Coupons: Worth the Clipping?
By brooke, March 12, 2010, Coupons, For Moms
These tough economic times have spawned an inordinate amount of coupon mailings and advertisements. You can find them everywhere: in the paper, online, on your phone. Most of the time, you see coupons that save 50 cents here or a dollar there; not that much for one-off’s, but they can add up over time. I am curious though, is that 50 cents really worth my time in searching clipping, organizing and remembering to bring them to the store? Finally, I found an answer from the Wall Street Journal. Brett Arends, a writer with the WSJ, answers that question in a way I never looked at before.
Mr. Arends reported that the US redeemed around 3.3 billion coupons just least year which was a 27% increase from 2008. Not only was the increase with paper coupons, but online coupon use increased a whopping 360%.
With coupon trends increasing, how do we know if it is worth our time? According to a report by Inmar, a coupon processing agent, the average saving per coupon is $1.44. So with all the time it takes to collect and actually use the coupon, how does $1.44 really save us money in relation to time spent? Well, Mr. Arends breaks that down for us. He uses the assumption that it takes about a minute’s worth of effort for each coupon. With an average saving of $1.44 per coupon, you’re looking at a savings of $14.40 for 10 minutes worth of work. If you multiply that by six for an hourly rate, you get a savings of $86.40. He compares that to the typical working American who makes about $20 an hour. Not a bad use of time, if you ask me.
So if you agree with Mr. Arends’ approach, it shows that coupon clipping can really save some money. Not to mention that the savings are tax free and can be done at home in your pj’s!
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