Savings guru spreads good news of coupons
| Thursday, Sep 10 2009 06:05 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Sep 10 2009 06:07 PM
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Shopping tips
* Combine your use of store and manufacturer coupons.
* Buy large amounts of products when they're on sale.
* Plan meals a week ahead based on what's on sale or in your stockpile.
* Shop at different stores according to what sales they offer.
* Use discount codes, which work like coupons except you type them into the computer terminal at the cash register.
* Sign up for online sale alerts, which go straight to e-mail and offer information on limited-time offers.
* Consider buying store brands; ShopSmart magazine found they often taste as good or better than national brands.
Sources: www.saveathomemommy.com, ShopSmart magazine
Images
Felix Adamo / The Californian Kerri Scarlett, founder of saveathomemommy.com, in front of packaged goods she stocks up on when she finds them on sale.
Dishwashing detergent changed Kerri Scarlett's life -- and by extension, the lives of her many followers online.
The Bakersfield resident never liked doing dishes in the first place, but she especially disliked the way the scoop would get lost in the powder.
There was a moment of epiphany when she found a coupon one day that saved her a pretty penny on dishwasher detergent tablets. She had never been a coupon enthusiast before, and this furthered her quest to stay at home with her two young children.
Thus began Scarlett's ascendancy in the coupon economy.
Scarlett runs a Web site -- www.saveathomemommy.com -- that provides printable store coupons, tips on local deals and other shopping strategies. The site has a Facebook page and a Twitter feed as well.
Since it launched in March, her site has grown to attract more than 15,000 visitors a month, up from 9,000 in July.
Combined with the shopping classes she now teaches around town and the coupon organizer binders she sells, Scarlett's time-intensive new enterprise has provided her family with a modest income -- as much as a few hundred dollars a month, much of it generated from the number of visitors to the site.
To her, it's more akin to a spiritual ministry. Her site's tagline is "Working together to manage our food, faith and finances."
Scarlett's own testimonial is hard to dismiss: She has cut her monthly budget for food, cleaning products and toiletries from $500 to about $250.
In this economy, it's not just that coupons are growing in popularity. They're actually becoming hip.
"I feel like it's the new cool," said Jody Rohlena, deputy editor of ShopSmart magazine, a monthly published by Consumer Reports that offers strategies for saving money.
Rohlena has numbers to back it up: In the magazine's recent survey of more than 1,000 women around the country, 87 percent reported using online coupons at least some of the time; 16 percent indicated they never make a purchase without a coupon.
Online shopping gurus like Scarlett may have a lot to do with that. Rohlena said so-called "mommy blogs" are popping up with increasing frequency.
"What these Web sites do," Rohlena said, "is they really bring coupons into this day and age."
Lisa Williams can attest to that. She goes to church with Scarlett but never shared an enthusiasm for coupons until she attended one of her classes. In fact, she used to avoid coupons out of fear she'd look funny at the checkstand.
Now the stay-at-home mother of four proudly tells her friends how she saved $400 in the past month alone just by using coupons, discount codes and different stores' loyalty cards.
Sure it takes extra time to organize the coupons. But she said it's worth it.
"When you see your (sales) total go down and you see the money you spent," she said, "you're no longer embarrassed -- you're excited."
