More Money Podcast - 211 The New Rules of Couponing - Joanie Demer, Co-Founder of The Krazy Coupon Lady

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

Is couponing still as easy to save money doing as it used to be when people would go shopping with their big coupon binders à la Extreme Couponing? Yup, and honestly couponing is so much easier now than it used to be. That’s what Joanie Demer, co-founder of The Krazy Coupon Lady, explains in this episode of the Mo’ Money Podcast. Because so much has changed in the couponing world, if you really want to save on everyday purchases, you’ve got to learn about the new rules (and chuck out the old ones). Since we’re now living in a very digital world, that’s where you’d start. Sure, you can still get paper coupons and get some savings, but the time and effort may not be worth it. Instead, using apps and browser extensions at check out may be a better way to save money because, well, they take no time and little effort on your part. As mentioned in this episode, here are some ways to get started saving money through coupons and promo codes online: Honey Shopgatr Rakuten The Krazy Coupon Lady Ibotta SnipSnap Visit jessicamoorhouse.com/contests to enter to win a copy of a book featured on Season 9 of the podcast! For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/211 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Mo Money Podcast. This is episode 211. I am your host, Jessica Borehouse, and I'm so excited to see you back here or hear you back here. You know what I mean? I am so excited for this episode because I actually don't think I've had too many guests on the show just talk about this specific topic, couponing, saving money through being a smart consumer i have like the best guest for this quite honestly joni dammer she's the co-founder of the crazy coupon lady and the co-author of the best-selling book pick another checkout lane honey which i love um she is a very interesting story she also has an app called the crazy coupon lady that helps you now

uh coupon basically because the world of couponing has changed so much since that TLC show extreme couponers like so everything's changed since then. Everything's gone digital. We're not doing the dumpster diving for coupons anymore. That was a thing. It really was a thing. So we are going to be talking about how we can all be smarter consumers because

listen, we all got to spend money. We all got to buy stuff. What are things that we can easy things that we can do to save money. So there's more money in our pocket for savings, for investing, for our financial goals. So you are going to love this episode. Before I get to that, of course, I have a few words I want to share about this episode's sponsor. Have you ever heard of the phrase, you don't know what you don't know? Well, The Great Courses Plus is the perfect place to help fill in those gaps. Learning doesn't stop with this online service.

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your mind to sign up for the great courses plus, and right now, all Mo Money podcast listeners get an entire month of unlimited access for free. To start your free month today, just go to the great courses plus.com slash Mo Money. Once again, that's the great courses plus.com slash Mo Money to get one month free. Well, thank you so much, Joni, for joining me on the MoMoney podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk. Yes. So you are one half of the crazy coupon lady partnership or duo. I am. Yeah, my college roommate and I started the company together over 10 years ago. Wow. 10 years ago. I would love to go back because I feel like I've known about your website for a very long time. I had no idea it was 10 years.

That is crazy. How did it all start? You know, it was forever ago, a lifetime ago. And the thing that I say is, it's all her fault. So my best friend's name is Heather. And we ended up, our lives paralleled for a while there, went to school together, got married, had kids around the same time. And we're both had two young kids. And so at the time, we weren't working outside of the house and we were very much living paycheck to paycheck. And Heather was always scheming about things. She was like flipping furniture on Craigslist. She became like a mortgage lender for a minute and was always had some side hustle going. And she had this idea about coupons and said that we could get things for free or that she'd heard of someone that was like getting paid to shop. And I'm like, that all sounds illegal. Like, no, I'm like, I'm not down with it. So she really had to twist my arm. She talked my ear off about it for a month. Um, finally twisted my arm and we

ended up at our local Albertsons and there was a big promotion, you know, a promotion where it's like, Hey, you buy $25 worth of any of these products and you get $10 off your next order. It was a promotion that looked like that. And the idea was that she had found coupons to pair with the items that were in this promotion. So instead of spending $25, we use manufacturer coupons to, you know, drop that total down to like $12. And then we paid $12 and we still got $10 off our next order. So it was almost like we got everything for two bucks. So that was like super high level. Um, the idea behind the whole thing. And I mean, the bottom line is her crazy scheme, it worked. And at the time I was, I feel like back in 2008, every stay at home mom had a personal blog and I had a few of them. And so that was sort of my

