By Casey Gills
Media General News Service

When Debra Wilkerson shops, she makes it count.

During a May grocery store visit, she filled her cart to the brim. Eight cans of biscuits and six bags of frozen vegetables. Five 12-packs of soda and another five 24-packs of water. Four bottles of barbecue sauce and three tubs of butter.

Also in her cart?

The one accessory Wilkerson never leaves home without: the blue binder that holds all of her coupons.

“Everything I buy,” she says, “I have a coupon for.”

This is no amateur endeavor.

Her binder - full of trading card plastic sheets that hold the actual coupons - is divided up into 37 different categories (think produce, frozen foods, dairy, cosmetics, soaps, etc). Within each category, she organizes the coupons by expiration date.

Wilkerson, who began clipping in 2009, isn’t content to just use the coupons. She also looks for sale items that match up with them to get the most bang for her buck.

“Coupons are money,” says Wilkerson.

“(Prices) are going up. You find yourself robbing Peter to pay Paul. If I can stockpile something that’s never going to go bad, I can wing the rest.”

She gets coupons from a number of places. Most come from the Sunday newspaper, but she gets others from websites and the magazine All You.

For her, clipping coupons is absolutely necessary. She is the full-time caregiver for her son, who has been in a coma since 2009. Medicaid doesn’t cover all of his medical expenses, so she has to save money wherever she can.

She clips coupons and surfs the web for deals during the day and usually shops once a week, when she can find someone to sit with her son while she’s out.

That makes for shopping trips that can last as long as six hours, as she goes from store to store to get the best deals.

“When I go out,” she says, “I make it count.”

During that May shopping trip, Wilkerson’s initial bill was $249. It went down to $180 after the cashier scanned her store savings card and, finally, $132 with coupons.

“When you see (the bill) start going down, it’s almost like winning the lottery,” she says. “It’s like playing a slot machine.”

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It’s called extreme couponing.

Many of you have probably seen the TLC series, which follows people who spend hours preparing to shop and can sometimes end a grocery visit with the store owing them money.
Wilkerson hadn’t seen the show until recently and says she plans to utilize some of its tricks to start saving even more.

“The more you get into it, the more consuming it is,” she says. “It’s almost like a magnet. It draws you in.”

Ginny Bush, a 21-year-old Madison Heights woman, began clipping coupons two months ago, after watching the show. She took most of her cues from the website thekrazycouponlady.com, which offers guidance to novices.

Since then, she estimates she’s saved somewhere between $400 and $500.

“It’s a change in lifestyle,” says Bush, who has a one-year-old son. “It’s a different approach to grocery shopping. You don’t go in to spend money. You go in thinking about how much you can save.”

Like Wilkerson, she does it out of necessity. Not only is she starting nursing school soon, but she’s also saving for her upcoming wedding.
Having a binder, which is also divided up into categories, is key.

“An envelope will not cut it to the extent that I do,” she says. “The last thing I want to do, especially when I have my child with me, is to be in the store for two and three hours trying to find the (right) coupons.

“You’ve just got to find your own system,” she adds. “Learning a new skill, you have to find your niche.”

And she doesn’t mind having coupons and store sales dictate what she buys.

“I’m finicky,” she says. “If I go to Wal-Mart needing ketchup, and it’s not on sale, I won’t buy it. I’ll wait until it’s on sale.”

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All couponing doesn’t have to be extreme.

Ryan Walker, who runs the website lynchburgcouponguru.com, says she loves finding a good deal and teaching people how to do the same.
But the stay-at-home mom of three won’t buy anything she’s not going to use, and she thinks the TV show creates unrealistic expectations.
“Not every shopping trip is going to end that way,” she says. “The ads aren’t always going to be that great.

“The show (presents) the perfect storm, the absolute best deal. ... And they only purchase certain items. Who’s going to live off 100 bars of soap?”

Walker keeps her coupons in one of her husband’s old day planners; it’s much smaller than the binders you typically see, but she always has it with her in case there are unadvertised deals or closeout items.

She doesn’t stockpile much. In addition to the standard items you often find in pantries, hers is currently stocked with maybe four or five boxes of pasta and rice, several containers of Capri Sun fruit drinks, a few bottles of salad dressing and a six-pound jar of peanut butter, her kids’ favorite.

“It’s not excessive,” she says. “It’s realistic, things you would normally see.”

She will, however, stock up on canned good and soups during the holidays, when there are better deals.

“There are times when you can spend 8 cents on soup. But, (right) now, I’m going to spend 80 cents, and I’m not going to buy ten of them. I’m just going to buy what I need for the meal.”

Her techniques are simple.
She goes through the weekly ads every Sunday, circling good deals. Then she looks at her coupons to see if anything matches up and goes online to see if the manufacturers have any coupons available on their websites (it’s as simple as typing the product name into a search engine).

Last week, for instance, Juicy Juice was on sale at Kroger for $1.99, from its regular $2.99 price. After going online, she found a 55 cents-off coupon and used it to save even more.

She also uses the downloadable coupons, which allow shoppers to download coupons directly onto their store savings card (Kroger Plus or Food Lion’s MVP, for example). The savings are applied when the cashier scans the card.
Walker will make some last-minute or spontaneous purchases without coupons, but she won’t do the main shopping for her household without them.

“I need to save the money and because I save the money, I’m able to purchase more,” she says. “I coupon to fit my lifestyle.”

Gillis is a staff writer for The News & Advance in Lynchburg.