My new addiction

Last week my best friend made me watch an episode of the TLC show "Extreme Couponers."

My mind was blown. I could't understand how women were essentially spending hundreds of dollars at the grocery store but only having to pay maybe $30, on a bad day.

But while I was contemplating this, a lightbulb went off in my head and I realized that at my newspaper we have these people sort through our recycle bins every Wednesday or Thursday and I realized they were couponers looking for Sunday's inserts. And a story idea was born! (And it's running in this Sunday's paper.)

So last week I met with a woman who is a stay at home mom, full time student and mother of three, with two dogs and a husband who's a cop. Every penny counts in their house. She has her coupon notebook, but she's not a hoarder like the women on the TLC show. Instead she has a modest storage shelf in her garage for her extra stuff.

Couponing allows her and her husband to have date nights, to order pizza for her kids when they have friends over, and it's made things less stressful around their house because they're not spending a fortune on groceries. Her average bill for her family of five is $50-$90 and she usually carts home $100-$300 worth of groceries. That's a big savings.

Next I talked to a woman who is a teacher who almost lost her job so she started couponing because she took a huge paycut in order to keep her teaching job. And she took on a bus route. But, she's gotten so good at it, she started a facebook site and has been teaching other women all over the county how to get the most out of coupons and save, save, save.

So then yesterday, I finally caught one of our recycling bin couponers - actually, I caught three. They were all military wives and stay at home moms and they drive the 45 minutes once a week to come raid our recycling bins so they can get the best deals. And it pays off. Yesterday they had spent a collective $100 on groceries when they took home nearly $500 worth of stuff, including toiletries, meat and seafood. AMAZING.

So these last two weeks as I've been interviewing these people and looking at all the coupon policies and coupon websites, I've found myself hooked and I've started to use them.

I'm starting out slow though because I don't have a family of four to feed, just my self and my two dogs and cat. But this week I went to the grocery store and saved $7 essentially getting my mouthwash for free, and getting paper towels for almost free, and I saved $1 on my gatorade prime stuff for my marathon training because I went shopping on a Wednesday when apparently the store does huge markdowns! Good to know! My bill was only $30.

So I'm actively clipping coupons now and using them when I know I need or am going to need something. And today I discovered, thanks to that facebook page the lady started, a site called www.thatfreebiesite.com and IT'S AMAZING. You can get free stuff like cookbooks, kindle books, stickers, address stickers, and best of all FREE SAMPLES. Today I got Playtext Tampons, Origins Eye Cream, Lacost Cologne (for my brother), Burberry perfume (For me), L'Oreal moisturizer, Eucerin body lotion, and a few stickers, and I entered to win $5,000.

And you don't pay shipping.

I always thought couponing and freebies weren't free and that they always came with a catch or were a huge scam. I was wrong. So very wrong. There's so much savings to be had, so many manufacturers willing to give away stuff just so they can gain new brand loyalists, and it's all there for the taking.

Other great sites for coupons include www.coupons.com, www.redplum.com, www.thekrazycouponlady.com, www.southernsavers.com and there's usually links to others on those sites.

I hope one day I can build my arsenal and be as awesome as the less extreme, but still kickass, couponers I've met in the last weeks, but for now I'm going to enjoy my small victories like almost free mouthwash, and all my freebies that I'll be receiving in 4 to 6 weeks!