I'll but anything ... with a coupon (03/10/08)

The world changed 121 years ago. That's when the first coupon came out. It was for a little-know tonic made with syrup, a lot of water, a smidgen of a now-illegal substance, and few other odds and ends. I read that an estimated one in nine Americans received a free "dose" of this tonic due to that little slip of paper known as a coupon. Now, people all across the planet are semi-addicted to this stuff even though it hasn't had any illegal substances added to it for more than 100 years. You know this reformulated elixir as Coca-Cola.

In 1909 C.W. Post capitalized on the coupon to help sell his cereals. When my daughter was little she would get bored about halfway through the grocery store. Luckily, the cereal aisle was in the middle of the store. I would hand her a handful of cereal coupons and tell her to pick out two. The coupons always had pictures on them so she didn't have to be able to read.

I once bought a birthday card for her just because the verse inside read, "Because I had a coupon." I knew she would laugh, and she did.

The best part of the newspaper is the coupon section. I clip out the ones for products I usually use and also for products I want to try. Then I stash them somewhere. Long after they expire, I find them and throw them away.

So much for saving money.

I do take a handful of them with me whenever I go to the grocery. If I get lucky they will have a sale on the item and I will save even more. Of course, if I didn't buy the item in the first place the savings would be that much greater.

I have read articles about people who get hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for only a few bucks. This does not apply to me. The most I save is $10 to $15 per trip. As long as it is more than the cost of a magazine I am satisfied.

I save more with store cards than I do with coupons but the store cards don't bear enticing pictures of products I can't live without. Plus the store cards leave me a bit uneasy. There are shades of "1984" in the tracking of my purchases. Does anybody really need to know how often I buy Cheerios or that I treat myself to an occasional chocolate rabbit?

Thank goodness we aren't organized enough, as a society, to be able to obtain a printout of all our purchases for a given period of time.

Speaking of organization, why is it that manufacturers can agree on the formula for a UPC code but not on the size of a coupon? After all, coupons were around long before UPC codes were invented. Even so, coupons come in more sizes than there are stars in the sky.

The best coupons are the buy-one-get-one-free variety. My husband always knows when I cash in one of these gems. We end up with several months' worth of whatever product is being promoted.

There are coupons for things besides food. Coupons exist for oil changes, free shipping, and almost any product under the sun. A negotiable certificate attached to a bond representing interest due is also known as a coupon as is a detachable slip calling for periodic payments such as for merchandise bought on the installment plan.

Coupons can be found almost anywhere. They are in your newspapers, magazines and on the internet. They appear in flyers, advertisements and promotions. Sometimes they are slipped under windshield wipers in parking lots. They live in between couch cushions and in the bottom of purses.

The perfect coupon would offer a free foot massage with every pair of running shoes. A free hollow chocolate bunny with every gallon of milk would be nice. How about a complimentary year of lawn-mowing service with every dozen tulip bulbs purchased? Now those are coupons I would be sure to cash in and not lose.

All this coupon madness started because some guy wanted to sell a soft drink.

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