Can saving money buy happiness?
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Image courtesy of Discovery Communications, LLC.
Last night on Extreme Couponing™, we saw the original “Coupon Queen,” a penny-pinching college freshman, a neighbor converted and a new car! Each budget-savvy individual used his/her savings toward a fresh start, so let’s begin with fellow New Yorker and Twitter follower Susan. The Scarsdale native calls herself the original “Coupon Queen” and boy, did she back up her title, showcasing her very own couponing robot.
“I may be small, but my savings are huge!” says the 4-foot-nine, mother-of-three.
It’s admittedly easy to budget with an 8-by-8-foot, 200-pound robot organizing 10,000-plus coupons at a time. But Susan was couponing long before her son Stuart built the lean, mean, money-saving machine. In fact, the show centers on her many decades of couponing and her goal to surpass her biggest haul in 1984 of $519 worth of groceries for $22. She enlists the help of a few good men—husband Steve and sons, Michael, Stuart and Mark—as well as 50,000 stockpiled coupons with no expiration dates for her shopping trip. First, they bag 40 Cup Noodles™ (25 cents each) then it’s on to the desserts. That’s when the infighting begins among her adult sons about which flavors to pick, proving we can never outgrow sibling rivalry. But Susan refuses to be deterred and parcels out various flavors fairly before heading to the checkout. One unique thing about the vertically challenged Coupon Queen is that she carries her own step stool.
“Don’t laugh,” she instructs the cashier as she hoists it out of her purse.
But the joke is on the supermarket when Susan leaves with $714.34 of groceries and only pays $39.61. Record broken; here’s to another decade of saving, Coupon Queen!
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Cole, 18, rules the next 30 minutes of Extreme Couponing™. You’ll remember him from last season as the high school senior who saved his family boatloads of cash. Now, he’s a freshman at Ohio State University, which means his $35,000 stockpile is moving out of his parents’ tattoo parlor and into his dorm room. There’s only one problem: his roommate Brian isn’t so keen on his room doubling as a supermarket.
“How can you watch football with beans in front of the TV?” Brian pleads.
Cole points out that coeds are always impressed by his savings and makes his roommate a very sweet deal. If he can get Brian his favorite foods for a dollar, then they can turn their dorm room into a stockpile closet. Skeptical at first, Brian is persuaded by a never-ending supply of Vitamin Water™, and they recruit their friends to clip coupons in the dining hall. But since freshmen are not allowed to have cars on campus, everyone must hand-carry their haul back to the dorms. Cole hopes to get $800 of groceries for $1, and 193 Vitamin Waters™, 40 sodas (Pepsi® and 7Up®), 144 yogurts and Always® maxi pads later, he does it: $792.46 for a mere 71 cents!
“Dude, where are you gonna put all of these?” his friend Danny asks .
“Under his bed,” Brian chides.
Burn! He then compares him to a middle-aged woman for couponing, but we think his opinion will change when the girls start coming around for free Vitamin Waters™. Here’s to a great freshman year, guys!
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Next comes Maryann, a suburban mom who is determined to convert her neighbors into extreme couponers—and what better way to do that than with her daughter’s 12th birthday party? You can imagine that daughter Mazy isn’t exactly thrilled when a money grabber (you know the ones that blow air all around you) is transformed into a coupon grabber or when cheerleaders chant “Save! Save! Save!” in their front yard, but she and her dad Ben have become used to their mom’s frugalness by now.
“She’s a crack addict for couponing,” Ben admits. Later adding, “Maryann turned my man cave into her own personal store.”
But there is one silver lining to this block party: Laurie. Maryann takes her neighbor on a shopping trip to prove that she can get a year’s worth of groceries with just five hours of planning.
“I would leave my child behind but never my coupon binder,” Maryann says to demonstrate her passion.
In the end, the ladies make off with $617.93 of groceries for just $1.39. And you know what? Laurie is now a coupon believer!
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Image courtesy of Discovery Communications, LLC.
Last, we meet 15-year-old Haley from North Carolina. She spends 25-30 hours a week couponing, but it’s for a worthy cause: a new car. Her parents agree to use the money she saves at the supermarket toward a sweet ride, but Haley isn’t your typical teenager. When they visit the dealership, she tests the trunk to see if it can fit all of her groceries inside, to which car salesman truck admits is the “craziest” thing he’s seen in his career. But people do crazy things for the things they love, and Haley takes her family on a shopping trip to the Piggly Wiggly.
“When we go shopping, she’s definitely like a parent,” younger sister Cori says.
It’s true. Mom and Dad can’t even select items they want. Everyone sticks to Haley’s list, and they even make out with a bunch of barbecue sauces even though Haley’s not a fan of hickory flavor. Four “buggies” full later, the cashier rings Haley up to $27.66 for $680.53 of groceries. That’s 96 percent savings and enough to bring Haley that much closer to her dream vehicle.
That concludes this week’s recap. Talk about some new beginnings: another decade of couponing, the first year of college, a couponing convert and a new car! Tune in next Tuesday to TLC at 10pm ET and anytime on Twitter (@Coupon_Alert, #extremecouponing) for more Extreme Couponing™ fun.
