Why More of Us Don't Choose to Join The Ranks of The Extreme Couponer

The extreme couponer - such a popular thing to be today - may have to find a new hobby. Retailers like Kroger and Target and many others are beginning to see that the extreme couponer - a phenomenon they completely helped create - is running them out of business. They are beginning to see that it's completely gotten out of hand and they have to do something to stop this if they wish to survive. It may be hard for you to believe that there could be that many people out there who could do this kind of thing.

For instance, where do you think you're likely to find more people of the extreme couponer variety - in the lower middle-class or in the upper-middle-class? Of course, you're going to say that the poorer you are, the more you are going to clip coupons, right?

Wrong. Statistics show that poor people - even people who make up to $30,000 a year - are not likely to be college educated, and they're not likely to really read up on how to go extreme couponing. Apparently, you need a kind of engagement with the Internet and the papers and everything to understand how to do this. Or to even be aware that there is such a thing as extreme couponing.

You see though, there are not that many people out there who make $100,000 a year. They're like the 1%. And you know what? Only 1% of the coupons that stores and manufacturers put out actually get redeemed. That's like near perfect correlation. Only the top 1% clip coupons, and the rest of us don't. You know how much you're saving the manufacturers when you don't clip coupons? It's half a trillion dollars.

Even if it's just 1% of the half trillion dollars worth of coupons that get clipped, the manufacturers or and retailers are crying foul. They want to pull a lot of their coupon offers.

There's another reason why it shouldn't surprise you that millionaires are more likely to be the extreme couponer kind rather than the lower middle-class person. A lot of these coupons are only available on smart phones. And who you think is more likely to own a smartphone?

The moral of the lesson is, that as often as you tend to read and hear about extreme couponing, you have to understand that it's a very small phenomenon. Very few people have the knowledge for how to do this. It is difficult though. Everyone can learn how with just a few minutes put in though, and they can search the Internet and clip coupons as newspapers before they head out shopping. The bargains can be really wonderful.

Daily deal sites Look To Innovate in Their Business Model

Traditionally, the daily deal sites have been mostly about helping you save money (even if said savings have been mostly been in useless things like spa sessions and computer tuneups that you might well do without). Well, that's been the tradition with these businesses for as far back as tradition goes in these things - about two years. These days, people seem to be getting tired of the kinds of offers they usually come up with, and Groupon and the rest of them are trying new ways to tempt their buyers with. For instance, they're trying to get them to spend more to buy higher-quality stuff.

You would never expect a nickel and dime store to offer a co-branded credit card, would you? Well LivingSocial now has a credit card with Chase. You get that card, and there's no annual fee. Not to mention, for every 10 things that you buy on LivingSocial each month, you'll earn $10 worth of credits.

They even have a VIP membership club. You pay $30 to be a member, and they'll give you first dibs on certain special sales. You'll also get to buy into any deal after it's expired. So all you need to do is to get this membership, and it's like you’re King of the Castle.

For daily deal sites that struggle to stand apart from the crowd, loyalty cards and credit cards are a great way to get a better class of consumer and to inspire a little bit of loyalty. A quick look around the Internet is enough to see that the buzz about the review sites has died down. These businesses need to either find new ways to keep consumers interested, or they need to get ready to  fall by the wayside.

What makes premium memberships even more attractive to the daily deal sites is that it geives them the opportunity to really observe close-up how the higher-end consumer behaves. Customer behavior is very valuable. Researchers study this data and there's a good bit of money this. With this kind of insight, the daily deal sites will be able to structure their deals in much more attractive ways.

Of course, things might work out well for the daily deal sites in the end if they keep trying . Butto evolve their business this aggressively. Whether it's good news for the VIP members, is a completely different matter. If the regular daily deal member routinely gets 75% off on everything, what can the VIP members actually hope for that's all that great? This might actually work against the daily dealbusinesses. When they offer their special deals to their VIP members first, won't this annoy the regular members? When it's their turn, they will never have any left.

Like to Clip Coupons and Use Them with Devious Cleverness? Not Anymore

Extreme couponing is a term that's really become popular. Article after article and TV show after TV show will go and talk about how you should clip coupons with the express aim of hitting retailers and stores for all they've got.

Well, there's this one little flaw here in all these extreme couponing  plans that everyone teaches you. They take these rules for how to coupon effectively a little too seriously. They treat them like they're the laws of nature and theyy are forever.

Well, the retailers out there are completely mad at people who clip coupons for extreme couponing strategies. They never intended for you to combine offers and coupons like this. And they're about put an end to it.

Extreme couponing started as a kind of secret underground movement. People began to learn about all the ways they could combine coupons from the manufacturer, the store and the Internet to make a serious dent in  what they spent at the store. Sometimes, they would even buy in bulk and completely wipe out the profit margin that the retailer had.

With time, this became a popular thing and not very secret anymore. It's turned into such a mass movement now that retailers are going to have to do something to stay in business. They really weren't set up to deal with people who played them the way Great Depression families did.

The first thing they are cutting off is how you combine different coupon offers and get triple-off savings. Supermarkets like Kroger are saying that you cannot stack coupons any more. There are other supermarkets that are following, too. Places like Food Lion are cutting off extreme couponers and any attempts to stack coupons.

Others like Walgreens and Rite Aid will allow stacking and extreme couponing, but they won't way you do it for everything. Walmart doesn't want more than one copy of a printed home coupon, and Target says that you can't come in with two twofer coupons, and get both items free.

It isn't just that the economic climate is kind of low-key now and people really need to do this kind of thing. It's also that the manufacturers and the stores kind of stoked the flames themselves, outdoing one another with more and more coupons.

Now, they're at a place where they see that they've gone too far. If they roll it back like this, they are going to alienate shoppers. If they keep doing this, it's going to be hard for them to stay in business. That's a tough call.

