I’m sure most of you have heard about the coupon craze going on right now as a result of TLC’s show extreme couponing. I haven’t watched the show before, but from what I hear it follows couponers as they go buy huge quantities of groceries using coupons, including 100+ of items like mustard, mayo, etc that have relatively short shelf lives. Meaning, there’s no way they could possibly consume that much product before they expire.

If you research couponing you’ll quickly learn that stockpiling is a necessity if you want to truly save. However, you’ll also learn that sale cycles are 12 weeks long. Meaning, once every 3 months you can find every item on your grocery list for its “rock bottom” price. If you pair that with a coupon (or two if your store allows stacking) then that’s the time to “stock up” and buy approximately 3 months worth. I’m not at all anti-stockpiling, but I’m frustrated with people who buy such insane amounts that they can’t possibly be using it all before it goes bad.

In my area I’ve noticed stores like walmart, meijer and target being very low on coupon items, and in some cases completely out. However, I was amazed when I tried couponing at walgreens for the first time yesterday. Now, for people who regularly coupon at walgreens they’ll tell you that this week was a bad week for walgreens deals. I read many coupon blogs that said they weren’t even going to walgreens this week because the deals just weren’t worth it to them. However, they had .88 cent pepsi two liters, free toothbrushes, free toothpaste, and a RR on purex softener crystals (I had a coupon for 1 free bottle so the deal was great for me), so I decided to try out walgreens for the first time. I thought going on the 4th would be great because mos tpeople are busy at BBQ’s so if I was slow in line, I wouldn’t be holding up many people.

I got to the store, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that EVERY.SINGLE.DEAL I had considered getting, was not in stock. Not a single toothbrush, toothpaste, purex crystal or 2 lieter of mountain dew (they did have diet dew and pepsi, but i wanted regular mountain dew). I could barely believe it. This was a REALLY big walgreens too. My town has FOUR walgreens, and the one I went to was by far the largest. In fact, I think it’s the biggest walgreens store that I even know about.

Sure, free toothbrushes and toothpaste, etc is great…but those two items in particular are very easy to find for very cheap or free nearly every week if you follow ads and coupons. In fact, CVS also has free toothbrushes this week. There’s no need to buy items like toothbrushes or toothpaste in a years supply at a time, because those deals will come back around in the near future either at walgreens or another store in your area. Plus, it’s just disrespectful to other shoppers.

I decided to try a smaller walgreens a few miles away, and it was also completely out of the toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. They did have four purex crystals left, so I purchased one. They had tons of 2 liters on stock so I got those as well. But I gave up on the toothbrushes and toothpaste even though we are on our last tube.

Until visiting walgreens, I had heard others complain about empty shelves everywhere they went – but I thought they were being a bit dramatic, seems how my target, etc tends to be lower on stock for coupon deals than they are of other items, but rarely are they completely out of something. A girl I graduated with recently told me that her mom went out and bought 150 bottles of lotion because there was a really good coupon deal on them. She was almost bragging, talking about how cool it was. But in my opinion it’s selfish and disrespectful to other shoppers.

I still am just amazed at how cleared out walgreens was. Have any of your local stores been completely wiped out of coupon items by extreme couponers?

PS – I have learned almost everything I know about couponing as a result of the www.coupon-wizards.com webinars (live lectures that are free). They are a great source for learning to coupon in a respectful, honest way. I highly recommend them to any of you who are interested.

Disclaimer – I wasn’t compensated for this post in any way. Started off as a 100% personal post and then I realized I could do a shout out to coupon wizards, as a small thanks to them for providing me with information about couponing completely for free.

Emily

Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.

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