hobby. My contribution was, it was a very natural extension to me. Once we learned this cool new thing, just started a blog to kind of try to show other people how to do it. And it was through that, that we, we very much gained a following through word of mouth and then eventually, you know, try to teach people the coupon through, through a book and then eventually a website that we ran very intentionally and a staff and all of that. Wow. So I'm so curious because I feel like a lot has probably changed since you first kind of discovered couponing and starting your website. Has like the realm of coupon, I remember too, and I'm not sure if this is still on the air, but there was that couponing show on TLC. And so it was really big. I feel like maybe six or seven years ago, it was just like

a really big thing. Everyone was talking about couponing and I had no idea about it as well. Has the world of couponing and kind of saving money in this way changed a lot in the past 10 years, do you think? I mean, it's changed tremendously. 2011 was when the Extreme Couponing Show aired. And so 2011 through 2013, it was like the hotbed of couponing. And through that, I think we did see a lot of changes. I actually participated in the pilot of that show. Oh, wow. Crazy Coupon Lady actually worked with Sharp Entertainment to sort of strategize and conceptualize that show. And once TLC was the network that picked it up, it really became

the working title of the show had actually been Coupon Masters and was very different. And once TLC picked it up, it was renamed Extreme Couponing and it became about show how far we can go. Let's find the people that are the furthest. And so then it was really like, oh, it was like frugality meets hoarding, right? Intersectionality of those two things. And so what we decided to do was we're like, okay, well, this isn't totally our jam, but they're definitely using the right principles. But we're like, you know, we've got kids, we don't have all of that time we've got, you know, we're trying to make it work for us. But, but definitely, there was a lot of interest in extreme couponing. And then that drove people, the crazy coupon lady, to sort of be like, wait, how do I do that?

But the thing that has changed about couponing in the last 10 years is very much that in ways it's become much, much easier. So back at the height of extreme couponing, it was about having the Sunday newspaper or getting multiple copies on the pilot where I participated. I was, I went dumpster diving in a recycle bin to try to find extra copies of newspaper coupons. Truth be told, that was the first and last time I ever actually got papers that way, but you know, for TV and it was a legitimate way to get coupons. And then we were printing coupons at home. That was really what to do. And now there are so many apps that are making savings easier. The other thing that has happened is there were a lot of manufacturers that were very disorganized when it came to running promotions. So there was one side of the company that would release a newspaper coupon, and then someone else would do a promotion at maybe

the Kroger supermarket. And then someone else would release a printable coupon. And none of those people in one of these giant manufacturers were know, manufacturers were talking to one another. And so what would happen is there were a lot of accidental coupon overlaps. And that was what crazy coupon lady was finding. That's what extreme couponing was showing. We were finding different legitimate ways to save. But when you use them all together, you ended up getting something for cheaper than that manufacturer would have liked the shopper to do. So through that show, I think a lot of manufacturers did get wiser. And so sometimes we say that saving a lot of money in 2019 is harder than it was 10 years ago. But saving a little bit or a moderate amount of money is actually much, much easier. So we're not

potentially getting $100 worth of groceries for $10 like we were in 2011. But that would have taken hours to prepare for. And now what you can do very easily with the use of an app is you can save 30, 40, 50, maybe even 60% in only a few minutes because there's lots of digital offers and apps available to make that easier. Yeah, no, that was one of the things that when I was like watching that show or reading other people's stories about, you know, kind of piling up all these coupons, I'm like, how are these stores or manufacturers not catching on to this? Because it's like, it does seem kind of like a mistake. It does seem like legitimate. But I know at least like from where I live in Canada, I think there is a little bit more regulation when

it comes to couponing. So that's why I don't feel like it's ever there's I don't know too many Canadian extreme couponers. So I feel like there's a little bit more flexibility in the US, which sounds like awesome. But yeah, I was always kind of like wondering, like, how is no one caught on? So that makes sense that things have kind of changed since that show's aired. And obviously these companies have been like, oh, we should maybe not do this. Right. But there still are. And companies are still doing it. When they release a new product, things are still happening. So for example, like a few years ago, right, when the laundry pods,

right, become available and that's a new product and manufacturers are trying to push customers in that direction because the dirty little secret is that even though you got a great deal on those laundry pods, the cost per load that you're paying just went up if you switch from liquid detergent to pods. And so manufacturers are actually smart and they're saying, hey, we're going to allow these offers to stack and we are going to allow that customer to potentially, you know, that top echelon of customers that are really strategically shopping, surveying everything that's out there, using a site like Crazy Coupon Lady, we're going to let them save 75% and get this $5 bag of pods for only $1. And they know that that's happening.

