BRAD CASHIER ERIC JIMMY LADY_AT_MACDONALD_HOUSE MADELEINE MARCY MELISSA NARRATOR PERRY RAINE STORE_MANAGER TATTOO_ARTIST PERRY It’s go time, let’s do this. NARRATOR When extreme shoppers roll into the supermarket their money clips are filled with coupons. MELISSA The cash value for these is going to be clear around $700. NARRATOR Meet a couponing vegan with health and ink on her mind. PERRY Argh. PERRY There’s so many coupons out there these days that allow you to eat healthy, provide really, really well for your family. NARRATOR And a new york mum who’s always on the look out for a steal. MELISSA I could coupon 24 hours a day, it’s my passion, i love it, you can leave the store with a ton of merchandise and i don’t even have to pay for it! NARRATOR These savvy shoppers know that pinching every penny can add up to huge savings. PERRY I can’t believe it, the stores selling it cheaper! NARRATOR But even for the pros the biggest hauls can be jeopardised by the smallest beeps. MELISSA I heard that beep, that beep that every couponer hates. Like no, no, no, no. PERRY I mean i’m physically shaking. NARRATOR This is extreme couponing. PERRY Ha, i can’t believe i’m tearing up! PERRY Now what do we need? PERRY’S DAUGHTER We need coupons. PERRY Okay, right, well scan them. PERRY Okay, thanks for doing business. NARRATOR Coupon usage among 18 to 34 year olds has skyrocketed with 71% of the age bracket relying on coupons when shopping, and leading the charge is 18 year old extreme couponer Perry, who’s already teaching her two and a half year old daughter the importance of savings. PERRY Coupons in house. PERRY My name is perry and i am the coupimp, because i am pimping the supermarket and i can get everything for free. PERRY Mustard dance, the mustard dance, i love doing the mustard dance. PERRY If the house was burning down i would probably grab my daughter first and then my coupon binder second and just hope that eric finds his own way out of the burning house. NARRATOR Perry diligently coupons to save herself, her husband eric and their daughter raine as much money as possible. But finding massive savings isn’t as important as acquiring only the Healthiest groceries as part of her family’s vegan diet. PERRY A vegan is a person that doesn’t consume any kind of animal products, any kind of dairy, any kind of eggs, so no butter, no milk, no cheese. PERRY Being vegan doesn’t meant that you just have to eat lettuce, carrots and boring salads all day long. RAINE Mommy, [ate my dummy]. PERRY There are so many coupons out there these days that allow you to eat healthy, provide really, really well for your family. NARRATOR Perry maintains a three to six month supply of vegan food at all times. She has only been couponing for six months but has already amassed a stockpile worth over $16,000 by only Spending pennies on the dollar. PERRY Welcome to my basement, this is where we keep our stockpile. PERRY It started with just one shelving unit that my husband built, and it has now amassed to a lot more than that. NARRATOR The shelves are overloaded with 135 bags of dog treats, 125 bottles of barbeque sauce, and over 350 travel sized toiletries. PERRY We always have canned beans, and every kind of bean you can imagine, we always have noodles. I actually made 10 cents on every single one of these boxes, so i picked up over 100 of them. PERRY Some of the stores these days will actually give you money back if the value of your coupon exceeds the value of the product, and you’re able to apply that overage towards other items like fresh fruits, fresh veggies, those sorts of things that there aren’t Necessarily coupons for. NARRATOR Perry has built her stockpile on close to 40 hours a week of researching, clipping and organising her coupons, and that doesn’t even include her regular meetings with couponers Anonymous. PERRY Anybody know if these are vegan? PERRY We have a group called couponers anonymous, if there’s a great like freebie online we’ll put the link to it, and then we also have coupon swaps every few weeks. PERRY I get probably close to 50% of my coupons from this group, and as you can see we get pretty massive quantities. NARRATOR Getting her hands on as many coupons as possible is important to perry, because the savings she rakes in have helped keep her family financially stable. ERIC We live off just my income and she stays at home raising our daughter, and it’s not the easiest thing to do, so we really have to watch the bottom line. PERRY Living in northern virginia is super expensive. Before i started couponing i would say we easily spent $300, $400, $500 a month. Now our grocery budget is at $100 a month and we’re always, always under it. PERRY It is an obsessive sort of thing, because once you’ve learned how to do it, and once you’ve seen, you know, your total drop to dollars, it just doesn’t make sense in my head any more to pay full retail price for anything. NARRATOR Today perry taps into all her coupon resources to buy over $700 worth of groceries for under $20. She plans on applying the savings from her food budget towards her other big obsession, Tattoos. PERRY I’ve been