Coupons take off as economy slides

16-year decline ends as shoppers try to clip costs

By Dan Sewell, Associated Press

Published July 4, 2008 at 9:05 p.m.

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John Bazemore / Associated Press

Stephanie Nelson is the woman behind The Coupon Mom Web site, which offers coupons, information and advice. Visits to her site have tripled this year, to 25,000 a day.

With her household budget tightening, Michelle Fox treats couponing like getting a part-time job to help make ends meet.

In her case, it's a job that pays about $20 an hour.

"Every little bit helps. It's something I do for my family," said the Pueblo resident, who helps offset rising costs for her five-person household by spending a few hours each week scouring the Sunday papers and Web sites for opportunities to save quarters and dollars per item.

Fox, whose full-time job is in a telecommunications company call center, has been a couponer for years, enduring the snickers or grumbles from customers waiting in line behind her as she handed over fistfuls of coupons. But that's changing, she said; now people trying to cope with $4-a-gallon gas and higher food prices are asking her for tips on finding and using coupons.

The expanding availability of printable coupons online, of paperless digital coupons that can be accessed from cell phones and store loyalty cards, and an explosion of Web sites and bloggers focused on sharing coupon information are also feeding a comeback of what had been a fading Sunday tradition in American households.

But it's the economy that has people of diverse ages and incomes clipping and clicking.

"That lackluster economy brings out the couponing tendency in all of us," said Sharon Baker, director of Shortcuts, a digital coupon distribution service started this year by Time Warner Inc.'s AOL.

Amid soaring fuel costs and a housing and credit crisis, Americans last year halted a 16-year trend of declining redemptions by turning in 2.6 billion manufacturers' coupons, according to CMS Inc., a coupon-processing agent and promotions logistics service based in Winston-Salem, N.C. That marked the first year since 1992, when nearly 8 billion coupons were used, that redemptions had not fallen.

CMS says historical trends show that coupon redemption rates rise when prices and unemployment go up, so more coupon use is expected this year.

Coupons Inc., which specializes in printable online coupons, says usage trends spiked in September. "We saw a huge leap; we think consumers really started to feel the pinch then," said Steven Boal, founder of the 10-year-old company.

Stephanie Nelson, an Atlanta-area woman behind The Coupon Mom Web site that offers coupons, information and advice, said daily visits to her site have more than tripled this year, to 25,000 a day.

"People are seeking out ways to save money," she said.

"Coupons are free money, if it's something you would buy anyway. You can't really cut the price of gas, but you can cut the cost of food in half," said Teri Gault, founder and CEO of TheGroceryGame.com, a site that helps users coordinate coupon use with supermarket and drug store sales.

About 100,000 use the site, Gault said, and many of them signed up in just the past few months. She's also seeing more single professionals and double-income families logging on; a two-month subscription costs $10.

Coupons are also available in more ways than ever.

"It's really easy to print the coupons, especially if you're at a computer all day," said Julia Kozlov, a 32-year-old Los Angeles mother of two. She typically saves about $50 on an $80 bill, using mainly online coupons.

Another trend: a younger demographic getting involved in an activity traditionally dominated by 50-plus women.

"My generation is electronically based, so anything you can do by point and click, we're more likely to do," said Ariel Redmon, 23, a pharmacy student at the University of Kentucky and a regular couponer.

ADVICE FOR FIRST-TIMERS

Here are tips from couponmom.com, which was created by Stephanie Nelson for novice couponers:

* Know how stores' coupon policies work. Ask if they double coupons.

* Wait to use grocery coupons when the item is on sale. You might get the item free.

* Buy two to three copies of the Sunday newspaper to load up on grocery coupons.

* Print free coupons from coupon Web sites. Also download electronic coupons to your loyalty card from store sites such as Kroger.com.

* Be brand-flexible. Buy the brand that's on sale with a coupon or get the store brand if it's cheaper.

* Sign up for your store's loyalty card and provide complete mailing information. You'll get special store coupons.

* Know the usual prices for your regular items and stock up when they're discounted.

* Shop once a week or less to reduce impulse shopping.

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