And their hope is that that shopper is going to say, I love pods now. I don't want to have to pour my own liquid. And then they just acquire themselves a shopper that's willing to pay more per load. So there are still instances where manufacturers are actually doing that intentionally and the opportunity to save is there. And the whole, the way to be a smart shopper and using a site like Crazy Coupon Lady

helps make it easier is you've just, you have to stay in the game. You've got to straight to just strategic. You've got to make sure you're always comparing that unit cost. Don't walk into Costco and assume that because, or any wholesale club, not just Costco, straight to strategic, you've got to make sure you're always comparing that unit cost, you know, don't walk into Costco and assume that because, you know, or any wholesale club, not just Costco, assume that because you're paying a membership fee, everything's a great deal, you know, and don't keep buying a product, you know, make sure you're comparing that cost per load or whatever,

whatever that thing is. It's just, it's funny that you mentioned the cost per unit, because honestly, and this is terrible, I didn't realize that was a way to kind of compare prices. I would usually just compare product to product and what the cheapest price was and think, okay, well, and sometimes I wouldn't notice like, well, how much are you actually getting? And it wasn't my until I want to say recently in the past like year that my husband's like, oh no, when you're like at the grocery store and this depends on where you shop, obviously, but the place that, you know, we go to tend to, they have the unit price. So you can actually compare, oh no, this, even though it looks more expensive, is actually cheaper because you're getting more.

And it's just like, that's a very simple thing that I was like in my 30s just realized. I'm like, oh my gosh, I've been doing it wrong all these years. Oh my gosh. There's so many nuances. But really like you say you're standing in the cereal aisle, and there's sometimes might be three different size boxes of one variety of cereal, right of Cheerios, and maybe even the the middle size box has like a green tag or a sale tag, right? That's not necessarily to say that that box is going to have the cheapest unit cost. So definitely unit cost is more important to look at than that big sale number. And the other thing to keep in mind is that, let's say you've got,

you know, you have a $3 box of cereal, a $4.50 box of cereal, and a $5.99 box of cereal. And you've got a coupon for a dollar off that happens to not exclude any of the sizes. You can use it on any of them. The interesting thing that you'll see is that without the coupon, there's a high likelihood that that $5.99 box of cereal, the biggest one, is going to show you the cheapest price per ounce. But what you usually will find is if you have a coupon for a dollar off, if you want to take that coupon and use it on any one of those products and then recalculate the unit cost, what you're going to find is the smallest one, the one that was, what did I say? Did I say $3.50? I can't remember. The one that was 350 is now going to be 250. And if you rerun that unit cost,

the smaller size product, when you use a coupon, often actually ends up being the best deal. So often we're buying the 16 ounce peanut butter instead of the 64 ounce or the smaller box of cereal. So again, whether you're using coupons or not, comparing unit cost is one of the best ways to save. Yeah, that is so smart. So it seems like before you go to any store, you have a game plan. And I feel like that is very important no matter how you shop, really having that preparation before, whether that's like, how much do I want to spend? What do I need to spend? What's my list look like? What are some of your pieces of advice as kind of an expert before you go shopping? What are these are the things that you need to do to make sure that you

are going to get the most for your money and not overspend? Yeah, I think that it's all about planning beforehand. But I think you can do that very quickly. And invariably, the best advice, right? Hey, plan beforehand. Make a list. Stick to your list. Don't shop hungry. Don't take your kids. Don't shop at five o'clock, right?

