This will be a completely biased post because I never wanted to start couponing in the first place. My wonderful husband was regaled with tales of amazing money-saving by his coworkers. As far as I can tell, he deduced that what I needed more than anything was a hobby that required a lot of time and energy, because, you know, I had those in spades. After a couple of months of couponing, here I am declaring that I’m not going to do it anymore and he can’t make me.

Pro (yes, just one):

Saves money- But not really. See below.

Cons:

Limited selection- The main idea behind couponing is only buying when something is on sale and you have a coupon for it. That limits that number of things that can be purchased and their usability. For instance, rarely are spaghetti sauce and spaghetti noodles on sale at the same time.

Time Suck-This is my biggest complaint. Couponing takes hours a week. There’s clipping the coupons, organizing them so they’re easier to find later, going through the weekly flyers for deals, and then going back and matching coupons to those deals. Also, to get the best deals you must visit 2 or 3 stores, so add driving time to the total.

Waste- If there is a “buy one, get one free” deal on cereal, it will never apply to the family size. I’d get the same amount of cereal for cheaper, but instead of two big boxes, it would be in 4-6 little boxes. Also, the newspapers are wasted. Paul was getting 4 Atlanta newspapers a week and the only parts I was using were the coupon sections. Of course, we compost and recycle so they weren’t going to the landfill, but it was still a big waste. I’ve asked Paul not to order any more newspapers which is wife speak for “bring any more home and I’ll use them to set fire to your Xbox.”

Not food- Most of us know people who post about how they just paid 50 cents for $300 worth of groceries. Sometimes they even post a picture to go with it. I challenge you to find unprocessed food in the whole picture. Good luck. You’ll need it.  There’s never a good sale on fruits and veggies unless those fruits and veggies are 5 minutes from producing mold. I don’t feed my kids canned soup, Doritos, and Poptarts, so I’m not exactly drooling over the prospect of even paying 50 cents for a pile of it.

Doesn’t really save you money- I did the whole list for this week and then I went back over my list to see which of these things I would have bought on my own if I wasn’t couponing. One. One little thing that I actually needed. Everything else was that I was buying was either a treat (English muffins and fruit cups) or crap I buy for Paul that I end up eating myself because he forgets to or doesn’t like it (Weight Watchers meals and Yoplait yogurt). I just saved at least twenty dollars by not bothering to go at all.

I suppose being successful at couponing really requires some sort of drive that I just don’t have. All in all, there may be a benefit to families with 18 children that exclusively eat high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oil, but there was no benefit to our family.

Thanks to Jenn for the flowchart: