/ Cory Doctorow / 10:34 am Mon Jun 28, 2010

Coupon-clipper eats for a month on $27.08

Darren sez, "This guy, some kind of coupon Jedi from what I can gather, ate reasonably healthfully for a month on one dollar a day. In fact, he only spent $27.08, and claims to have procured $597.96 in food (from the final day's entry). He even, it seems, donated a bunch of stuff to a local food bank. He obsessively documented the experience for those, uh, keen to repeat it."
Grocery Shopping Is A Game: Getting good deals while grocery shopping is a game. If you don't think that it is, you are simply unknowingly playing it and it's costing you. Most people don't understand the rules of this game and that is why they pay much more for food than they need to. It takes about a month to learn the rules of the game and how to play it to your advantage which makes it possible to get huge discounts on the food you buy.

You Can Eat More Than Junk Food On $1 A Day: Most people that I told I was going to be trying this challenge assumed that I was going to be eating a lot of macaroni & cheese and instant ramen. I actually was able to get fruit and vegetables into my diet on a daily basis. I only ate 100% whole wheat bread the entire month. While I could have made my diet healthier if I had more money, I believe that what I ate was better than what many people in the US eat without the strict financial limitations.

Eating Well On $1 A Day (Thanks, Darren!)

(Image: Drawer full of unfiled inserts & misc., a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from bargainbriana's photostream)

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  1. When I was living in Eastern Long Island there was a guy with OCD who did this sort of thing so obsessively that he had to rent a warehouse to store all the goods. Ended up selling the most of the surplus to the general public and made a fortune. He also routinely walked out of stores with more money that he walked in. He bragged about using one set of promotions to essentially get paid $300 to walk out the door with $500 bucks in merch.

  3. Alright I’m reading through this but I’m getting a bit lost on the money trail…

    I understand how you get a Catalina coupon for say $1 off your next order (of course in almost every grocery around here that means you’ll be spending $20+ on that order…), but it appears at times that he is “making” money from the store.

    I’ve worked in a grocery store (and obviously shopped at them as well) and we DIDN’T give money back. I’ve had a couple customers get to “free” (even though the coupon amount exceeded the purchase amount), but never gave anyone money back. Maybe it’s just the stores he shops at. Certainly makes the scheme easier then…..

    1. I think the way it works, is that he used internal store coupons, plus an external coupon, sponsored by the brand. You see him buying things like dish-washing soap, and lots of it. And then buying a gallon of milk. He COULD get money back, if stores did give you money to take away soap. But they don’t, and so he’s just using it to reduce that $3 gallon of milk to 4 cents.

      The shenanigans he’s pulling off though are amazing.

  4. People really don’t realize the advantage of even something as simple as planning your groceries around the weekly flyer sales. I have a friend who is not so well off, who just recently (after many years of being in the same situation) started planning her meals and grocery shopping around the sales that the grocery store was running. It’s amazing how the price of items fluctuates from week to week, based on sales, and other coupons.

  5. I don’t object to people that work the system in this way–generally, anyway, although I realize that since I don’t take the time to cope with coupons that I’m indirectly subsidizing them–but it doesn’t scale.

    That is, the reason this works is that manufacturers issue more coupons than they expect to be used. If they all get used, then the company doesn’t need to spend that much in advertising and will cut back on either their number or value.

  6. Spoiler: On Day 2 the author ends up in the hospital emergency room. At that point i stopped reading. My takeaway is that coupons induce one to buy highly processed foods, single server (i.e. overpackaged) foods.

    1. Darran, exactly. I don’t use coupons anymore pretty much for that reason. And what I’ve found most of the time is that the post-coupon price is still more than the store brand or the cost of making it myself (i.e. bean soup).

  7. My CSA doesn’t accept coupons, just cash or check. It’s all about eating healthy, food as life, not as a game or a way to avoid spending $$$. I find it horrifying that Coupon Man is perpetuating the “food is cheap or needs to be” myth that’s plagued so many for so long. Good food costs in time, effort, and money: if not, you’re doing it wrong.

  8. It may be cheap. It may be healthy. It may be delightfully subversive.

    Still, $5 is a small price to pay for a good bacon cheeseburger once in a while.

