An enterprising young Tseshaht woman living in Port Alberni wants to teach you and your friends how to save bundles of money on your everyday purchases without turning into an Extreme Couponer.
Holly McLaughlin teaches workshops in how to acquire, manage and trade store coupons and how to maximize their benefits. There are techniques, such as “coupon-stacking” that allow shoppers to apply multiple coupons to single purchases, but you have to know which stores allow it. And there is also the matter of coupon etiquette.
“The workshops typically run for two hours,” McLaughlin said. “I try to keep it down to eight people. If you are new to coupons, you are going to need a lot of help.”
McLaughlin began her couponing career last August when she and a girlfriend went to Courtenay for a birthday celebration.
“The girl we went to see was having a coupon club meeting,” McLaughlin said. “About 10 girls came over with loads of coupons and started talking about all the deals they were getting. They gave me all the easy parts, where to find the coupons, etc.”
For McLaughlin, it was a new challenge and she quickly turned her considerable energy and resourcefulness towards this new money-saving enterprise.
Since returning to Port Alberni last year from the Cayman Islands where she first met and married her husband, Dominic, McLaughlin has worked on a contract basis as an administrative assistant, a bookkeeper and in forestry administration all at the same time.
“I worked as a legal secretary in the largest offshore law office in the Cayman Islands,” she said. “I met my husband there and I also had some crazy jobs while I was there.”
How crazy? Well, for seven months McLaughlin was a Caribbean pirate. Arrrr!
Through a friend, she got the job on one of the tourist vessels that serviced the local cruise ship industry, she explained.
“We were on a tall ship, the Valhalla, that could accommodate 120 passengers. I dressed up as a female pirate, and we did two-hour cruises along Seven Mile Beach,” McLaughlin said. “We had four cruise ships a day. And when that shift was done, I worked at a local night club.”
McLaughlin applied that same energy to her new pursuit of couponing.
“When I started, I was spending about an hour and a half a day, but at night, when the kids were in bed, I would put the TV on and cut coupons,” she said. “Now, I don’t need as much time.”
McLaughlin organizes her coupons in a binder with dividers and hockey-card pages.
“I clean out my binder at the beginning of every month, just to make sure I don’t have any expired ones,” she said.
Coupons can be found in newspaper inserts, in tear sheets at local stores and on the Internet. Many companies maintain Facebook sites where, if you hit “Like,” you can get regular updates on where and when to find coupons for their products. Sometimes you must print up your own coupons at home.
Some communities have couponing clubs where people get together to trade coupons and items they have acquired free but don’t have a use for. So far, Port Alberni does not have a club, so McLaughlin occasionally travels to Courtenay to network and trade.
“I have two kids... So I don’t use baby products anymore,” McLaughlin said. “I trade for equal value at the club.”
McLaughlin said she and her family don’t consume junk food, even though it can be had very cheaply or even for free. She is able to acquire top name-brand household and personal care supplies, as well as food products such as cereals, breads, dairy products, even meat and poultry from national brand suppliers.
McLaughlin stores her coupon-acquired items on a shelf in her laundry room. It is packed with laundry and cleaning supplies and personal care items like shampoos and toothpaste, over-the-counter drugstore items, just for starters. All of it was acquired either for free or for a fraction of the sticker price.
It does require having space available and being able to purchase stuff in quantity when it is available, McLaughlin said.
“The only time I shop for coupon items is when they are on sale,” she explained. “Some stores will match sale prices.”
That is important, because the store offering the sale price may not allow multiple purchases, but the matching store might.
“It’s important to be able to read the coupons,” McLaughlin said. “I’ve printed store policies [on coupons] from all the stores in Port Alberni and the Nanaimo stores I go to. Each store is different. Some stores allow you to stack and some stores limit their items.”
And on the topic of coupon etiquette, McLaughlin said it is important to not alienate staff at the stores you patronize, because at times, you are creating extra work for them.
“Cashiers deal with couponers all the time, and after they’ve seen their tenth one of the day, they might be getting a little impatient,” she said. “Always be nice. If there are people behind me, I always explain that I am going to be using coupons. They may want to get in a different line or they may decide to watch what I’m doing.”
And avoid becoming one of those extreme types who feels compelled to clean out the store shelves of coupon items. It not only ruins things for other couponers and ordinary shoppers, it may encourage store management to change their policies towards coupon use.
McLaughlin said while, at first glance, couponing might seem like an activity for low-income families, medium- and high-income folks who keep a close watch on their expenditures have been equally attracted to the coupon world.
“If you can stretch your dollar, you might as well,” she said. If you know you can get something at a discount or for free, why wouldn’t you?”
Anyone interested in attending a couponing workshop is asked to contact McLaughlin by e-mail at hollybmclaughlin@hotmail.com. There is a small fee. Along with all the tips and tricks of the trade, you will receive an information booklet, a stack of coupons to get started and a printout of local store policies.
