Save Money at the Drive Through

This isn't about coupons (though I imagine you could).  This is about the hidden costs of what we do.

Invariably, I'll pass a McDonald's with an empty parking lot and the drive-through line ten deep.  Every car is idling, waiting to move up another 12 feet so they can eventually pay, move up again so they can eventually get their meals.

For each car ahead of them, I figure that it's at least a one minute wait.  Seemingly insignificant, one minute grows to ten in, well, a matter of minutes.  That's time that your car (or truck, or monster SUV) is using gas.

And right now, gas ain't cheap.  At over four dollars in some areas (and at least over $3.50 everywhere else), the cost for that $15 bag full of Happy Meals just got higher.  We even think we're paying for convenience, but in reality, we're just paying for the privilege of not getting out of our cars.

Even if it's a small amount of gas expended while waiting, it's an expenditure that can be avoided by just parking at the restaurant and using the counter service.  And you can make sure that your order is correct.

Some may argue that vehicles expend more gas stopping and then starting back up.  Not anymore!  Apparently the rule is ten or more seconds (except in street traffic) you should kill the engine.

And to paraphrase Joe Pesci, they always get you at the drive through.  

Quick Google Tip from Cheapy Cheep

Before placing an order, especially if you are not using something like PriceBlink, do a Google search on the product and then click on Google Shopping.  You'll be able to find the lowest prices (with and without shipping and taxes) at different online stores, and you can even locate the cheapest price at a local brick and mortar.

The Lazy Man’s Guide to Couponing

There are some great sites out there providing guides and tips for couponing (Southern Savers and Jill Cataldo, just to name a couple).  Extreme Couponing on TLC takes it a step further, showing how individuals save upwards of 90 percent with couponing.

Just keep in mind - this is work.  The ‘extreme couponers’ have databases, buy multiple newspapers which they have to go through, comb the Internet, and spend hours upon hours for (typically) one big haul.  

A few things about the extreme couponers.  

It’s an actual job.  A great deal of time is spent doing this.  While it may be fun getting stuff for next to nothing, your time has some value.

They buy a lot of stuff they don’t use.  One joker proudly displayed over 1,000 tubes of toothpaste.  Others even remark about how they don’t even need antacid tablets, yet they clear the shelves because it’s so cheap with coupons.

You never see these people buy any fruits or vegetables.

It is a good idea to use coupons (coupons really are another form of money).  So here’s how to save and put forth extremely minimal effort.

First, let all your coupons stack up.  Save them and make a nice, neat little stack.  When one of the grocery stores offers double coupons of $1.00 (or more, Harris-Teeter will go just under $2.00), start cutting.  While cutting, separate the coupons by price (those with a face value of a buck-plus) and by area (e.g., frozen, health/beauty).  

When shopping, concentrate on using the $1.00+ face value coupons, buy stuff that you use, and buy stuff that gets you the absolute lowest price (in other words, bigger is not always better).  Even stuff not on sale may end up being free.  For the coupons less than $1.00, use those at other grocery stores that double that may have lower costs if the other store does not appear to give you maximum savings.

For this little amount of effort, you’ll save somewhere between 40 to 60 percent.  You’ll even be able to buy some fruits and vegetables.  

Coupons to the Extreme

There’s a new show on TLC called Extreme Couponing, depicting individuals saving lots and lots of money using grocery coupons.  They go to a store, onlookers watch in amazement, and savings reach somewhere between 90 to 95 percent, and hundreds of dollars.  

It’s also kind of silly.  

Silly not because the savings are artificial (they are real savings).  It’s silly because these people, at least from what I can discern, don’t even come close to using what they buy.  It’s silly because it appears, through the subjects or the direction, these people do it more for the kill than for the prize.  

Case in point -  J’aime Kirlew, an overly made up woman in high-heel boots and brittle, colored blond hair is one such extreme couponer.  The show depicts her organizing dozens of newspaper inserts, culling and organizing coupons, and developing a strategy for the trip to the grocery store.  

Once at the store, she with some 70 coupons for mustard, she cleans out the store, removing 62 bottles of mustard because she can drop the price to 39 cents a bottle (this is actually pretty expensive since I personnally don’t pay for mustard - I typically get it for free with coupons or for less than a dime - I just get one or two bottles, because what the heck am I going to do with 62 bottles of mustard?).  At the end of her segment, the eyeshadow heavy pseudo-blond does a little dance at the checkout counter, as if preventing future customers from buying mustard is something to be proud of.