Like all of these things. You've also got to cut yourself a little bit of slack because like life is life. So if you're in the store, you can still pull up an app like Crazy Coupon Lady. Another great app to pull up would be Ibotta, which is a coupon app that allows you to save after your purchase. You don't actually have to use a coupon. You just upload your receipt. So there are things that you can do to make sure that you're sticking to those savings. There's also, you know, not to get sidetracked, but the interesting thing about some of the ways that grocery shopping is changing when it comes to like grocery delivery and grocery pickup. Grocery pickup is actually a pretty great option for

saving money. And as far as like, Hey, reducing impulse buys, or I think the dangerous thing about shopping in stores that you fill your shopping cart and don't you get to the cash register. And sometimes you're like, honestly, plus or minus like $70. I have no idea what this is about to cost me. right? Like this could end up being $80 or it could end up being $180. And I'm not actually sure because I mindlessly was throwing things in the cart. Oh, a hundred percent. I never know when I'm actually pulling things up at the cash register, like how much things will be. I'm like, it could be between 50 and a hundred dollars. I actually don't know. I didn't calculate when I was putting things in my bin. Even for me, right? Like crazy coupon lady,

I should know this stuff. Like on the occasion that I like, I'm at the checkout lane. I noticed I don't have my wallet in my purse, but maybe I've got some cash on me or something. And I suddenly am terrified because I'm like, Oh, do I really have a grasp on what this is going to cost? I've got $80 in my pocket. Am I going to have to hold up the line right now? So I definitely think that there's a lot of strategies that you can use to make sure that you're not paying more than you should at the grocery store. Planning beforehand, using an app like Crazy Coupon Lady, getting familiar with the rebate

app. Ibotta is one. Checkout 51 is another. I believe that one actually started in Canada. But there are lots of ways to save even downloading the stores app. If you're shopping at a big box store, like a Target, for example, they've got a great app that has coupons cartwheel offers is what they kind of call their discounts that you can redeem with a scan of your phone. So what is very, very different than it was 10 years ago is that while planning ahead is the best way to save money,

you still can save a lot of money just by opening a couple of key apps once you're in the store and making smart choices like comparing unit costs. So it's not kind of doing the whole, like I remember seeing like the coupon binders and everything like that. That's not usually what people do anymore.

It's all kind of digitized a little bit. The coupon binder is absolutely still like, it's still around. It's still the jam for some people. And it was like, I mean, that was, that was mine, man. I was so proud of my coupon binder. I had the baseball card holders. I was doing that whole thing. But yeah, I haven't. I haven't couponed with a binder in probably nine years because that is hard to maintain. That does sound like a lot of work. So yeah, I personally, I do not have a subscription to the Sunday paper anymore. There are still great coupons there. I just don't happen to use them. And for me, I do not coupon every time I go to the grocery store. The way that I have sort of pivoted and adjusted is that I make sure I am making

a couple of couponing trips every month. So that's probably anywhere from two to four trips a month. I'm deciding whether I'm gonna shop at a drugstore or a big box store and I will switch it around depending on where the best deals are, but I'll wait. And so there's usually a catalyst, like I'll be on Crazy Coupon Lady and I'll see that there's a great deal

on my favorite brand of laundry detergent. So great. I know that I'm going to go to the store this week because I want to buy a few of those to tide me over for three months. And to tide me over. See that? Anyway, and then I'll grab a couple other items

at that store, but I'll actually make a special trip. And the other key, in addition to comparing unit costs, the other thing, the single most thing that will save you money besides using coupons is simply stockpiling. Now, again, we're going to talk about the thing that like, was shown to be very hoarder looking on extreme couponing. Yeah, where people had like a separate room for all their detergents and all

this crazy stuff. Yeah. Yeah, we're not going that far. Because I mean, no, nobody has time or space for all of that stuff. Who has an extra room for us to put about? Yeah, I'm not going that far because I mean, no, nobody has time or space for all of that stuff. Who has an extra room for us to put a, but yeah, I'm like, what, who? But, but like, okay, tell me this. If you, if you always pay $10 for your, whatever kind of detergent that you love. And if, if you see a deal and it's only $3 and you have the option, like the ability, the limits on the coupons and the offer allow you to buy up to four. Like, tell me you're not going to buy four. Come on. I probably wouldn't because I live in a very small place, but I usually do. If something is on sale, I will usually grab more

