Following Punny Money's Grand Coupon Experiment by Brian

IF TIME IS MONEY, can a pair of scissors and the Sunday newspaper trim ship? It is possible to get paid for taking groceries home. You can also cut your grocery bill in half. But the time spent searching for savings and checking local grocery deals may be depositing your most valuable asset into a bank account with holes in its pocket.

Is couponing really worth the time and effort? Model Home's post from May 18th provides a step-by-step tutorial on using the Sunday newspaper and an Internet reference to help Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half. Locating savings as much as 80%, 90%, and even 100% off of name brand items is easy. Your pantries will overflow with household items (These items include toiletries and expensive cleaning products.) And at the heart of this particular coupon-savings-system is charity. Because you will find more than enough groceries for yourself at deep discounts, you'll want to donate to the under fed. Model Home assumed that couponing could help take a bite out of hunger.

Model Home is not alone in its belief that coupons help make ends meet. Many shoppers treat the Sunday circulars like gold. And those that learn the Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom for the first time are amazed at the deals they can find. They hone the system and never question. Which is what makes the following experiment worth following.

Punny Money's Experiment Part 1

It struck terror into the heart's of coupon mavens. Could anyone say "I don't believe in coupons" and really mean it? But this is how Nick at Punny Money began his investigation of coupons in his post called The Science (Fiction) of Coupons. Faint in this unpleasantry, we read on. It turns out that Nick has some observations worth exploring, so we feign our composure. But what if he's right?

Nick's observations. Coupons make you buy things you normally wouldn't, generics can't be beat, and it is too time-consuming to wade through truckloads of coupons to find the ones you might want to use. Points well taken.

Nick's experiment: "If I can turn 30 minutes of my time into a genuine savings of ten dollars on our grocery bill over the next 30 days, I'll reconsider my stance on coupons."

Coupons Don't Make the Cut

On his first trip to the market (Punny Money's Grand Coupon Experiment, Part 1), Nick wasted $1.58 on circulars from the Washington Post and spent 20 minutes cutting coupons. Coupons were costing Nick time and money.

In a second attempt to redeem the right to coupon, he comes up short again. -$0.16 spent and 30 minutes wasted. So Model Home suggested he try Coupon Mom's strategy for locating grocery deals quickly.

Good News!

Nick will try one more time (Punny Money's Grand Coupon Experiment, Part 2). "In coming weeks, I'm going to take Brian's [of Model Home] advice and use the Coupon Mom's website to work out the best grocery/coupon savings combinations ahead of time. It should help us save some time, though I wish that website included Safeway instead of just Giant for our area."

Hopefully The Coupon Mom will add Safeway to her site. And I hope you'll enjoy following Nick's sobering look at the world of coupons. Perhaps, if time is money, and if coupons are too, the experiment will prove that that the Sunday circulars are one commodity that college students, home makers, and non-profit organizations can trade for necessities.

Try the coupon experiment yourself. Decide if Cutting Your Grocery Bill in Half with Sunday circulars can help.

Note to Nick: Thanks for the grand experiment and for keeping us posted. Your site is informed by clear thinking and interesting topics. A good read for consumers.