In his book "Retail Anarchy," author and "stand-up economist" Sam Pocker tells an interesting tale involving hundreds of bottles of Kikkoman's Teriyaki sauce, which takes the idea of couponing to the ex treme.
Here's the setup: Two bottles of the sauce retailed for about $3. When he rang them up at the self-checkout line, a coupon printed for $3 off the next purchase of just about anything in the store. In addition, each bottle had a peel-off sticker for 55 cents off the purchase at checkout. At the time, he was able to double that coupon, bringing the price per bottle down to about 40 cents. Combine that with the $3 coupon when he bought two bottles, and he was "making" more than $2 per transaction.
Here's where Pocker takes it the next level. He takes the $3 coupon and buys eight bottles of the sauce, which, after the peel-off coupons, comes to $3.20. To pay, he pulls two dimes out of his pocket and the $3 coupon from the previous transaction -- and immediately $12 more in coupons print out.
You probably see where this is going. After cleaning out the store of all of its Kikkoman's Teriyaki sauce, Pocker walked out with hundreds of bottles and a fistful of $3 coupons he could use on anything he wanted from there on out.
How he gets rid of the sauce is another story that I'll leave for you to find in his book.
The point is this: We have reached a fairly ridiculous point in our consumer-driven society where manufacturers and stores are actually willing to pay us to take product off their hands.
For someone like me, using coupons at the grocery store isn't a habit I ever developed. I use coupons all the time when I make online purchases, but I haven't really had the patience to clip coupons on a weekly basis.
Inspired by the book, however, I decided to visit my local grocer to see if I could stumble upon a magical (and profitable) scheme.
The first thing to note is that it's hard work -- Pocker admits to spending up to five hours a week preparing for trips to the store, as well as an hour or two in the store itself just looking for deals. I grabbed the circular by the store entry and scanned it for coupons and deals.
I found out that there was a 39-cent triple coupon day and a 50-cent double coupon day on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. I was there on a Friday, so I couldn't take advantage.
But I did wander around the store, finding sales, coupons in the aisles and products that I could have applied the double/triple coupon savings to and, at the very least, received the products for free.
This is another note: If you are going to try to find these sorts of deals, you have to be fearless. People may look at you funny if you have a hundred rolls of paper towels, but you can't care about that -- you are making money.
It's a fascinating idea that I could easily see myself getting wrapped up in. I'm certainly looking differently now at the way I shop, and that ultimately is the point. Why pay more than you have to, especially if you don't have to pay at all?
Dylan Biles is a moderator and bargain-hunter for DealTaker.com, an online shopping Web site owned by Media General. E-mail dylan@dealtaker.com or follow him on Twitter @dylanbiles.
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