than one. Okay. So with you, I'll get, I'll use the example of razors, right? Like you usually pay 12 bucks for a razor or something. And if the razor goes on sale for $2 after coupon and deal and whatever. So, so even if you don't have room, I think there are some things. So you can't stockpile paper towels. That's unreasonable. But like there are toiletries and other things that are, you can even, I mean, we get creative when we've, we've, um, you know, from people who live in Manhattan or whatever, they're like, I buy razors. I immediately take them out of their packages. Right. And then I put them all in a Ziploc bag. Cause it's like, Oh yeah, you could easily put eight or 10 razors in a Ziploc

instead of the big plastic things. But planning ahead and then buying when you find a deal on something that you use a lot that your family goes through, if you find that great price point and buy enough to last you three or four months, that's what really gives you the power as the consumer. Because if you are only able to buy one laundry detergent

and you get a great deal, congratulations, that's awesome. You feel good. A month later, you're out of detergent. And once you're out of something, you no longer get to tell Kroger or Target or Walmart what you want to pay. You're out. You just have to go and buy it. So if you're able to stay a little bit ahead of the game, it's really one of the things that allows you to save the most. Yeah. And one thing we haven't touched on and one thing I kind of had an issue with this show was it seemed like a lot of the time people would be buying things because of the deal, but not because they necessarily needed that thing. And I'm like, why do you need all of this soda? Like that's not good for you.

And you don't, that's not a need. That's more of a want. How do you balance it? I guess if like someone really goes down the rabbit hole and really gets into this whole couponing thing, how do they balance needs and wants? Right. Because I feel like it can kind of be tempting just to go a little crazy. So I mean, the bottom line is you're absolutely right. There are some people there. I mean, and it's laughable.

But like, I don't have a cat. And I just bought all of these cat treats because they were free. Or like, I don't have a baby. And I just bought all of these diapers. And some people are actually being really philanthropic with those things. They're like, hey, I have the ability to buy this and I can give it to someone. And so that's great. The thing that happens, and it's why when I started this blog that turned into the website and app and everything, I called it Crazy Coupon Lady because you kind of get crazy.

Despite all of the best advice about moderation and everything else, when you learn that this actually works, right? I was the skeptic, I got drugged by my friend at the store, I was like, this isn't going to work. We're going to get arrested. This feels illegal. I don't like it. Once it actually worked. I was like, Oh, my gosh, I want to go do that again. Like, so there's something that happens. And I think it's, it's that endorphin rush that drives people to, oh my gosh, I'm going to go get this. I have to go get this because it's a great deal. Like it's soda, whatever. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll have a football party and I'll, you know, and so we definitely try to talk to our readers about it. That said, I think that it's still

can happen. It can get so exciting. It's the same thing about like being at a, you know, a Ross TJ Maxx Marshalls type store and seeing some whatever it is a dress that doesn't quite fit or or something that's outside of your style, but it's like on the clearance rack, and it's literally 85% off and you buy it and then you end up never wearing it. So you can actually save the money, right? So whether it's overbuying a certain product and letting it expire, whether it's buying something that you're not going to use, whether it's developing bad health habits through something like couponing, obviously doing any of those things is not actually doing the one thing you were trying to do in the first place, which is save money. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So certainly,

if it's possible that it's going to go to waste, um, in our book, I wrote a story about, um, my first few months couponing, you know, I had little kids and there was a great deal on an instant oatmeal. Uh, it was a high fiber, instant oatmeal. And I'm like, great. I mean, I know it's still a little bit high in sugar, but like high fiber, that's awesome. So like experienced moms are probably already seeing where the story is going, but I bought like 25 boxes because every morning we all ate this instant oatmeal and it was great. And anyway, the high fiber variety turned out to be a disaster at my home for my two children in diapers. So I ended up like finding, I don't even remember

where I donated it, but I had to get rid of all of it. And I mean, it was, I paid like 50 cents a box. I got some incredible deal, but then I'm like, okay, so I just wasted 15 bucks or whatever it was that I had paid because I can't actually use this. So making sure that you're being smart, not letting the hype get you caught up, certainly as part of being a smart shopper. But I'd say every crazy coupon lady needs to allow herself one indiscretion because it just happens to the best of us. Exactly. What are your thoughts on, because I know a lot of us are now shopping online, how is it different to continue to coupon and find deals, but if you're just doing it, just shopping online, whether it's clothes or what have you, is it very different than going

