People tell me all the time that they think it’s great that I use coupons but that they have no time to do it. They think it’s not worth the hassle it takes to save a buck or two here and there. Of course, I always have my arguments about how my cupboards are stocked with stuff I paid pennies for, how I am able to donate hundreds of dollars worth of food to shelters because of coupons and how I would rather spend 25-cents on deodorant and put the $2 I saved towards something fun like a trip to Ireland. But now I’ve got some real data to back up my coupon use thanks to the Wall Street Journal.
Writer Brett Arends used some real math to figure out just how much couponing is worth. Because even though Americans redeemed 3.3 billion coupons last year at a 27 percent increase from 2008, 99 percent of coupons get tossed in the trash– 99 percent!! So although many of us have discovered the gold mine that coupons hold, there are plenty who haven’t. And maybe it’s because the average coupon saves consumers just $1.44. That’s not a number that will motivate many people. But hold on, the good part is coming.
Arends looked at the time it takes to clip and use a coupon, assuming that the more you use the less overall time you will spend per coupon. He figured about a minute is spent on each coupon. That’s $1.44 for each minute of work, or $14.40 for ten minutes. That equals an hourly rate of $86.40. I don’t know what you earn, but I do know that the average American makes about $20 an hour. But the great thing about the money you save with coupons is that it’s tax free. Taking home $86.40 would actually mean you’d have to earn over $100 before taxes.
Arends says that someone who saves $25 a week with coupons could easily grow that money to more than $100,000 over a lifetime. That’s not a bad salary for something you can do while sitting on the couch! So the next time someone tells me they don’t have time to clip coupons I may just ask how earning $86.40 an hour sounds.