you all but one penny, you would only have to pay tax on that single penny! Consequently, there have been times where Junko elected to not save as much as she might have because paying a small amount for the item was better than paying the tax on the normal retail value.

On a smaller scale, there are personal dilemmas.

Junko shops every day—this is a Japanese thing—and thus is rarely "scooped" by other couponers. She has ample opportunity to clean the shelves of items she finds valuable. But she doesn't, feeling some obligation to other couponers as well as to the store; allowing it to attract other customers with the discounted products. If there is a pad of coupons attached to the store shelf, she will help herself to a reasonable portion of them, but will not take the entire pad, as some do.

But what about coupons that are actually attached to a product? That's a trickier one.

Say a 25%-off coupon for bacon is attached to skin cream. Is it ok to take one? Is it ok to take them all? Or should you only take the ones attached to products that you buy? For most, the initial reaction is that it's wrong to take the bacon coupon unless you purchase the skin cream. Obviously, the manufacturer does not care. If they did, they would put the coupon on the inside of the packaging, or incorporate it into the label so that it can not be removed. For those who really just wanted skin cream, there is no loss if the coupon is missing. The worst case is that those that wanted, both, skin cream and bacon and who would use a coupon, don't get a discount. There can also be a downside for the store if it does not sell bacon. In that case, taking the coupon removes the extra purchasing incentive from the skin cream and the store might lose skin cream sales, recouping nothing through bacon sales. The upshot is that few, if any, are negatively affected by missing coupons.

But it can get even trickier than that: What if you are using the coupon to purchase another flavour of the same item? The first time Junko encountered this particular coupon-dilemma was with hair dye. The blonde dye had a discount coupon attached to it. But she wanted brown. She peeled the coupons off the blonde and use them to purchase the brown dye. She did not clear the shelves, but did buy 20 boxes. They were male hair dye. Not one of her subtlest hints.

Junko still does not have a firm policy on such coupons. Most people won't use coupons and are unaffected, but she doesn't want to steal from other couponers, nor does she want to negatively impact the store. She feels that she must apply limits in order for coupons to continue to work for everyone involved: consumers, stores and manufacturers. It's a matter of long-term sustainability.

Being perfectly fair to all concerned is a sensitive matter, for some. And the typical initial reaction is often the exact opposite of the reality.

I have also noticed this to be true when we give a gift that has been acquired using coupons.

It is well known to our family and friends that Junko is a couponer. They know that she regularly gets things like brand-name hair products, cologne, perfume and makeup, chocolate bars and movie tickets for free—or close to it. Each Christmas, she creates generous gift baskets for all the adults composed of these products. It's never been said, but I suspect that even though these are very practical and expensive products they are not appreciated at their full value because the perception is that they are free. Well, first of all, they are not free. Even if they cost us little, or nothing, Junko spends hours working to get these products. And, secondly, as Christmas gifts go, they are by far the most thoughtful ever exchanged among the adults in our family because she thinks about these people and their needs on a regular basis, all year long. If you ask her, you will find that she has a very good reason for giving every item in a basket to that particular person. If it's the thought that counts, then her gifts are extremely valuable.

These days, we're all pretty sensitive regarding our carbon footprint and, in this respect, couponing will not make you any sort of Greenpeace hero.

Many of the items we get are one-time-use, disposable or sample-sized products. Junko once came home with 300 sample-sized packages of Zantac heartburn medication. None of us have stomach issues, and so, we gave a lot of it away. Each cardboard container held a plastic and foil strip which held only three pills. Why did she buy so many? Because she then submitted the receipts to an online coupon site and got more money back than she paid because of a Zantac rebate that applied even to these 3-packs. It was good for us, but not so good for the environment as all of that packaging had to be recycled.

At the height of her mania for her new-found hobby, Walmart had a policy that allowed Junko to purchase groceries at great savings. In order to accomplish this, she picked up dozens of their free, full-colour product magazines, ripped out the coupons she wanted and dump the remaining 40-plus pages into our recycle bin. She operated similarly with other free magazines and newspapers that are distributed around our city. For a time, she even drove around to fast food restaurants asking for flyers from their day-old city newspapers. Managers were happy to be relieved of the excess paper.

Magazines and flyers are not printed in one's and two's, so all of this printed matter and associated packaging is going to end up in a recycle bin somewhere, regardless whether couponers take them. However, if there were no couponers, the print runs and the associated environmental impact might be smaller.