to a physical store? So, okay, do you want to, because have you, is it very different than going to a physical store? So, okay. Do you want to, because I mean, the, the grocery thing online is the, that game is getting good. Do you want to talk about groceries or do you want me to tell? Yeah, let's, I would like to talk about groceries cause I'd like to know what your opinions are. Yeah. So, so I mean, certainly Amazon is leading the way, but, but Walmart's getting pretty aggressive and I feel like is going to really make a good play at being a good place to shop online for groceries compared to Amazon in the next year or so. Target's also in on the game as are others. But the key for me in finding good

deals online is playing the automatic reordering game. So with Amazon, that's called subscribe and save. Target's got their own thing. Walmart, I think, is going to end up competing more in the next day or same day grocery delivery because if you can get Walmart prices with free delivery and that's what's coming, I think that's going to really change the game. But with Amazon as an example, and Target's on the same boat, if you agree to order something automatically, you set it up to charge your card automatically, you're going to save a lot of money. So you're going to save up to 15 or 20% at Amazon, depending on the product. Baby is probably the best category to buy online from

Amazon. Their baby deals allow members of their free program called Amazon Family to save up to 20%, making diapers cheaper at Amazon than they are at a wholesale club. So that's just an FYI. That's a great place for parents to shop. But automatic reordering is it. And there's really not actually any commitment. But the idea is during month one, there's a sale price. There are even digital coupons that you can quote unquote clip. You just click the mouse and allows you to save a lot of money. And then if you don't want to subscribe to them, which would be my recommendation, all you do is after you place your order, you literally just go into your account and you skip a subscription or you

undo the subscription. You don't have to call customer service or anything. But in order to get you to sign up for that subscription, you're getting a discount. And then if you like, if it's something that you're using every month, just make sure you're logging into your account once a month to check the price. Because the sneaky, dirty little secret is that prices on the items will change and you'll get charged that new price. And if you use the coupon to buy it during month one and you agreed to buy it every two months, the next time you buy it, that coupon's not going to be applied.

So if we can take advantage of the promotions that they're using to suck people into automatic reordering, and we can keep our heads on straight and make sure that we're continuing to check and be diligent about that, even a once a month check-in, you can actually get really good prices, often beating, almost always beating a grocery store like a high, low, like a Safeway, Kroger, Albertsons, Publix type prices, and competing with big box stores, usually losing slightly to wholesale club prices, but not by a lot. Interesting. So it does kind of sound like regardless, there's no kind of automatic, like you do

have to be on the ball. And that's kind of the same thing where there's know, there's all those, oh, and try our app or our website or subscription for free for 30 days, and you forget, and then you're paying a subscription. I see that all the time. So it's like, you need to be on the ball if you do want to kind of play the game a little bit. Yeah, even though couponing is easier than it used to be, there's always going to be that effort threshold. I mean, and I think that that's I mean, right to earn, if you will, like to earn those savings, you've got to go put some effort in, but crazy coupon lady. And, and I think lots of different players in this space are trying to lower that threshold as much as we can. One thing I would say is that even if you're like, I'm not sure I've got the

time for that. One idea is you download crazy coupon lady and, and don't, you know, sign up for anything, just, just enable push notifications. And then you can actually sign up for deal alerts by brand. So if all you're saying is, you know, my family's on a really strict diet, we're vegan, there aren't coupons for the same things that we eat. Okay, great. So let's just focus on the non food portion. So come in on crazy coupon lady and, and, and tell us the brand of detergent you want to buy and then toggle that deal alert on and maybe the brand of toilet paper that you like to buy. Those non-food items are actually the items that we're finding the best deals on anyway. So toggle on a couple of those and then do nothing. Just put the app away and then when

there's a great deal, you'll receive a push notification and then you can decide whether or not this week is a good week for you to go get the deal. That's something that I mean, even I use, even for, you were talking about apparel earlier. I recently moved houses and I'm in a house with all hardwood floor. And so I was like, okay, I need to, I need to bite the bullet and get one of those Roomba vacuums. So I toggled on the Roomba deal alert category and in about 10 days, I think is about how long I happened to wait. If it was November, I would have had to wait about two hours because the deals are so great around Black Friday.

