What if non-profits hired Extreme Couponers?

I’ve been couponing for about 6 months now. And in that short time, I have learned how to amass a stockpile where a lot of the items didn’t cost me any money, just my time. It’s definitely a learning curve as I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but thankfully, I haven’t given up. And it’s paying off.

Just today, I bought $160 worth of groceries for $28. My haul included free salads, free toothpaste, free chocolate candy, free shampoo, free conditioner and even free canned vegetables. I was running low on items, because we’ve either donated items to the nearby homeless shelter or friends and family on assisted living. And doing all of this got me thinking, non-profits should hire Extreme Couponers.

I mean really, it should be an entirely new job category. Couponing has taught me that you can pretty much get anything for free–from baby formula and food to office supplies like paper reams and tape to paper goods like paper towels and napkins. And then of course, there’s always free or next-to-nothing cleaning products like hand soap, cleansers and let’s not forget magic erasers ( I think I have like 10 boxes.) 

My point is imagine how much farther people’s donations would go if non-profits and shelters hired Extreme Couponers. I bought a two months supply of Similac formula (30 quarters, 20 cans, 1 tub) for about $15. The retail is about $200. So think about it. Disaster strikes. Babies need feed. Someone generously donates $200.

Without an Extreme Couponer, the non-profit spends $200 on:

-30 ready-to-feed quarters

-20 formula cans

-1 powder tub

Now if they hired an Extreme Couponing and said you have a $200 budget, get what you can get. Here’s the probable outcome: 

30 ready-to-feed quarters

-20 formula cans

-1 powder tub

-25 toothpastes

-25 toothbrushes

-25 flosss

-25 mouth wash

-100 bars of soap

-100 shampoos

-100 conditioners

-100 body washes

-100 hand soaps

-100 deodorants

-100 boxes of pasta

-100 bottles of barbecue sauce

-500 instant noodles

-20 half gallons of soy milk

-100 bags of salad

-100 paper towel rolls

With an Extreme Couponer, they would have gotten like $3000 worth of stuff for $200. Sounds crazy, but it’s actually quite real. Think about it. If citizens opened their wallets and donated $1 million to help a cause and let’s say 50% went to manpower. With the remaining $500,000 budget, extreme couponers could get like $3 million worth of stuff.

Now I am not saying I could do that. Right now I am consistently getting at least 70% off my grocery bills. But extreme couponers who save 95% off, well even if you paid them $50,000 and they turned a $100,000 budget into $1 million in products and food, then it’s totally worth it.

Oh, never mind. Why in the world would companies and non-profits want to stretch their dollars anyway?