  9. Wait, one of the restrictions is that he will only use two computers. Does that really matter? I could use 10 computers; they all take me to the same internet…

    1. different MAC addresses let you use the Coupons.com, redplum, etc sites to print more than 1 coupon.

      We’ve got food allergies in our household, so we end up having to be picky about what we buy, but I love finding B1G1 deals + coupons on stuff we buy.

      And… stores are paid more than the price of the coupon to process them, so its not surprise if you can find a deal.

      But, I like to get most of my shopping done in one or two stores (if I count getting TP at sams…)

  10. @Darran: DOUBLE-SEKRIT SPOILER ALERT

    It turns out that he had an abcess (almost certainly pre-existing, given that it flared up less than 24 hours after he started eating on this plan). More to the point, he never knowingly buys expired items (although expiration dates are a bit of a scam anyway) — just the same food anyone might have picked up without a coupon.

  11. I don’t doubt that this can be done, hell. . . there have been news reports about “coupon Jedis” since I was a little kid. In fact any one of us could do this, but the question remains: with all the time and effort it takes to search out the coupons and get the best deals, couldn’t you just take a second part-time job and earn as much as you are saving with all that work?

  12. TDawwg (#8), I’m with you on that. It’s a shame that some people have to play the game just to get by, and more power to them if they can. But I prefer to buy as much local and fresh as possible. I also prefer to grow my own where I can, I really appreciate the people who spend a little extra to buy fresh eggs from my free range flock of chickens, and I try to return the favor by supporting other local growers. Not always cheapest, but it’s high quality, and low packaging.

    I only read the first couple days and my head exploded. I don’t know how he figured all that out. If I’m going to go buy food, I’m not going to go buy a bunch of crap I don’t need just because it’s a good coupon. And I’ve never seen a coupon worth keeping come out with my receipt. And I try to do all my shopping in one place, and not be running all over town, using gas to try and chase down a few pennies off a deal.

    I’m glad some people enjoy this sort of thing, or can figure it out if they have to, but I’m definitely not one of them!

  13. Judging from 5 years experience in the supermarket industry, the people who do this are always a bit odd to say the least. They always seem to come in and pull this coupon shit at the least opportune moment and throw a fit when I refuse to accept some coupons. The worst offenders use the self-check lanes as they use expired coupons and photo-copies. Annoys the hell out of me.

    I understand their determination to save money, but it often comes to a point of obsession and is very unhealthy.

  14. That depends. If you are full time salary, this might be the only way to work extra cash into your budget. Especially if you have a job with odd hours.

  15. My partner’s mom has done this for many years, and she is no odder than anyone else. She’s just a lady who worked hard, holding down two or three jobs at a time to support a family and put two kids through college. She has a big pantry in her basement and a big chest freezer. I’ve seen her check out with a full cart of normal, healthful groceries (she’s very health conscious) and pay less than $20, sometimes less than $10. She couldn’t do this every time, and probably doesn’t do it as often now that the kids have all moved out, but it’s doable and normal for a lot of people, especially with stores like Kroger, which do double coupons on certain days (at least they did at the time).

  16. here in australia almost all coupons/sales/discounts have a “not for use in conjunction with any other offer” in the t&c’s on the back. meaning, no (almost)free stuff by combining coupons.

  17. Coupons for laundry, shampoo, toothpaste are a must for me but the canned, packed foods are not.
    Most of the food coupons in my Sunday paper are for sugary cereals, pasta sauce,chips,snacks, fruit yogurt,juices, salad dressing, chewing gum, soda – stuff I never buy.

    I read the crazy things these wo/men do and really admire their resolve. They may make and save money but it also involves so much of grunt work and multiple shopping trips per day. Some people seem to visit 4 drug stores daily to do this. And then they sell it at garage sales about 4 times a year to earn under 5k total. All this time wasted, drama, stockpiling for so little benefit. Best wishes to them but I hope I don’t have to do couponing so seriously ever.

  18. I’m pretty surprised at the negativity both here and on the coupon site. (I only read the first day, as I suspect many of the commenters did as well.)

    Eating local and ultra healthy food is great but the point here is to save money.

    I didn’t know that if you created a “surplus” with coupons that you could use it to buy unrelated items. That’s pretty enlightening.

