A recent post on the Consumerist blog is the perfect illustration of the problem with coupons. In fact, it's such a perfect illustration that I can't help but think that's exactly why the Consumerist folks posted it in the first place.
Consumerist forum user LadySiren, "married with five kids," managed to buy 51 items for $45.46, saving a whopping $99.48 with coupons. The problem? With two exceptions, there isn't any, you know, FOOD in there. Just an awful lot of what Michael Pollan calls "edible food-like substances."
Problem #1: Coupons are rarely for food. Usually, they are for crap.
LadySiren's take includes Spaghettios, Pop Tarts, ice cream, bottled sweetened iced tea, Snickers bars, tubes of Pillsbury cookie dough, Tuna Helper, Fudge Shoppe cookies, Progresso soup, and more. The caloric value of her haul is staggering - and not in a good way. The fat, sodium, and sugar is terrifying to contemplate.
I'm not interested in castigating LadySiren as a person, or as a mother. We all make choices every day, and sometimes those choices aren't the best. My point here is just that coupons entice you to buy stuff that you don't need, shouldn't eat, and that will eventually kill you.
Problem #2: Coupons only make you think you're saving money.
This actually breaks down into two sub-categories:
2A: foods you should never ever buy. Like Pop Tarts. No one should ever buy Pop Tarts. The fact that we all occasionally buy a box of Pop Tarts is cause for shame; it should not be encouraged.
2B: foods you can cook a lot more cheaply on your own. The false thrift of a product like Tuna Helper is astonishing. Not only does Tuna Helper not save you any money versus making tuna casserole from scratch, it also adds a ton of salt, fat, and weird chemicals you don't need.
Iced tea is pretty darned easy to make, and better for you to boot. Your own iced tea won't have all the artificial sweeteners and preservatives, and it will have a lot more antioxidants compared to the manufactured pre-bottled kind.
Problem #3: Coupons favor high-waste items
Most of the things you buy with coupons are highly marketed, and thus heavy on the packaging. Most of the things in LadySiren's picture have at least two layers of packaging, very little of which is recyclable.
As a culture, we need to get away from single-use plastic packaging. It leaches harmful chemicals like BPA into our bodies, wastes natural resources, contributes to climate change thanks to petroleum processing, and either takes up space forever in a landfill or blows off and clogs our waterways and oceans.
Also, that packaging isn't free. You're paying for it, even if you don't realize it. Ever wondered why bulk food is so cheap? It's because it's not individually shrink wrapped into single serving packets, which are stacked in a plastic tray, in a cardboard box, inside a plastic shrink wrap, with a cartoon mascot.
(Incidentally, cans have an inner layer of BPA plastic. And canned food tends to be very acidic, thus leaching more BPA into the contents. But on the up side, cans make for good recycling.)
Consumerist forum user LadySiren, "married with five kids," managed to buy 51 items for $45.46, saving a whopping $99.48 with coupons. The problem? With two exceptions, there isn't any, you know, FOOD in there. Just an awful lot of what Michael Pollan calls "edible food-like substances."
Problem #1: Coupons are rarely for food. Usually, they are for crap.
LadySiren's take includes Spaghettios, Pop Tarts, ice cream, bottled sweetened iced tea, Snickers bars, tubes of Pillsbury cookie dough, Tuna Helper, Fudge Shoppe cookies, Progresso soup, and more. The caloric value of her haul is staggering - and not in a good way. The fat, sodium, and sugar is terrifying to contemplate.
I'm not interested in castigating LadySiren as a person, or as a mother. We all make choices every day, and sometimes those choices aren't the best. My point here is just that coupons entice you to buy stuff that you don't need, shouldn't eat, and that will eventually kill you.
Problem #2: Coupons only make you think you're saving money.
This actually breaks down into two sub-categories:
2A: foods you should never ever buy. Like Pop Tarts. No one should ever buy Pop Tarts. The fact that we all occasionally buy a box of Pop Tarts is cause for shame; it should not be encouraged.
2B: foods you can cook a lot more cheaply on your own. The false thrift of a product like Tuna Helper is astonishing. Not only does Tuna Helper not save you any money versus making tuna casserole from scratch, it also adds a ton of salt, fat, and weird chemicals you don't need.
Iced tea is pretty darned easy to make, and better for you to boot. Your own iced tea won't have all the artificial sweeteners and preservatives, and it will have a lot more antioxidants compared to the manufactured pre-bottled kind.
Problem #3: Coupons favor high-waste items
Most of the things you buy with coupons are highly marketed, and thus heavy on the packaging. Most of the things in LadySiren's picture have at least two layers of packaging, very little of which is recyclable.
As a culture, we need to get away from single-use plastic packaging. It leaches harmful chemicals like BPA into our bodies, wastes natural resources, contributes to climate change thanks to petroleum processing, and either takes up space forever in a landfill or blows off and clogs our waterways and oceans.
Also, that packaging isn't free. You're paying for it, even if you don't realize it. Ever wondered why bulk food is so cheap? It's because it's not individually shrink wrapped into single serving packets, which are stacked in a plastic tray, in a cardboard box, inside a plastic shrink wrap, with a cartoon mascot.
(Incidentally, cans have an inner layer of BPA plastic. And canned food tends to be very acidic, thus leaching more BPA into the contents. But on the up side, cans make for good recycling.)
Photo credit: Flickr/sdc2027