Americans are increasingly turning to make savings via couponing as inflation continues to push the prices of groceries up. Thanks to TLC’s Extreme Couponing, families are learning how to make significant reductions to their shopping bills.
One woman who appeared on the reality television show, Tiffany Ivanovsky, described how she is into “extreme couponing”.
While appearing on the programme, she was able to reduce her grocery shopping bill by a staggering 98 percent.
The mother of seven from Spring, Texas invited cameras into her home and grocery shop to share how her family is able to make savings of over $1,000 (£808) in one trip.
In her home, Tiffany can stockpile 6,000 food, beauty and household items, which include 100 boxes of cereal, 200 bars of soap and 300 packets of toilet paper.
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Through picking up coupons and taking advantage of store customer discounts, the Texas native has made thousands of dollars worth in savings.
Tiffany started couponing with the primary intention of saving for college tuition for her children.
She explained: “My children call our home the Ivanovksy Mini-Mmart, just because you’re gonna find all kinds of groceries all over the entire house.
“There are some sacrifices that you make when you coupon we have to keep everything everywhere.
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“We don’t want our kids to have to pay for college and take out student loans. Since we’ve been Extreme Couponing we’ve saved close to $40,000 (£32,000).”
The Ivanovsky family invited cameras to their grocery shop with Tiffany calling the store’s manager to make sure there were no major changes to their coupon policies.
For the shopping trip, she collected 5,000 coupons from newspapers, internet advertisements and supermarket special offers.
Tiffany said: “I always check their coupon policies but you might get really comfortable in the store shopping and not realise that there’s been a policy change.”
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However, there was a new policy, limiting the number of double coupons someone can use on each item.
To make savings, the family agreed they will do two separate shops on the trip for the same items and check out separately which will allow them to use the coupons.
Buying items in bulk to freeze for later and using $1 discount coupons, the Ivanosky clan swept through the supermarket.
Upon heading to the counter, Tiffany hoped her final shopping bill would come to over $400 (£323).
However, she was surprised to learn it had in fact reached $555.44 (£449). When putting in her customer card, a store discount was applied to this bill.
After doing this, Tiffany then gave her coupons over to the clerk to apply to her final cost which came to $5.97 (£4.83).
As part of their plan to make the most of their coupons, her husband Paul then went up to pay his bill which came to $526.07 (£425.31). With coupons, this was reduced to $37.95 (£30.68).
The total retail value of the couple’s grocery shop came to $1,101 (£809.27) but they only paid $43.92 (£35.51).
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