    This is an excellent lesson on Advanced Financial Literacy that would be extremely beneficial to a lot of low wage workers, as well as the unemployed.

    He ate for a month on $27.00. That’s amazing! Lighten up and drop the healt food store elitism.

    1. drop the healt food store elitism

      I wouldn’t call that an accurate description of the concern some are voicing here. It’s not like there’s only two kinds of food available: locally sourced organic and synthetic salt-flavored corn. It’s quite possible to feed yourself quality food from ‘mainstream’ grocery stores (and no, I don’t mean buying only organic ingredients, either).

      The concern some people have with this story is that synthetic salt-flavored corn is most of what’s supported by marketing efforts (for instance, what brand of broccoli do you usually buy?).The industry only puts out coupons for what they want to sell a lot of at any given moment, which, due to the nature of the food industry, is going to be the aforementioned salt-flavored corn.

      So it’s not elitism, it’s self-preservation.

  19. I read about this guys a few weeks ago and while I applauded his efforts (and his charitable donations) I also shook my head and wondered how many folks would really think this through.

    Back in 1999 when I got married at the ripe old age of 19 (married 11 years this month) we moved to Texas so my husband could get his P.h.D at Texas A&M. We had no family or friends to help us, no yard space to garden, a tiny kitchen and no equipment and frankly no idea what we were doing. I started doing exactly what this guy is doing as well as all sorts of rewards programs to make ends meet. There are perks to this system but there are drawbacks as well.

    In the pro column, we got a lot of food cheaply and since most of it was convenience food all we had to do was pop it in the microwave for a minute which was nice since we were often rushed for time. On the downside, almost all the food was junk, we often felt sick and we gained weight. It also took a LOT of time to find, print, clip and sort the coupons and then more time (and gas money) to trek to several different stores to use them all. Our haul took up a lot of space and food often went bad before we could eat it. It was also stressful to keep track of everything.

    These days we plan our menu on Saturday, shop Sunday morning and cook all day Sunday. We buy staples in bulk at a warehouse store (like oats and milk) once a month, make a weekly trip to the regular grocers and farmers market and a monthly trip to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods if we need something special (like gluten free foods). Occasionally we stop at one of the local Indian or Asian grocers for great deals on more exotic or hard to find items. We would garden if we had the space and use a CSA if it weren’t for my allergies.

    We eat extremely healthy full diets (six meals a day, 1600 cals) and our weekly grocery bill (including non-foods like cat food and soap) is about $80 on a good week and around $150 at worst. We do eat the same thing every day for a week which I know is odd to some folks but it saves time and money and honestly most people eat the same few dishes again and again anyway.

    This weeks menu was $130 and consists of Blueberry Breakfast Cake w/Lemon Cream Sauce and Vanilla Bean Tea, Roasted Parmesan Broccoli and Banana Cashew Balls, Red Pepper Soup w/Tortilla Chips and Colby Cheese, Sesame Crackers w/Rosemary Lemon White Bean Dip, Indian Rice w/Pineapple Salsa and Pork Tenderloin and for dessert, Chocolate Volcano Cupcakes.

    Yes, it’s more expensive than living off coupons but it actually takes less time and is much healthier. Plus we feel good about our purchases knowing we often buy locally and in season, bring our own bags and containers and usually have little in the way of packaging to throw away.

  20. i really admire the gaming approach and dedication of the author. that said: i am appalled at the amount of plastic and corn syrup involved in his adventure. i wouldn’t share his dietary choices (i’m vegan, and buy loads of different fruits and veggies, local when possible, and always organic at the store), but think his sister was just being a sore loser. he totally won, and i hope he scores epic for the next month of the challenge.

  22. Every coupon I’ve ever seen has, “Not valid with any other offer.” written on it in small type, presumably to prevent this sort of thing.

    Has something changed about coupons in the last few years?

  23. Perhaps as a game… but the opportunity cost of your time is too high for this.

    The planning and multiple store visits would require a tremendous amount of time; Not to mention the limited the selection must be difficult.

    Salary or not. Dire circumstances or not. Invest your time elsewhere. This is just a labourious Band-Aid.