These days most coupons and discounts are offered online and printed out, at home. When Walmart extended their price matching policy Canada-wide, Junko went online and found flyers in small eastern towns, printed reams of advertisements as proof, and price matched against obscure corner store specials. During that time, she brought home meat, cheese, fruit and vegetables, often paid nothing, or got money back at the cash register. She then spent days cooking up a storm, converting the raw ingredients into frozen meals. Only the environment and our recycling collectors suffered.

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Adventures in Couponing (Pt 2 of 4) - Stigma and Challenges



The Stigma:
Before Junko showed me the light, if I had ever given coupons any thought at all, the thought would have been that I was averse to using them. Forced to justify this, I might have pointed out the inconvenience of collecting, carrying and using them to save insignificant amounts of money. But mostly, it was the embarrassment of having people think that, maybe, I was so poor that I had to use coupons.

My attitude changed abruptly the first time that I witnessed her purchase brand-name bacon at a dollar a pound while the next person in line paid five. I thought about how it would feel to be that person, and my embarrassment vanished, replaced by pride. Suddenly, I wanted to tell everyone I knew how much money my clever wife was saving us.

But, of course, most people are still hesitant to use a coupon. Junko has offered other shoppers her extras, which is a great way to create an awkward moment from scratch. The strangers tend to stare, bewildered, unable to properly assess the value of what she is offering and, usually, politely decline. Conversely, however, if a cashier applies a coupon automatically, as they do at the London Drugs in our area, customers would never consider refusing to accept the discount—no different than they would accept a special price marked on the shelf.

It's all about interaction. These days, people do not want to interact with their cashier. They just want to pay and go home. And, when it comes to coupons, many cashiers don't look forward to the interaction, either, as it can often be a brow-furrowing experience; deciphering the limits of the offer and assessing how it might interact with other offers, as well as store policy.

I, too, was resistant for years, but now I'm smug. For me, it has become clear that coupon savings are the reason we can homeschool our children and vacation in Japan, every three or four years, without financial consequence. I don't shop often, but now, before I do, I always ask Junko if she knows of a deal or has a coupon that might apply. Also, I let her know in advance when I am thinking of purchasing something, then she keeps her eyes peeled for specials.

Our children have been raised to save. Their keen eyes are quick to spot in-store specials and though they don't clip coupons, they do check the flyers if they have their eye on something. They have Christmas and birthday money to spend, but neither one would ever consider purchasing a toy at full retail. My son once waited two months for delivery of a video game, direct from Japan, because it was $5 cheaper than at Toys-R-Us. When I was a kid, I couldn't even wait for Jell-O to set.


The Challenges...
When it comes to couponing, Junko applies all of her considerable cunning and will not be deterred. When I see the determination, attention to detail and meticulousness with which she maps out her shopping itinerary, I know that if she wanted it so, I'd already be dead. So, no sense worrying about that, but, also, maybe I should buy some flowers on the way home from work today.

For reasons that, initially, I could not fathom, successfully cashing in a coupon seems to make her happy. And, at first, that's why I was patient, if not encouraging: "Happy wife, happy life."

A couple of years in, her methods evolved from just cutting coupons out of newspapers and flyers to looking them up online and submitting receipts, electronically. She was consuming hours, each day, hunting for new coupons, researching how those could be combined with in-store promotions and studying store policies in the eventuality that a cashier might refuse to cooperate. Her savings went from half-off the occasional product, to cheques arriving in the mail, paying her for purchasing! At first, as couponing started consuming her hours, I was concerned, but soon, I went from tolerating her new-found hobby, which sometimes meant we had to make random and inconvenient grocery stops during family outings, to praying that she never stops.

It should have been obvious when she decided to marry me that she likes a challenge. I think, Junko views couponing as a challenging game, with money as the prize. And, for a traditional Japanese housewife, there can be no greater incentive than saving the family money. (In Japan, typically, the wife is the financial manager, handling all the important decisions, including when to buy and sell the family home, and doling the husband a monthly allowance.) 