But I got a notification from Crazy Coupon Lady, saved about 40%, which is over a hundred bucks. So sometimes there are tools that allow you to actually kind of just go about your life, continue with maybe even your bad grocery shopping habits where you take your kids and you impulse buy a bunch of stuff. But even if you can set a few products to save on, I think that there's a lot of potential savings for your budget there. You mentioned Black Friday. And I know kind of in everyone's mind,

the best times, or at least that's what's advertised to us, the best times to find those deals is around Black Friday and then Boxing Day. Is that true in your opinion? Because you are very familiar with when these sales cycles happen. Yeah, there are great deals. The thing that we've been seeing is retailers are doing everything they can to get you to shop earlier because the data shows that if you start shopping earlier, you will spend more money. So what Crazy Coupon Lady is all about is we learn the why. We see the sales starting earlier. We understand why. Now, if you're a strategic shopper, it's the same thing as the automatic reordering. It is in your best interest to shop early for Christmas because there are great deals starting earlier than ever before.

But be aware that the data shows that statistically speaking, you're going to end up spending more. So if you've got the self-discipline to start early, get your list crossed off and stop shopping and be done, then that's my best piece of advice. Even Black Friday, right? At first it was Black Friday and then everybody was getting up in arms because it was creeping onto Thanksgiving. And to an extent, it's still doing that. But really what we've seen is starting to happen is that it's not Thursday anymore. It's the Sunday or Monday before. Black Friday is like, it's, there's no way, like it's a week long. So Sunday or Monday, all of the big retailers are starting insane deals. And yes, there are doorbusters and such that start on Thursday night, but like 95% of those are available online. So my Black Friday tradition, yes, I am still feeling interrupted on my Thanksgiving. I am, but I'm interrupted on my couch. I'm sitting on my couch with my family or whoever I've got over and I'm buying the hot TV and they're getting whatever and we're talking about it, but we're not having to leave the house.

Yeah. You don't have to like stand outside overnight kind of thing anymore. That was never something I did like that I loved. Some people love it. They're like, No, that is our family tradition. I'm like, Okay, great. Well, if that's yours, then then more power to you. And and because of crazy coupon lady, I do invariably end up in the store. But I'm just like, this is insane. I just want to walk around people and be like, what are you buying? And do you understand that just download the Walmart app and get it all right now and go home. There are so few, there are literally maybe five to eight deals at each store that you can't get online. It's just, it's not very necessary to shop in store. It's very rare that you need to be there. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I just do it all

online now. And sometimes it is one of those things where you do get caught up in just like the advertising and the marketing of it all. And you're just like, oh, this is the only time I can find a deal. And like, again, it always goes back to is like, do you actually need this? And most of the time when I because there was like recently Amazon Prime date, like there's all these things that always happen. And it's like, I don't think your life will change if you don't get this at this time, like you'll survive. So it's always just about checking yourself don't kind of buying into the whole kind of craziness of it all. If it's on your list, then awesome. If it's not, like, I don't need a TV, but sometimes always around Boxing Day, I'm like, should I get one though? I don't need one. Right. No, if you know yourself well enough to know that that's a problem, then you've got to

set up some checks and balances. And maybe those are the people that are like, hey, you should go shop in store, take cash. Those like right and true kind of old school ways to save that might be the best thing because sometimes the dirty little secret of the best way to save money is to simply shop less. Yeah, absolutely. Before I let you go, there's one thing that I think is really cool that you're doing is, so you and your partner have started a foundation called the KCL Foundation. Do you want to kind of share a bit more about what that is? Oh, I'd love to.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk about that. So we're actually based in Boise, Idaho. And one of the coolest things about Boise, in my opinion, is that we've actually got a pretty large refugee population. We have more Syrian refugees than LA and New York combined. And so especially for a place that doesn't have a tremendous amount of ethnic diversity, it's a really cool thing about this community in particular. And so we've been kind of in touch with that community. So for many years, in order

to test out these great deals, we've been going to the store and we have staff that are boots on the ground, or they're actually testing these deals for you to make sure that we're only sending you stuff that works. We would always, you know, end up back at our office, we've got a bunch of shampoo and razors and laundry detergent. For a while, everybody at the staff, we were just letting everybody kind of take it home. And then, as we learned more about refugee community in the United States, and exactly what refugees are provided with when they arrive, they get about eight months of assistance, but that's food-based, and that's while they're doing English training and job training. There is a gap, and the gap happens to be in this non-food area.