  24. Thanks for sharing your success in drastically lowering your grocery bills. Clipping coupons, watching for sales and taking advantage of volume discounts can significantly reduce food expenditures.

  25. Everyone is really ignorant about coupons. For one, you can make money in certain stores because they allow overage. None of my stores do it, but sometimes people use coupons for $2 off for example and buy an $1 item and get $1 overage. Sometimes in certain stores in different areas, people are PAID to walk out of there. Or places like Proctor and Gamble have a purchase $xx of out products and we’ll give you $xx back, so people get overage when they use coupons.

    People make what is called stockpiles where they have 6 tubes of toothpaste, etc when they get it for free. Why pay $3 a tube when you can have several you got for free left over? I do this for razors (the good kinds, might I add), toothpaste, deodorant, cleaning products (all green products), etc for all free or pennies.

    Also, I would like to add that I eat organic, eat meat, fruit, salad, etc and live a very healthy life also on less than $30 a month for 2 people.

    Another misconception is old ladies do this. I am 21 and coupon so my boyfriend and I can save up for a wedding and a house. You’d be surprised how fast we have been saving our money and we’ve only been doing this for 3 months.

  26. Anon #29,
    If you read carefully you will see that the people here are saying they won’t eat the stuff that we get coupons for. This post is about food . Like I said in #19 I coupon too.
    I made a nice stockpile of body wash and some toothpastes this week were money makers. And now that I have 4 body washes and 3 tubes of paste, I will not go near a drug store for 2 months unless some deal is fantastic.
    Not all of us want to buy coupons online and then run from store to store chasing deals on frogurt, corn chips and cheese spread just because it is free.

    1. Anon 30,

      If YOU read carefully…you will see I eat a lot of organic and eat a lot of produce on this budget (USING COUPONS). There are coupons for organic, fruit, you name it. not everything is for crap.

      Also, I only shop at Kroger. So I don’t know what you mean about “running around to catch all the deals”. Some of us understand that driving 10 minutes and wasting gas to get something for $2 is not worth it.

  27. I appreciate, that a good portion of coupons are for highly processed foods, but not all, especially if you take the time, and make the effort to search coupons out online. I don’t do this nearly to the extreme that the person this was about does, but I do spend a couple hours a week looking up deals using the online ads and finding and printing coupons.

    I don’t shop every day, and while I do shop at multiple stores, I don’t use significantly more gas than I would use if I shopped at only one store. It’s all a matter of planning. In all fairness, I’m also not managing the eating on less than $30 for a month thing either. I feed a family of 3 adults on about $150-200/month.

    We eat a huge amount of fresh (much of it local) organic produce and very little in the way of seriously processed foods. My dad thinks he’d fall over dead if he couldn’t have ramen a couple of times a week so, that’s an exception, but it’s an exception which I almost never find coupons for or catch on sale. We buy good deals in bulk and either dry them, or freeze them.

    Last month, I added up the value of coupons that I had used, and I saved almost $100 in coupons alone, not counting what I saved on sales. That’s about $25/week, and I spend about 2 hours a week working on this. Works out to $12/hour which is better than I would make at any part-time job in the area. In fact my full-time job only pays about $9.50/hour, so this is a big deal for me and my family.

    Good food. Healthy food, does not have to be expensive, nor does it have to take a long time to prepare. It’s this myth that it does, that keeps the vast majority of Americans eating boxed dinners, and fast food. Well, that and a school system that thinks microwave sausage and toaster waffles are a necessary and appropriate home ec. lesson, but deem homemade pancakes both too complicated and too dangerous for teenagers to attempt.

  28. How much effort you should put into it depends on how much you make and how much free time you have.

    Considering how many people are unemployed and/or upside down on their debts these days, they should really pay more attention to this. Even if you don’t use it yourself, you should pass it along to people who might need it.

    You can also barter things you have for things you need. You might get cat food on a 2 for 1 sale and trade a bag of it to someone else for juice. Food stamps won’t pay for pet supplies, vitamins, soap or even toilet paper so those people are good candidates for trades.

    I’d also like to encourage anyone who qualifies to sign up for food stamps. I say that as someone who pays more in taxes than most people earn but is sick of seeing my money used to murder people I’ve never met.

    “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
    Dwight D. Eisenhower

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