Thinking of Becoming an Extreme Couponer? Here's What to Know Before Getting Started

Many years ago, I was an extreme couponer. I wanted to save money on food, personal care items, and other household items while I was going to school so I could keep my credit card bills down.

Extreme couponing helped me spend a lot less on groceries and toiletries. But while it meant I had more cash left in my checking account, there were a lot of downsides as well. The drawbacks caused me to abandon the practice.

If you're thinking about starting up extreme couponing, there are a few things you need to know before you jump in.

1. It can take a lot of time to plan your shopping and find the best deals

Extreme couponing requires more effort than you might think. Here's what's involved:

• You have to obtain coupons. Often this means buying multiple copies of the Sunday paper (which contains the coupon circular), and clipping coupons out of all those copies of the paper. It can also mean scouring manufacturer websites and deal websites to find printable coupons.
• You have to look through store sales flyers. The goal of extreme couponing is to combine manufacturer and store coupons with store sales to get items for free or for pennies on the dollar. You'll need to look through store circulars each week and look through your coupon inventory to match up sales.

You can use websites like Slickdeals to help shortcut this process a little by checking out deals other people are putting together. But, since you may not necessarily have the same coupon stash as online shoppers or the same stores near you, you'll still have to do your own research and spend time combing through coupons available to see if you can get a particular deal.

When I was extreme couponing, it would often take me several hours a week just to put together shopping lists due to the research involved.

2. You'll have to shop at multiple stores to get the best deals

If you want to actually be successful at extreme couponing, you have to go where the deals are. This often means visiting multiple stores each week so you can capture the current bargains. I regularly used to go to CVS, Walgreens, Rite-Aid, K-Mart (I'm dating myself with that one), and several grocery stores multiple times weekly to pick up items at discounted prices.

In many cases, deals will be time-sensitive and you may have coupons, rebates, or ExtraBucks (from CVS) that are expiring -- so if you don't use them, you lose them. This can leave you feeling like you must shop each week no matter what. In fact, I have a friend who still does extreme couponing, and she visits drug stores while on vacation to make sure she's continuing to get the deals each week.

3. You may have to buy stuff you wouldn't necessarily want

Finally, the last thing you should know about extreme couponing is that you may have to buy stuff you don't want. Here's why.

Say that a manufacturer is offering a $5 gift card if you buy five of a certain product or $20 worth of a certain brand. If you could combine coupons and store sales to get those five products for free, you would want to buy them even if you didn't use them in order to get the gift card. This means, unfortunately, that you get stuck purchasing (and storing or throwing away) items you don't need.

Before you jump into extreme couponing, you need to be aware of all of these realities. It can still be worth doing if you have more time than money and if you enjoy deal hunting and the thrill of walking away with free (or near-free) stuff. But don't assume that extreme couponing is just a quick and simple way to reduce your grocery bills, because that's not really the case once you get started with it.