Don't discount the power coupon obsession can have on your life

by Beth Teitell
Wednesday, May 8, 2002

Only an idiot doesn't want to save money, right? I mean, who wouldn't like to buy the same stuff she always does, but for less?

Me, apparently.

Even as I type the words I can't believe my eyes, or my fingers, and yet it's true. On seemingly a daily basis I pass up coupons and Internet offers worth tens or hundreds of dollars, often for things I want, and will probably end up buying later - at full retail.

I'd love to use coupons, but it's not so simple. They're ticking time bombs. Let one into your life and you'll have nothing but trouble. The pressure to take advantage of the savings starts the moment you clip or click, and mounts unbearably until the day - the wonderful day - when the coupon expires, unused. Sure, you haven't saved any money, but at least you have the comfort of knowing there was nothing more that could be done. (Unless it's one of those coupons that never expires, in which case you're a goner. Where's the Geneva Convention when you really need it?)

The other day, tense about two separate Banana Republic offers that were bearing down on me - is it possible to be stalked by a store? - I confided my issues to a semi-professional coupon clipper. She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. And indeed, in the light of day, even I don't understand what's so hard about using a coupon. How can a little piece of paper, or a line in the subject heading of your in box - ``free shipping!'' - have an emotional effect on a person? I can't believe it has come to this, but when I think about the $40 I should be saving right now on a pair of strappy whipstitched sandals from Banana Republic, my gut tightens.

``It's the guilt,'' a coupon-challenged friend explained. ``You know you should use the coupon - and that other people are, so in a sense you're losing even more money - but when you go to the store, you forget to take it with you.''

Or, you remember to take the coupon to the store, and it's even still valid (yeah me!) but then you see something you prefer, which, the fine print advises, is not subject to any discount. ``Well,'' you tell yourself as you hand over your Visa card, ``at least I tried. And I'll get more miles this way.''

I know that being an adult means taking responsibility for your actions, but part of my coupon problem is not my fault: Where do they expect us to store the little devils? I'd like to save money, but I have to keep my apartment neat, don't I? Sure, I could put the coupons in a drawer, but you know what they say: out of sight, out of mind. There are coupon organizers, of course, but I'm not an organizer person. If I were, I wouldn't have this problem in the first place.

Coupons look so benign, but don't be fooled. They play hardball, and they show no favorites, either. I know obsessive clippers who become slaves to their coupons, often traveling great distances to take advantage of savings on items for which they have no desire.

``I'm quitting,'' one woman told me recently, ``right after the next round of Sunday papers.''

As for me, I must say I'm feeling pretty good right about now. It's midday on Tuesday, and in about 36 hours the free-shipping offer from Banana Republic expires. I'll be a free woman.