I grew up watching my mom cut out coupons.  It looked like a cool job, looking through the Sunday papers for deals on the products we used.  Seemed like art to me at age eight, carefully clipping along the dotted lines.  I remember watching programs where professional coupon clippers collected enough coupons to pay for hundreds of dollars of groceries.  It was fascinating to me.

As an adult, coupon clipping has lost its sparkle.  I don’t even know if coupons exist in the Sunday paper any more; I don’t look.  My guess is there are a lot of us skipping the search-and-clip.  Instead, savings are forced upon us in the aisles and the registers to make up for our lack of motivation and time.  I pass over the forced coupons too.   I just can’t save on groceries even if I’m given an invitation.  It’s gotta be an immediate deal when I need it or forget it; I’ll forget.

And the winner is…TARGET!

Winner with 40 inches!

Consumer product companies are on to people like me.  Coupons are literally thrust in my path at the drugstores.  It has gotten downright startling with the sensor-tripped, shelf talkers.  My eyes are peeled for the magic cold symptoms elixir and out of the blue, a booming voice right next to me starts talking on and on about the latest cold medicine and sometimes it spits out a coupon.  I nearly jump out of my skin.  It’s a double drag if I have to go up and down the aisle to make sure I didn’t overlook anything since the “elixir” is proving elusive.  DANG!  I tripped the “light fantastic” or “sensor” that sets of that @#$% recorded voice and pops out another coupon.  I haven’t seen that one lately so I wonder if “the voice” triggered one too many heart attacks.

If the aisle-coupons don’t grab you, cashiers will.  The cash register spits out random coupons that seem to fit your shopping habits; pay full price today and save next trip.  Some of the offers are significant, like a dollar off or buy-two-get-a-third-free.  Sounds great except I have to remember to use them.  Can I get a reminder ping come with that?

It’s really annoying if the “deal” doesn’t start until the next month and not the next trip.  I really can’t remember for that long let alone a day.  If I need an item, I’m going to buy it anyway, especially a can of soup or a jar of spaghetti sauce, the usual offers.  I keep the coupons in my purse, hoping I’ll automatically remember and be ready next time I shop.  In reality, I end up recycling the coupon wads about every three months, when I can’t find anything in my purse because all the paper stuffing buries my favorite lipgloss or hides my keys.  At least I can be green about it even if I’m not saving any green.

Paper bag takes a new meaning. Can you find the keys?

Whatever the deal, I don’t like getting six separate invitations on one long, long, long strip.  I have to cut them apart AND remember to use them.  A local drugstore doles out floods of paper deals like they own a reproductive tree farm. Those are the ticker tapes you would more likely use if they were printed on toilet paper.  It’s like the TP dispenser spun out of control with a two-year-old at the helm.  I have so many long strips I could paper mache something or make it into the Guiness World Book of Records for collecting enough receipts to wrap around the world.  I only buy one item and receive 40 inches of coupons.  Target spits out individual coupons, in color and no cutting.  At least I bought the equivalent in products to warrant an arm’s length of deals.

I have a good coupon from Safeway, a lollipop reward for getting a flu shot.  Read the fine print because the 20% off is pretty much only good on processed food, no milk, meat or alcohol.  (Big-ticket items.)  I’ll have to cruise the store for the chocolate syrup, hash browns and toilet paper, the real kind.  Maybe that’s what the stores should do, skip the coupon paper streamers, just give the shopper a deal on toilet paper and maybe in the form of toilet paper.  It’s something everyone needs and will use anyway.  I hate to be crass, but I hate waste.  Pardon the pun.

Maybe a new and improved coupon is an optional one.   It works for receipts.  “Do you want a receipt/coupon today?”  Or “Can we email your receipt/coupons to you?”  Now that’s the ticket, paperless of course.  And the real savings, the trees.