this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

I'm a casual coupon user. I use coupons, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to use them. I clip the ones that come in the Sunday newspaper as well as any that might come in the mail or come in the packaging of products that I buy. I used to print internet coupons, but I rarely do that anymore because it started to be more trouble than it was worth for me. I can't tell you the number of times I found a great coupon to pair with a great sale, printed out said coupon only to find out that the product I wanted was sold out. This always seemed to happen when the promotion was something along the lines of "buy 10, save $5", so getting a raincheck wasn't a possibility.

I recently read an article on the Wall Street Journal's webpage lauding coupon usage. I don't doubt that coupons can be a great money saver, but I think that the media makes them out to be more wonderful than they really are. This article claimed that the average coupon savings is $1.44 per coupon. I think my average savings per coupon is about 40 cents. There just aren't many coupons out there for the products that I actually buy. I tend to clip more than I think I will actually use just in case a great sale pops up. Still, I normally just throw most of them away because even the sale price plus the coupon is greater than the brand I would normally buy. It's important to note that none of the stores in my area double coupons (at least not on a regular basis - one store will occasionally have week long promotions in which they will double coupons). I'm sure this skews my view of coupons.

I hear people singing the praises of drugstore sales. I have yet to shop at CVS (but will try it out soon as one is scheduled to open in my area in the next month or two) and though at one point I thought I had Walgreens working in my favor, in the end it really wasn't. Besides, for me it just isn't normally worth the extra trip considering the fact that I have two or three kids in tow.

I do think coupons are great, and I do use them, but I believe there are many people out there actually spending more money due to coupon use due to the fact that they are buying products that they normally would not. Yet these people think they are saving money because they are using coupons and coupons save money!

What are your coupon thoughts?