For Junko, there certainly are challenges. English is her second language. She's fluent, but even so, understanding the fine print on some of these promotions is like deciphering a law text. Which brings up the next challenge: Many cashiers and managers are not so fluent and need further education in their own language. When she feels it may be necessary, Junko prepares by bringing with her printouts of store policy and coupons with key phrases highlighted. Before shopping, Junko often spends an hour organizing her coupons, her itinerary and her strategy, working out which coupons can be combined, where the savings will be maximized and how to present it all at the cash register, including counter-arguments, should there be resistance.

In spite of all of this preparation, sometimes things do not go smoothly at the till. If the store is unwilling to allow her discounts, Junko will easily and politely relent, but she will also abandon her coupon purchases. In this day and age where everyone considers their time to be precious, store personnel are often unprepared for this and I have witnessed their shock as Junko leaves the store empty-handed, and their unexpected loss of time and sales sinks in.

If you think about the coupon system, you will realize that it must work for both the manufacturer and the store or else they would not offer it. When you redeem a coupon, the store sends it to the manufacturer who repays the store for the discount. There is no loss to the store. The manufacturer considers it an advertising cost and hopes to transform a couponer into a loyal customer. Somewhere in an office in Los Angeles or New York, some advertising executive has calculated it all out and decided that the benefits outweigh the expenditures, including the cost of obsessive-compulsive, bulk-purchasing couponers. But many cashiers and store managers do not understand this, and resist redeeming coupons. Admittedly, in this computer-paced age, with multiple offers on the table, things can get complicated. Still, there is no reason to rant or cry about it. But sometimes, they do.

At one Shopper's Drug Mart, Junko purchased three jars of pickles. She could have cleared the shelves, but she imposes what she considers reasonable limits on herself. Combining a coupon with the in-store sale price, it came to pennies a jar. The cashier cried, telling her that they would go out of business if people kept doing this. Junko was embarrassed and said nothing, but she was thinking that they should consider raising their price on pickles. Regardless, the store will be reimbursed. The cashier's concern assumes that management has not given this any thought, and in regards to a national chain like Shopper's Drug Mart, this is naive. It's been more than a year and that Shopper's Drug Mart is still in business.

Last January, when Junko returned a roll of wrapping paper that she'd purchased before Christmas, for 80¢, the manager threw a tantrum, smashing the roll against the countertop and throwing it across the floor while surprised shoppers gawked. Apparently, he was angry because he'd just bundled up all the leftover wrapping paper and returned it to the manufacturer. Perhaps he should have considered his store's two-week return policy. I suspect that the problems at that particular location run deeper than simple issues of retailing.

Superstore has a policy that if the in-store price marked on an item is incorrect, they will give you $10 off at the cash register. Junko quickly realized that our local branch was lax in making sure their shelf prices matched the flyers. One day she found a product that was mispriced in this way. It cost less than $10 and, of course, she had a coupon. The manager was called and reluctantly gave her cash for purchasing. Junko waited a week and returned to find that they still had not changed the shelf price. She bought another. Again, the manager was called and was even more reluctant to hand over the money. Two weeks later, Junko found the shelf price unchanged and bought the item for the third time. The manager freaked out and told her that this was the last time she would honour the coupon. What's weird is, all they had to do to solve the problem was change the shelf price. Junko feels that they should either change their store policy or get their act together and she is merciless on this issue, regularly finding other mispriced items and going through that same manager, every time. There is little doubt that she is truly hated by that particular manager. Incidentally, two weeks after all of this, the price was still unaltered. My theory: This store is banking on the consumer's reluctance to call them on store policies they advertise to attract customers. In the longterm, not a winning policy.

But, sometimes, the staff can be on her side. During the brief time that Target was in Canada, they had some strange policy of selling things at full price for a few months, then putting them on special at prices so low that it was ridiculous, presumably to clear shelf space. When these prices were combined with coupons, the deals were so spectacular that Junko went there almost every day and the cashiers came to know her. They were so impressed with her deals that they'd strike up conversations about her methods. Some planned to make similar purchases for themselves. Everyone at Target was friendly and helpful, including the guy running the hot dog cart outside the main entrance who asked her out for coffee. She tells me that she declined.

Junko was heartbroken to see that store close their doors, but I joked that she had, singlehandedly, couponed Target out of Canada. She did not find this funny. Too soon, I guess. While Junko mourned, Target's bean counters were doing their "happy dance." I'm sure there are still board meetings during which they watch security footage of Junko shopping their profits away, as a training exercise.
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Adventures in Couponing (PT 1 of 4)





Years ago, I remember watching reality TV featuring extreme couponers and thinking to myself that those people were crazy. Now, I'm married to one and yes, she's crazy, but that has little to do with coupons, and damn! but we save a lot of money.

If you are ever in a cash register lineup in Victoria, BC, Canada and see a cute Japanese woman with a cartful of groceries and a fistful of coupons in deep discussion with the cashier, best to move to another line. That's probably my wife, and she is a serious couponer who firmly believes that schooling cashiers and store managers is time well spent.

Looking at a single coupon, you might not think that the savings could be significant, but the trick is in combining it with other coupons, and in-store specials. Many manufacturers offer brand-wide discounts which can be combined with their other, product-specific coupons. If the store's shelf-price is particularly low, you can save more than 100 percent on your purchases! On occasion, we've bought groceries and been paid in cash at the till for our trouble. More often, we pay a small amount and later receive a rebate cheque, by mail.



Basic requirements...
To really make a dent with couponing, there are three basic requirements:
• time enough to search flyers and the internet for deals,
• money enough to purchase things ahead of your needs, and
• space enough to stockpile.

An internet connection is becoming essential as more and more manufacturers have stopped printing paper coupons, now offering them online. There are also apps you can download to your smartphone which can help you find deals on items you run across while you are shopping.

Technically not an essential item, but something that will definitely improve the experience, is
a loving and understanding family who are flexible regarding the products they consume, and patient while you shop.

In Japan, coupons are not common; the Japanese prefer points cards. So my wife, Junko (June•ko), was shocked, ten years ago, when she got her first taste of couponing. It was shortly after the birth of our son and we were going through so much formula that I was close to initiating a frank discussion about just how tall a child really needs to grow.

Junko was shopping, one day, and noticed a pallet of baby formula at a discounted price. The deal was made even more attractive by a brand-wide, percentage-off coupon she had spotted in a flyer. I'm sure that she was skeptical that they would allow the combined discounts on the entire batch, but she read the coupon over carefully and could find no limitations. She must also have been scared, pitting her second-language skills against a native-English-speaking cashier. But curiosity and greed, won out. She called me and asked if it was ok for her to spend a few hundred dollars to purchase the entire pallet load. I was shocked by the total amount and laid down the Imperial Husbandly Law: "Absolutely not!" Three days later, I came across a pallet of baby formula in storage at the catering company which is our family business. I should not have been surprised. My wife has a rather lengthy criminal career, in the eyes of Husbandly Law.

At the time, I was pretty upset and rehashed it in my mind, every time I fed the baby. It's a testament to Junko's calculating ability that we ran out of formula about one month before the last baby bottle. Much later, during a discussion with other parents, I finally came to appreciate what Junko had accomplished with that bulk purchase. I was shocked to learn that a can of powdered baby formula was so expensive. While other families spent $25/can (Cdn.), or more, Junko got ours for five dollars each.

By the time that initial supply ran low, Junko was a seasoned couponer, able to purchase more at a similar rate. Raising two babies requires about two years of bottle feedings: That's at least 160 cans. On this product, alone, she saved our family a minimum of three thousand dollars!

Meanwhile, Junko had moved on to diapers. At one point, our attic was filled with boxes of Pampers; $35-boxes that she'd managed to get for under seven. Junko never bought a single diaper at full retail and accrued enough that we ended up giving away the last few boxes. Online, I found some statistics on typical diaper usage and calculate that couponing saved us about $1600—not to mention possible savings on our heating bill, with a hundred boxes of pampers insulating the attic.

When the Zellers chain went out of business, Junko used coupons on their already deeply discounted items. My wife is a curious mixture of demure and bold, and calmly created a huge traffic jam at the cash registers manned by a newly trained and frenzied liquidation sales clerk. Applying her coupons she bought a $100 stroller and a $150 highchair at 70%-off, and left permanent creases in the foreheads of two managers. These items lasted us through both children. Junko was diligent in keeping them clean and in good operating condition so that, once our children outgrew them, we were able to recoup the entire investment during our annual garage sale.

Because of her, we raised our babies to toddler stage, practically for free. I tell my second-born that if we hadn't got a discount on the first child, we wouldn't have been able to afford to have a second. It's funny because she thinks I'm joking.




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