itching to get a new tattoo for a few months now. PERRY This image here on the back with the butterfly and the flowers and the stars. PERRY They’re definitely very, very expensive, and so the shopping trip that i’m planning for is going to give me enough money to be able to get this thing underway. NARRATOR Armed with a long shopping list of vegan products and a stash of high value coupons, perry heads to the supermarket with madeleine, a friend from couponers anonymous. PERRY All right, let’s go. MADELEINE I’ll follow you. PERRY I think mustard is up here, and i know it’s buy one get one free. MADELEINE So how many do we need? PERRY So we need 27. PERRY This is a great deal, i didn’t expect it at all, i thought these were going to be a $1.89 each, they’re actually $1.59 each, and the store has them on sale for buy one get one, and i have a 30 cent coupon which will double to 60 cents off every single one. PERRY I can’t believe it’s 30 cents cheaper. MADELEINE Usually it's more like.. PERRY A jig. NARRATOR Perry grabs many of the 400 items on her shopping list before moving onto the biggest staples in her vegan diet. PERRY So now we need to grab some refrigerated soya milk. NARRATOR The soya milk retails for $2.99. Perry has coupons for free half gallon containers of any flavour, which means she will get ten gallons of vegan friendly milk for her family without Spending a cent. PERRY So milk is one of the things i’m always trying to think ahead as far as coupons, because they don’t come out very often, so when i find them i really try to stock up, you can put this in the freezer and it’s good for months and months. NARRATOR As perry picks up the items on her list she also keeps an eye peeled for extra savings around the store. PERRY End props are a great place to look when you’re at the grocery store, and a lot of times it’ll have really, really great deals here. If particular items are wiped out in the aisle that are on sale come check the end props because they’ll put some of their extras Out there. PERRY What’s next? Oh, we can go around and let’s get some lemonade. MADELEINE Oh that was the next aisle right? PERRY Yep, i think it’s just over here. PERRY This originally retailed for $3.99, the store has it marked down to $2.00 so already half price, and i have coupons that save $2.00 on any one, so all of these will be completely free. I’ll be happy, raine will be happy and we’ll be set for the whole summer. PERRY So frozen veggies. MADELEINE Right there. NARRATOR The frozen vegetables are on sale at two for $4.00, perry has coupons for $1.00 off making each pack just $1.00. PERRY As a vegan you always need to have vegetables in your diet, they’re all organic, and it’s really easy to just add them to any meal if you’re looking for, you know, another serving of fibre or iron. PERRY I think that’s everything, ready, it’s go time, let’s do this! All right! CASHIER Hi how are you? PERRY I’m good, how are you? CASHIER I’m good. PERRY Oh boy. It’s a huge quantity of things, it’s nerve wracking. PERRY So we’re already up to $250 and this is only the third item that we’ve scanned. PERRY Almost to $400, i so don’t have $400 on me! PERRY What are we at? What are we at? CASHIER $633.16. PERRY Wow. PERRY Okay, this is it, moment of truth. PERRY What is my total? CASHIER $726.92. PERRY I’ve never purchased this many items, i’ve never had the total this high, i don’t have that much money whatsoever, so i mean i’m physically shaking. CASHIER I know you have coupons! PERRY I do, that the most you’ve ever seen? CASHIER Yes ma’am. PERRY It’s going down, a little bit at a time. PERRY Oh, that jumped! PERRY Need to get the balance to zero to make this tattoo happen. If all this planning and everything was for nought, i’d be pretty bummed. PERRY Where are we at? Where are we at? CASHIER You are $552.32. PERRY And i’m actually a little bit worried because i don’t think i took into account tax. PERRY You guys sell coupons for tax? CASHIER No way! PERRY It’s going down. Wait, is that… PERRY Yeah! All right, all right! We’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see. CASHIER With tax it’s $55.24. PERRY It should be way less than that. PERRY Something’s wrong. PERRY By my calculations we shouldn’t be anywhere near this total, yeah, there’s no way. NARRATOR Even after accounting for tax, perry’s post coupon total was more than double what she was planning to spend. Refusing to overpay she checks every single item bought and coupon Used for potential problems. PERRY I always use this list at the beginning, free… PERRY So i’m going through this receipt, we’re going line by line, i finally notice when we get to the mustard that the buy one get one special in the store didn’t take it off the register, and like everything was full price. PERRY That’s’ got to be the problem, because the mustard is supposed to be buy one get one free, that’s where the huge difference is, because there was 27 of them. STORE MANAGER I’ll bet that they were running maintenance. PERRY They were running maintenance? NARRATOR The manager realises that earlier maintenance performed on the store’s computers