Fake? Mom feeds family of 6 on $4 a week

Realistic?
happyTurtlesays...

Yeah, I have a friend who does this. One time she went to Kroger and had almost a cart full of food, and they ended up owing her money. The checkout girl was completely confused.

It takes a lot of time, and you have to stockpile stuff, but it works.

direpicklesays...

>> ^Payback:
Some of us are gainfully employed and realize the amount of time she spends saving $267 we earn $500.


The median household income in the United Sates is ~$43k, which is ~$20/hr assuming 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. So... if she's an average American and she's spending fewer than ten hours a week clipping coupons, she's doin' pretty good for herself. And she gets to be around the kids while clipping.

Of course, the $267 is kind of an outlier (she said it was her record), but even if only the drugstore is more representative, if that took less than three hours of clipping for that one single visit, she's doing well.

longdesays...

Also considering that most of those households are dual income, assuming she is in a dual income family or a non-working mother, she is doing damn good.

After a while, I suspect she has gotten very efficient at this, so it doesn't take as long. Even more value/hour.

oxdottirsays...

What I want to know is how CVS and Shaws feel about being featured here. I suspect they like it. Most people won't do the work this woman did, but they will remember, "Hey, this is that store where you can get a lot of things for a penny."

Deanosays...

Coupon culture doesn't appear to be big over here in England. I rarely see anyone use them. We're also getting more self-serve tils so I imagine this makes redeeming coupons even harder.

This woman sounds like she's got the process down to a fine art, so well done to her.

Paybacksays...

>> ^Xax:
How the hell is she pulling that off? I almost never see grocery coupons in Canada, but are they really that rampant in the U.S.?


Get off the Net and buy a newspaper, or better yet, stop throwing away that non-addressed stuff you get in the mail and actually read through it. Unless your out in the middle Northern Alberta in an oil field camp, there's a supermarket throwing coupons at you every other day.

HollywoodBobsays...

While it's cool that she can manage to do this, I can't help but think about how she's hurting the economy. If everyone were to put the same effort into using coupons, it could have devastating repercussions. Which do you think we'd see first; bailouts to Kraft foods and Tyson chicken, or the end of coupons all together?

Xaxsays...

Ah yes, I forgot about those mailings .

As for this woman single-handedly destroying the economy or changing just about anything, I somehow doubt it. It's not there's a legion of people doing this.

jwraysays...

Add the time you spend setting it up, and the money for the extra gasoline.

Coupons are a heck of a time sink but ultimately a zero-sum game. I'd rather go to a store that had low prices without rebates or coupons. Coupons are the most common system of charging different prices to different people for the exact same thing (and one of the few legal ways to do it).

loorissays...

>> ^HollywoodBob:

While it's cool that she can manage to do this, I can't help but think about how she's hurting the economy. If everyone were to put the same effort into using coupons, it could have devastating repercussions. Which do you think we'd see first; bailouts to Kraft foods and Tyson chicken, or the end of coupons all together?


hurting the economy? what are you talking about?

the moment you issue a coupon, you are ready to "pay" for it. If you issue more coupons than you can afford, you deserve everything you get.

DrewNumberTwosays...

I wonder how much she spends on newspapers, or whatever else she gets her coupons from. She had several of one coupon, which suggests that she might have bought several newspapers. I doubt that she spends hundreds of dollars on them, but if she buys them, then the figures that we're seeing are misleading.

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