If you’ve ever caught Extreme Couponing on cable’s TLC, you know a more apt title would be “Pathological Couponing.”
The reality show follows expert coupon clippers who amass bunkers of canned soup, mac’ and cheese and enough ketchup to fill every bathtub in the house while spending mere pennies compared to what the stuff would cost you and me. These people apparently spend most waking hours obsessed by coupons and get what experts would surely peg as a classic addict’s high each week when, after an epic trip around the grocery store (usually followed by a dazed spouse pushing overflowing cart number two), the cashier scans a fat stack of coupons that drive the till total lower, and lower, and lower…until it actually dips to a negative number!
An upcoming series on couponing at nine San Diego County branch libraries will not make you this extreme.
But you will learn a practical system to save you money on groceries without totally rewiring your neural networks.
The sessions are scheduled this month and next at the libraries in Del Mar, Campo-Morena, Potrero, Ramona, Julian, Imperial Beach, El Cajon, Santee and Fletcher Hills.
Instructor Eleonor Young, a 38-year-old San Diego woman who is presenting on behalf of the website GrocerySmarts.com, said she is a reformed extreme couponer herself. (She quit, she said, when one Sunday morning at 5 a.m. after staying up all night organizing coupons in binders, she realized she was excited because the newspaper with new coupons was probably on the porch).
Young said she teaches a better way.
“It’s basically how to organize the coupons in a way that, when you make your weekly shopping list, you are able to go to the exact coupon you need, and you’re on your way to the grocery store,” Young said. “It does not take hours and hours of planning to save money.”
Although she would not reveal her secrets in advance of the library sessions, Young said her method uses Sunday newspaper coupons, requires no advanced clipping or binders and works in conjunction with the free tools on GrocerySmarts.com.
Young estimates she saves about 60 percent on groceries each month for herself, her husband and her 6-year-old son.
Pat Downs, a principal librarian who helps arrange some of the tens of thousands of programs hosted by the County libraries each year, said she invited Young to the library because she was impressed with the Grocery Smarts system after seeing another presenter.
“It’s very slick and it’s very doable; I actually started saving coupons myself,” Downs said.
She said Young will teach participants a little about how the coupon industry is closely aligned with food and product manufacturers, grocery stores, newspapers and Grocery Smarts itself.
“She teaches you all about the couponing business,” Downs said.
With the economy still slumping and the average family as budget conscious as it’s ever been, Downs said she thinks there will be a lot of interest in the sessions.
“I would see how with families, this would be a big benefit for them,” Downs said. “That’s why we tried to get it in as many branches as possible.”
Couponing Sessions
- Thursday, Jan. 19 at 11:30 a.m.: Del Mar Library, 1309 Camino Del Mar
- Saturday, Jan. 21 at 12 p.m.: Campo-Morena Library, 31356 Highway 94
- Saturday, Jan. 21 at 3 p.m.: Potrero Library, 24883 Potrero Valley Rd.
- Friday, Jan. 27 at 9:30 a.m.: Ramona Library, 1275 Main St.
- Friday, Jan. 27 at 12 p.m.: Julian Library, 1850 Highway 78
- Saturday, Feb. 4 at 12 p.m.: Imperial Beach Library, 810 Imperial Beach Blvd.
- Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 10 a.m.: El Cajon Library, 201 E Douglas Ave.
- Tuesday, Feb. 7 at 12:30 p.m.: Santee Library, 9225 Carlton Hills Blvd. #17
- Saturday, Feb. 18 at 1 p.m.: Fletcher Hills Library, 576 Garfield Ave
For more information at couponing classes at San Diego County Library, visit www.sdcl.org or contact any of the branches hosting the classes.
