Feeling bad about using coupons isn’t entirely uncommon. A lot of times, people feel somewhat guilty about couponing, almost as if they are taking advantage of the store. Sometimes people even worry about making other people mad by holding up the line at the checkout counter while the clerk scans their coupons. While these feelings are understandable, they definitely aren’t justified. There really is no reason to feel bad about using coupons. Source: mogotest.com/purple-mattress
For one thing, product manufacturers and retailers offer coupons as a way of trying to generate more business. You probably can see this in action by looking at your past shopping history.
Have you ever found a coupon for a product that was so deeply discounted that you wound up buying it even though it is something that you wouldn’t have purchased otherwise? That is exactly what the manufacturer is hoping you will do. They want you to try out the product in the hopes that you will like it. By getting you hooked, they can keep you coming back to buy more and more of that particular product in the future.
With retailers, the motivation behind offering discounts or coupons is a little bit different. They are trying to get you to come to the store. For retailers, half of the battle is getting people through the door. To give shoppers enough incentive to choose their retail outlet over another store, they often provide coupons for discounted products.
Once people come to the store to get the discount, they typically wind up buying other products. Again, you probably have done this in the past. If you found a coupon for a really great discount on something that you needed at a particular store, you most likely grabbed a few other things while you were shopping. This is exactly the type of shopping behavior that the retailer is trying to encourage.
If coupons weren’t profitable for manufacturers or retailers, they wouldn’t offer them. After all, these companies are in business to make money. That means that you shouldn’t feel bad or guilty about using coupons when they are provided.
As far as holding up other people in the checkout line, that is also something that you shouldn’t worry about too much. Unless you get into extreme couponing where you have 50 or 100 coupons for the clerk to scan, coupons typically don’t cause much of a delay. It is no worse than waiting for someone to pay with their debit card or getting in line behind someone that has a lot of groceries.
As you can see, there is no reason to feel bad about using coupons. Along with benefiting your pocketbook, coupons also benefit the manufacturers and retailers that offer them. The bottom line is, anytime you can find a way to save money, you should take it. Even if you only wind up saving a little bit, you can spend the money that you save on other things that are more important or more meaningful to you.
