A woman has made significant savings on her grocery bills for her family thanks to couponing. Erin appeared on TLC’s Extreme Couponing to share how she paid less than $100 (£80.27) in groceries for her sister Jamie’s wedding.
Without coupons, the purchased items would have cost around $900 (£722.41).
Due to wedding costs being exponentially expensive with items being marked up, Erin was roped in to help her sister Jamie bring down the skyrocketing grocery bills.
She said: “I’m not good at guitar. I’m not good at sports but I’m great at couponing. I don’t consider myself really a shopaholic, I think a couponaholic describes me.
“I coupon for my own personal stockpile. I would say I’ve spent about $2,500 (£2,006.70) and I’ve gotten almost $17,000 (£13,645.56) worth of items, and we are couponing for my sister’s wedding.”
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With Erin having 10,000 items stockpiled in her basement, many of the wedding essentials are already available.
However, the wedding party was in need of certain items to feed the 280 guests, including large quantities of iced tea mix, barbecue sauce and mustard for the caterer.
Jamie only had $150 (£120.40) left to spend but her sister’s coupon-saving talent meant she was able to pay even less than that.
Through in-store discounts, concessions and coupon clippings, Erin was able to bring down the massive grocery bill to less than $100 (£80.27).
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Ahead of the big day, she enlisted the whole family to clip and store all the coupons that she needed to keep everything under budget.
One of the ways she reduced the bill was by making 16 separate transactions in one shopping trip to use as many coupons as possible.
Thanks to her coupon savings skills, Erin was able to buy all of the necessary groceries for the wedding celebrations.
This included 18 bags of salad, 36 bottles of mustard and 82 boxes of pasta for a retail value of $886.12 (£711.14).
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“By using a combination of digital coupons, cash back savings, purchasing generic alternatives, and shopping sales items – you can easily save $100 (£80.25) a month or more, depending on your current spending habits.
“Digital coupons alone can save you as much as 15 percent to 20 percent off retail prices without having to clip physicaL coupons.
“Additionally, by using cash-back apps, you can save another five percent by shopping at many grocery stores.”
Reacting to Erin’s savings, one YouTube commentator wrote: “Her skills are very impressive and I would love to see people who coupon donate at least two months worth of food to a local food bank or church.”
Another stated: “This lady is definitely not an extreme cheapskate! She is awesome in saving money using coupons.
Those interested in learning more about saving money can watch Extreme Couponing on fuboTV or Discovery+.