The shows go on with other extremists, purchasing what seems to be a lifetime supply of Maalox, storing products in every nook and cranny in their homes (a shower stall is packed to the ceiling with paper towels, great if you need a paper towel, terrible if you need to take a shower; dozens of bottles of BBQ source are hidden away in a child’s room; basements are stocked ready to survive the upcoming zombie apocalypse).

So, yes, you’re going to save some money, but before you go out and buy 20 copies of the Sunday newspaper, keep these thoughts in mind:

1)  At a minimum, extreme couponing is a part-time job, and just how far you take it, may be a full-time job.  It takes time to research coupons and store ads, shop, checkout, and finally unpack and store all that stuff.  You are simply not going to pick up your Sunday coupons, go to a store for weekly shopping and expect to get the deals these extremists are getting.

2)  It’s pretty rude.  It’s rude to the store.  It’s rude to other customers.  It’s rude to other couponers.  

It’s rude to the store because they must spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with these jokers - restocking, checking them out, and later processing all the coupons must take hours for these individual customers.  Most checkout line appear to shut down because of them.  

To make matters worse, the extremists game the system, often separating purchases into multiple transactions to take advantage of special deals.  Because of one store’s policy limiting multiple transactions, a couple had to call friends to stand at the checkout line, wasting the time of the store.

It’s rude to other customers because particular products are gone.  What in the blue blazes are you going to do with 62 bottles of mustard?

It’s rude to other couponers because there’s going to be a point where stores will begin enacting (if they haven’t already done so) increasingly restrictive policies regarding coupons.  In the NOVA area, on double-coupon days at Harris-Teeter, customers are limited to 20 coupons, per household, per day.  This is an obvious response to the extreme couponers who split their transactions into multiple transactions.  Bottom line, people that do this that are happy to save 30 to 60 percent won’t be able to anymore because stores will eventually limit the extremists for receiving the savings in the 95 to 101 percent range.

3)  Stuff goes bad.  In the houses of the extremists, there are boxes and boxes of cereal.  Bags and bags of chips.  Stuff goes bad.  Stuff goes stale.  Mustard doesn’t go bad, but I can’t imagine that I would be able to use 62 bottles in my lifetime.

I hope some of these items get donated or traded with other families; however, seeing rows of cleaning supplies, stacks of paper towels, and bunkers of cereal, it’s doubtful.  (The eyeshadow queen mentioned above claims on her website that almost all items were donated to food banks, friends and family.)  These purchases become more of a showcase (much like a mounted lion’s head on the mantel).

And there’s some legal issues involved.  It has to do with using coupons for their non-specified use.  High-heeled boot lady generated so much vitriol about this that she was forced to turn off her comments on her facebook page.  Read more about this at Jill Cataldo’s website.

Next week - the lazy man’s guide to couponing, which is certainly not extreme.

Are Video Games Too Expensive?

Yes (this kind of a duh answer).

Video games are expensive.  Really expensive.  New titles cost about $60 for the big boy systems (Xbox 360, PS3) and $50 for the Wii.  You rarely need to pay these prices.  

Let’s take the upcoming Batman Arkham City game that will be coming out in October 2011.  If it’s anything like the previous Arkham Asylum game, it will be great.  But there’s no multiplayer.  New copies of console versions of Arkham Asylum now go for $25 to $30; you can typically find it on sale for $20.  

The point is, Arkham City will be same game in 2012 and 2013 as when it drops in 2011.  Waiting a few months will get you a savings of between $25 to $30 (according to Google Shopping, you can get Arkham Asylum for as low as $25 on a console).  

You’re going to get the exact same experience, at a lower price. You just have to <gasp> wait a little while.  Unfortunately for most people, as Tom Petty eloquently sang, “waiting is the hardest part.”  

But sometimes, if you view yourself as a gamer, you need to get a game when it first comes out or you get left behind in the multiplayer experience (e.g., Call of Duty; Halo).  In these cases, your best bet is to seek out the pre-order specials that some stores offer.    For major titles, Amazon, Best Buy and Wal-Mart will often offer gift cards or promotional credits to entice you to purchase the game from their store, effectively giving you a 20% to 33% discount.