Have the Extreme Couponers ruined it for the rest of us?

On my weekly trip to my local Giant store I was smacked in the face with a new coupon policy that sent me reeling.

I depend on coupons to be able to feed my family. I make it a point of knowing the policies for the stores where I shop and take advantage of as many savings as possible. I’m by no stretch a pro couponer but I save my family a few thousand dollars a year by being smart with my coupons.

The new coupon policy states that Giant will only double one coupon per item. So if I have multiples of a coupon for the same item that I buy multiples of, they will only double the first and all the rest will be processed at face value. Looks like I’m going to have to change my shopping habits.

Also part of this new policy, they only double coupons up to $.50. Anything over fifty cents will be “doubled” up to one dollar. I use a lot of $.75 off coupons so I will now be losing $.50 of savings per coupon with this new policy.

While we’re only talking about a few cents here and there, with the amount of coupons I use I stand to lose a lot of my savings each year. Thus my grocery bill will be going up.

With the tanking of the economy we saw a surge of extreme couponers. Hell, they even have their own show. Some of these people have used and abused coupons finding loopholes in store policies. TV shows and the news media are putting the spotlight on these super couponers and stores would be crazy not to take notice.

Of course this is just my humble opinion, but I think that shows like Extreme Couponing and the people who misuse coupons have ruined things for the rest of us.

I don’t stock pile food. Stores aren’t paying me to take groceries home. I use coupons to make my dollars go a little further and save money for other things my family enjoy. Now I am being punished for the transgressions of others and I’m pretty pissed off about it.

Have you noticed a change in your store’s coupons policy recently? Have you even checked your receipt to see if there’s been a change?

If your store has made similar changes to their policies on coupons I beg of you, send them an email, tweet about it or write on their Facebook page. Maybe if we make enough noise they’ll bring the old (fair) way of accepting coupons back.