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Kathleen Gest: Senior Focus

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September 17, 2011

Senior Focus: The knack of using coupons

By Kathleen Gest, Local columnist ----

Shrewd seniors know one way to fight back against rising food prices -- they use coupons.

The Traverse City Senior Center is offering a class in coupon basics. The class will be taught by Maria Nunez who will talk about sources for coupons, knowing each store's policy, clipping and organizing your coupons and matching a store's coupon with manufacturer coupons.

There are a lot of articles and sites that claim you can reduce your grocery bill by 90 percent or more. Everyone has heard of extreme coupon users, who get thousands of dollars in groceries for virtually nothing. Although this is possible, an individual would have to approach shopping as a full-time job to achieve that kind of savings.

Normally, seniors don't want to dumpster dive for coupon circulars or besiege cashiers with excessive stockpiling of sale items. You shouldn't have to lug bulging binders of coupons or fill shopping carts with more bottles of ketchup than you'll ever use. That type of couponing isn't realistic for most seniors.

What most seniors would like is practical information that can reduce their grocery bills by 30 to 50 percent with a minimum amount of effort -- coupons in moderation. It's coupon basics for the average person, who wants to save, but not make couponing their life's obsession.

Moderate couponing seems to be all about finding the best buy for an item you need and knowing how to apply coupons to it. In other words, saving whenever and wherever you can.

"Even if you are just using coupons casually, understanding the basics and knowing you can pair up the store coupon with a manufacturer's coupon can mean some really great deals," Nunez said. "Everyone is looking at economizing, so even if the senior is a single person, it makes a difference."

After declining for more than a decade, coupon use rose sharply in October 2008, as the economy collapsed, according to the marketing firm Inmar. With unemployment still high and consumers still jittery, couponing has not dropped off during the recovery, holding steady at 3.3 billion redemptions. Despite the rapid rise of online coupons, newspaper inserts still account for 89 percent of the coupons distributed to consumers and more than half of coupon redemption.

In class, participants will learn how to economically manage their buying, that sales go in cycles, how to stockpile sensibly, common coupon abbreviations and "stacking" coupons (using multiple coupons on one item).

"The biggest benefit of couponing for seniors is for some of those over-the-counter drugstore items. That can be a significant part of a senior's budget," Nunez said. "Supplements seniors need -- such as glucosamine, omega 3 fish oil, allergy medication and vitamins -- can be quite costly and coupons can decrease that cost."

Seniors on a fixed income need to stretch their money as much as possible and using coupons is one way to do it. Any embarrassment about couponing should no longer be relevant -- you shouldn't feel bad about being a smart shopper. Focusing on meal planning and setting a spending limit also is advisable, so a senior doesn't get caught up in a "coupon use game" that leads to buying too much salad dressing and not enough salad.

The free class is meeting at the Senior Center every Monday at 9 a.m., with the first session starting Monday, Sept. 19. To reserve a place, call 922-4911 or email ehovie@tcseniorcenter.com

Kathleen Bellaw Gest is a local freelance writer. For more about the Traverse City Senior Center, go to www.tcseniorcenter.com.

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