Do As Seen on TV Products Make Sense

Can you or can you not believe in those fantastic claims that the happy people on television make all the time on those infomercials? Let's take a look at a couple of those "as seen on TV products" that you're tired of resisting on the late-night infomercials, and see if they actually make as much sense as those hopped-up people say.

Okay, what is the one thing that most As Seen on TV products are really well-known for? Well, if you had to pick one thing, it would have to be how they like to come up with these ideas for easy and convenient products and actually show up on TV all hopped up with enthusiasm.

So let's take a look at a couple of those kind of products and see how good they are - the EZ Cracker to break eggs open with, and a new superglue they call UGlu, both which sell for $17, all included.

The EZ Cracker looks like a nut cracker - only larger, and made of white plastic. The design requires that you take an egg - raw or boiled - and that you place it in there. It'll help you just take the shell off off of hard-boiled eggs and and it'll help you beautifully crack raw eggs in half so that you can separate the egg whites with no fuss. At least, that's what they tell you.

The thing is, you should be able to take a look at how simple these designs are and know that the there's no way that they can help you do anything. With hard-boiled eggs, the EZ Cracker does nothing but pulverize everything. With raw eggs, it works about half the time. The rest of the time, the break is not clean and everything ends up in a mess.

While it is very obviously difficult to solve any problem with a very simple device like the EZ Cracker, the UGlu concept doesn't have to appear impossible-sounding. Their concept is that they wish to give you very powerful bonding abilities - ala Superglue. But they don't want you to have to mess around with fluid goop. They want to give you that ability in tape. The box comes with strips of double-sided tape, and it's supposed to be able to stick anything to anything. Without clamping.

UGlu isn't a bad product at all. Within reason, this works well. But like most other kinds of tape, it isn't all that strong, and it's certainly not going to stick to cloth or brick for anything. There's no way to use it to stick the handle back on a broken cup or anything. In other words, you'd be much better off going down to your local store and getting a roll of double-sided tape. It's less hassle.And that's the case with most As Seen on TV products.

A Used Furniture Store Can Be a Big Help

Shortly after I graduated college, I was pretty desperate to get out of my parents' house and move out on my own. I did not have a lot of money and had just started working at an entry-level salary, but I had been saving some and was ready to look at getting some furniture for a new place I had just rented. I stopped by a used furniture store and went inside. I saw a lot of things that I wanted, and ended up buying a number of them, and I can say in all honesty that the store was a big help!

I think when I first went into the used furniture store, the owners could tell that I was still wet behind the ears, because the woman took kind of a motherly approach to me, while the man kept telling me what I needed. It reminded me a lot of my own parents, but I did not get any type of salesmanship from them. I could tell that they were just trying to help me out, and before long, I had a number of items stacked up that I wanted to bring home.

I knew that I was probably not going to be able to get everything that I was wanting, because even with it being a used furniture store, I had a lot of pieces of furniture that I was interested in, and the best part was that it would fill my apartment perfectly. I talked at length with the owners about my situation and informed them that I had about $1,000 to spend. I knew that everything that I had lined out came to well over $1,000 according to the prices marked on the furniture. I decided to haggle with them, and was able to get a considerable amount knocked off of the original prices.

I called my brother, told him of the location of the used furniture store, and asked him if he could come and help me move everything, as he had a pretty big truck. It took us four trips to get everything that I had purchased back to my apartment and inside. When all was said and done, I got everything that I wanted except for a recliner that would have put me just over the $1,000 mark. I shook the owners' hands, turned to leave, and the man called out to me that I had forgotten something. I turned around and he pointed to the chair. He said it was on him and his wife, and then gave me $50 back for my brother and I to go out and have dinner. Needless to say, I was overwhelmed with gratitude, and thanked them over and over again.

That used furniture store was in business for 15 more years before it finally closed, and the couple retired very comfortably. It was always really busy, and with the way that I was treated when I went there as a younger man, I can certainly see why.

The Discount Tire Store Will Keep My Family in Tires Forever

About three years ago, I realized that my tires needed to be changed desperately when I had a blowout on the freeway and finally examined them closely. I had bought them all at the same time, and I knew that if one of them blew, the others would be soon to follow. I shopped around and realized that most of the places I was checking were trying to gouge me on the price. I then went to a discount tire store and talked to one of the sales reps, and have to say that is where my family and I will go forever.

The tire blew out while I was on the freeway going about 70 miles an hour in traffic. It was terrifying, to be honest, and I sincerely wish it had not happened that way. I managed to get off the road and off the shoulder into a grassy area next to the highway. I changed the tire and put on the spare, and immediately called my wife to let her know what happened. I think she was probably even more scared than I was, and told me to be very careful coming home. At that point, I had not even ever thought about going to a discount tire store, even though I had seen them advertised.

A friend of mine told me about a place that was fairly close to my house that would give me a pretty good deal. I think my friend talked to the salesman ahead of time and told him that I had a good job, because the guy quoted me a price well above the going rate for a new set of tires. When I pointed this out to him, he informed me that was the best he could do, probably thinking that I would give in because I needed the new tires. When I informed him that I was not interested and started to leave, then he began to back-track and lower the price. I told him I would think about it once he reached what I felt was a reasonable asking price, and told him I would be in touch. I wanted to check out the discount tire store.

I made a few more stops before I went to the discount tire store, and while some of the asking prices were better than what I had encountered at the first store, they were still more than I wanted to spend. When I went to the discount tire store, they treated me with respect as soon as I walked through the door, quoted me a more-than-fair price for the set of tires and said if there were any sort of problems to feel free to contact them.

I have not had any problems with the tires I bought from the discount tire store, and now my family always goes through them for our tire needs.