You see, I used to be a cashier at one of the great Canadian hypermarkets. You could always tell when a coupon lady (or man) was coming. First, a sea of yellow bulk sized no-name products, canned goods galore, junk food, cleaning products up the ying-yang and very few fresh fruits and vegetables (beyond cheap stables like bananas, potatoes and carrots) make their way down the belt. You catch a glance of him or her unpacking their load, a stack of glossy papers and thick cardboard ferociously gripped in hand. The death grip is obviously necessary, you see, why efficiently unpack your groceries when you'd be leaving your valuable coupons in plain sight for anyone to steal!!! N00bs with only a few coupons shuffle through their 2 or 3, covering them in sweat, making the corners soft; this has been an obviously anxiety ridden ordeal for them. Hopefully they will learn their lesson and stop. After many awkward, tense, price related moments and arguments (breaking into your ring time and your chance at weekly giftcards!), the calling of managers, the slowing and stopping of lines, the wasting of time of decent, complacent folks, comes the total. They look at it with a sick smugness, then demand points for this and that, pay with multiple giftcards acquired on previous trips, credit cards with extra airmile-cashback-new blender points, and OH AND I’VE BROUGHT MY OWN GREEN BAGS 30 of them must have that’s 3000 pts plz!!! Of course they’ve only got enough groceries to fill 5 or 6, but they earn 24 * 0.05 cents in cash back= 1.20 $ so it’s worth it, to them. Don’t bother arguing, your job is hard enough.
If you live in a hole, you might ask, who are these coupon clippers and how much are they saving? Joanie Demer( seen below), also known as the Krazy Kupon Lady has filled 4 carts with a retail value of $638.64 and after coupons paid $2.64. That is a 98% savings! Yeah sure, but this woman coupons as a full time job (is it really saving money when you could be making it elsewhere?), spends all her time in dumpsters, actually putting her children in harm’s way while they aid her in her coupon salvaging.
The inundation of positive reactions to these women and these shows just doesn’t compute for me. These people are not cute; they’re not clever. They are awful price checking, nagging, whining brats who argue their way into heavy discounts and free items. There is no principle of the matter operating behind arguing that eggs are 2.97 not 2.99 in order to get them free under Canadian scanning code of practice. This is a voluntary code which most stores follow which says that if the price of an item under 10 dollars scans differently than the one on the shelf, shoppers get the item for free; if it is more than 10 bucks, they get 10 dollars off.
Let’s summarize so far. A, it’s a full time job and B, it makes you a terrible person who takes up the precious time of other people. Indeed you’ve taken on a full time job which is something akin to that of a telemarketer. But let’s continue...
These people buy a lot of new fangled crap and gimmicks and flavours that never seem to stick around for more than a short while. The amount of petrochemical shit they stock up on ( more glade air fresheners than would be needed to cover up the smell of the Mithi river in Mumbai), sugary drinks, canned goods, cleaning products...yes the things they buy have long shelf lives, but they’re unhealthy and I guarantee a great deal won’t be touched before their expiry dates, if they are ever used. Though they'll tell you otherwise: "Oh I never buy things I don't need or want". Come on. They want everything as long as there's a coupon for it.
It’s not to say that I don’t realize that some people need to find ways to stretch their budgets (students, the elderly, the unemployed, yours truly etc.). And it’s not that I don’t get that food prices are up overall, though 1.7% ( according to stats Canada) hardly makes me shiver in my boots. I don’t like cheap, but I get it. I love sales, I get sales watching. What I don’t get is the agony of collecting coupons, wasting other people’s time, knowing that the products are very often not things that you want or need in the first place.
I guess my biggest question is if this whole extreme couponing thing catches on, won't manufacturers just have to back off and stop offering deals? Won't stores wanting to save the time of their other customers ( and themselves), stop accepting coupons or put in place maximums?
I don't know, but I kinda hope so.
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