might have inadvertently voided the mustard deal out of the system. STORE MANAGER I’ll tell you what we’re going to do, we’re just going to take it off, a lump sum off of it. NARRATOR Once the mistake is found they quickly credit perry the difference in price. CASHIER Where i scanned your coupons, this is going to even out. PERRY So with tax and everything what’s the total? CASHIER $23.56. PERRY I can get my tattoo! PERRY I can’t believe i’m tearing up! PERRY Oh! I’m so happy. PERRY This is not cute. PERRY This is what i live for, this is what i do every single day, it feels really, really great to have everything work out in the end. MADELEINE Where’s the victory dance? NARRATOR Perry’s haul includes 33 dog treats, over 50 different soy milk beverages and 80 bags of rice, the retail price was $726.92, but after coupons she only spent $23.56. With a 97 percent savings On her groceries perry can afford to get her tattoo. PERRY This is more than enough money to not only pay for the first session, but to go and have some saved away for the second session. PERRY Argh. PERRY (screams) PERRY I want people to know that when you utilise coupons to save money for your family, and you can be healthy, you can have fund doing it. TATTOO ARTIST All right, let’s clean it off and see what we’ve got. PERRY Awesome! Oh yey, absolutely perfect. MELISSA Shampoo is free, toothbrushes are free, dental flosses we made money on. NARRATOR Meet a couponing mom with a license to steal. MELISSA Like we go shop lifting, we can leave the store with a ton of merchandise and i didn’t have to pay for it. BRAD Are you going to get the kids those cookies or are you going to have to wait till they go on sale first before you get them? MELISSA I’m going to wait until they go on sale, and that way i can buy them ten packs instead of one. NARRATOR Supermarket sale cycles come about once every 12 weeks, but the average shelf life of a coupon is only ten weeks long, which means expert couponer, melissa, has to be hyper-Vigilant to get the maximum savings she’s after. MELISSA My name’s melissa and coupons are my cash. MELISSA The cash value for these pretty much is going to be right around $700. PERRY I could coupon 24 hours a day. PERRY It’s like we go shop lifting, we can leave the store with a ton of merchandise and i didn’t have to pay for it. NARRATOR Over the course of 15 couponing years melissa has managed to save well over $100,000 on groceries and household goods. The retail value of her current stockpile rings in at about $17,000, but she has spent less than $300 total. MELISSA The shampoo is free, these envelopes were free. One of my favourite deals that i’ve ever bagged were these board games, they were $5.00 each and there was a $5.00 tearpad in front of them making them free. NARRATOR Melissa’s stash of 7,000 items includes 200 bags of chips, enough toothbrushes to last her family of four over six years, and a variety of office and school supplies. MELISSA The majority of these school supplies were all free, the same week, the same deal, but just different locations. NARRATOR With constant access to a home supermarket of free goods, melissa’s husband brad, their two kids, and the majority of her extended family willingly support her coupon addiction. MELISSA I use my family to kind of help out with my couponing. My kids have learned their cutting skills though couponing, they’ve learned their numbers through couponing, it’s even gotten to the point where i have family members giving me coupons. NARRATOR But not every family member is so eager to participate in melissa’s obsession. Her younger brother, jimmy, has yet to see the value in collecting coupons. JIMMY My sister’s couponing, it is extreme, sometimes she obsesses over it a little bit too much, i’d rather have paid the little extra and not, you know, gone through the embarrassment and the waste of time for me, but i guess that’s just my perspective on things. NARRATOR More than willing to spend her time couponing, melissa dedicates up to 20 hours a week to clipping and organising her inserts. NARRATOR Today she and her sister marcy are preparing a considerable shopping trip for a cause very close to melissa’s heart. MELISSA I’m so glad we’re going to get a chance to give all this stuff to the macdonald house, because they were so great to us. MELISSA With both of my pregnancies i had a very rare condition, both of my children they were delivered early, and my oldest son i had some complications so he had to spend some time in the nicu. MELISSA It was a difficult time in our life, probably i could say the hardest thing that we’ve ever endured. I remember some nights just leaving the hospital just bawling, knowing that he was in great care, but just wanting to be with my child. So during that time My husband and i were able to stay at the room in macdonald house so that we were as close to him as we could be when he was in the hospital. NARRATOR Planning on donating $900 worth of products while spending less than $100 out of pocket, melissa and marcy head to the supermarket. With such a large haul melissa will need all the Help she can get, so she even enlists the aid of her coupon sceptic brother. MELISSA Are you ready guys? JIMMY Yeah i’m ready. MARCY We’re ready. MELISSA Well jimmy, make sure you’re on your best behaviour. JIMMY I will, i’ll behave. MELISSA Please? MELISSA All right, let’s see, okay, 60 boxes of pasta. NARRATOR The pasta costs $1.69 a box, melissa has coupons for 55 cents off each, which the store will double, making each box only 59 cents. MELISSA The one nice thing about the ronald macdonald house is they want you to feel right at home, so they leave the pantry open and if you need a midnight snack you just go down and make yourself some pasta. JIMMY What’s next? MELISSA I think we’re going to go grab the coffee drinks. MELISSA Here’s the coffee drink, and we’re going to get 98 of these today. JIMMY 98? MELISSA We have a coupon, actually 98 free coupons up to $1.79, and they’re $1.79 making all of these drinks free. Come on jimmy, use your basketball skills! MELISSA That is perfect, that’s all we need. MELISSA Get 50 of these. JIMMY 50? What are we going to do with 50 cans of tomatoes? MELISSA They can go with our pasta. MELISSA These tomatoes cost us 49 cents each, we have a 50 cent coupon that’s going to double, so it’s going to give us 50 cents overage per can. So we’re going to have $25 in overage. MELISSA Are you having fun yet jimmy? JIMMY Having a blast. JIMMY I am definitely very sick of grocery stores, especially of after today, i’d definitely rather have melissa do the dirty work and then i just benefit the rewards, so yeah, if i can keep that up i’ll just continue to do that. NARRATOR After six hours of shopping melissa, marcy and jimmy have gathered nearly 500 different products, with four carts overflowing with goods they are ready for check out. MELISSA All right guys, are you ready to go check out? JIMMY I am. MARCY Ready. MELISSA All right. JIMMY Finally. MELISSA Jimmy? We’re almost done. Hey, how are you? CASHIER Hi, how are you today? MELISSA Good. MELISSA I’ve just gotta focus and make sure that i don’t lose my train of thought and that the numbers are all are in comparison. MELISSA We’re at $400, so far so good. We still have a way to go though, so… MELISSA Right now we’re around $625, so hopefully we should be…i’m still hoping that we’re doing good. CASHIER The total is $862.22. MELISSA I didn’t bring that much money with me today in the store, so it looks like jimmy’s going to have to be doing dishes. That’s our total, so hopefully our coupons will be our cash today and hopefully the numbers all add up. NARRATOR With her nerves on edge melissa receives some unexpected encouragement. MELISSA Jamison! How are you buddy! Oh okay. Want to help mommy pay today? CASHIER Do you have any coupons? MELISSA Oh just a few. CASHIER Perfect. MELISSA How much do you think we’re going to have to pay? No money? No money. Jamison Lots? Oh it better not be lots. MARCY I’m double checking just to make sure everything’s going through correctly, you never can be too careful. MELISSA That’s great, that’s why i brought her. MELISSA We’re at $195, so we’ve had a substantial amount of savings, but just not where i want to be at. NARRATOR After using the majority of her coupons melissa’s total is down to just tax. But she still has more coupons that she wants to use towards her purchase. CASHIER Okay, we have a problem right now, it's saying your coupon’s not valid. MELISSA I heard that beep, that beep that every couponer hates. MELISSA You know what it means, you know there’s an error, but no, no, no, no, no. NARRATOR Melissa learns that using her remaining coupons will give her an overage that can’t be applied towards tax, to use all her coupons and maximise her savings she decides to pick up more Products to cover the overage. MELISSA Can you guys go grab me 36 bags of candy? JIMMY Sure. MARCY Sure. MELISSA Thanks. MELISSA I think this is also a great thing for the ronald macdonald house, they’ll really appreciate this. MARCY 36 candies. MELISSA Perfect guys. This is our last stack of coupons, so the pressure’s on. CASHIER The total is $25.05, which is just the tax. MELISSA Thank you everyone, thank you guys. Thank you, thanks, thank you. MELISSA It’s taller than you! NARRATOR Melissa’s total haul for the ronald macdonald house includes 50 cans of tomato sauce, 110 boxes of pasta, and 140 bottles of hot sauce. Her total retail value is $897.86, but after Coupons she only paid $25.05 for a 97 percent savings. LADY AT MACDONALD HOUSE Hey there. MELISSA Hello, how are you? LADY AT MACDONALD HOUSE Good to see you. MELISSA Good to see you too, thank you very much for having us back. MELISSA When we pulled into the ronald macdonald house today i just had chills throughout my body, it w as a happier occasion to be here today than it was five years ago. MELISSA We were able to get a ton of macaroni and a bunch of tomato sauce for the pasta. LADY AT MACDONALD HOUSE That’ll be great, the families will love it. MELISSA Our on day of shopping is going to help so many families and it’s just a great feeling to know that you’re helping a number of people by doing something that you love to do.