And I talked earlier about the best deals, the highest value coupons, the biggest discounts. The way that we're helping our readers save the most is on non-food items, so like drugstore health and beauty. So the stuff that we're saving on happens to be the stuff that this community needs. And so that's what we started just working with our international rescue committee chapter here in Boise and eventually started our own foundation. And now we stockpile lots of things, but the idea is crazy coupon lady. We've got a staff of about 60. We know how to save money. We're doing it everywhere. And so we're able to make an impact that's a lot, um, bigger, you know,

uh, because of that, that ability, if you can save 70% on everything, you know, you can, you can do a lot of good. So now, um, we've got our office here and we have space downstairs that we essentially, it's a big stock room. Um, and so refugees in the community come and sort of shop from the stock room and yeah, it's really cool because we've got interesting, um, people that we get to meet and help out, you know, every week in the office. And so yeah, it's a it's a cool thing that helps our company kind of get involved with our community. That's amazing. And I love that. And I feel like that's also kind of like we kind of touched on earlier, if you are getting really into couponing, and you don't really need the stuff, giving it giving it away or finding some sort of nonprofit or charity to

kind of partner with is a great way where you can still have fun and then give it to someone who actually need it. Yeah. You can feed your addiction, your need to save and help somebody out in the process. We've got a lot of followers that are passionate about different pet charities. And that's another category that I would say is a really great one. So whether they're partnering with humane societies or shelters, animal shelters and that sort of thing, there's lots of opportunity. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and all of your tips.

Lots of these things I didn't really know. So I know a lot of people are going to get a lot out of this. Where can people find more information about you and the app that you've mentioned? Yeah. I mean, and everything, Crazy Coupon Lady, every part of it's free. The website is thecrazycouponlady.com. You can look for our beginner section, we've got a free ebook there. And then yeah, do download the app. The app is great. You can select your favorite stores based on your location. And again, you can set those deal alerts based on the products that you're interested in buying, whether you want to do the whole grocery couponing thing, or whether

you just want to get ready for Black Friday with some of those exciting deals on Apple or American Girl or Lego or whatever it is you're going to be shopping for this year. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. It was a pleasure. Thanks so much. And that was episode 211 with Joni Demmer. You can find her at thecrazycouponlady.com. Also, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at thecrazycouponlady on Instagram or just crazycouponlady.com. Also, you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram at the crazy coupon lady on Instagram or just crazy coupon lady on Twitter. Also, of course, you can download her free app, also called the crazy coupon lady. It is free in the Apple Store or the Google Play Store. So make sure to check it out. If you want to save some deals and start couponing, because why the heck

not? Right Now she also has a book as she mentioned in the show and it is called Pick Another Checkout Lane, Honey, and I'm giving away copies of her book. So if you want a win a copy, well, just stick around. I will share the tea on how you can enter this contest to win a copy of her book. Here's just a few words first about this episode's sponsor. When's the last time you learned something new? And I'm not talking about some new skill for work or something you needed to know. When's the last time that you learned something that you've always wanted to know more about? Well, I'm almost certain that The Great Courses Plus probably has a course on whatever that may be. You see, The Great Courses Plus is an online education

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as well as those around us. So go ahead, expand your mind and sign up for the great courses plus. Plus right now, all Mo Money podcast listeners can get an entire month of unlimited access for free. So start your free month today by using my special link, the great courses plus.com slash Mo money. Once again, that's the great courses plus.com slash mo money. Okay, so if you want to win a copy of any book that has been talked about or like featured on this season of the show, you mean like I've got an author who talked to basically you can win a free copy if you just go to Jessica morose.com slash contests. I think I said that too fast. jessicamoorehouse.com slash contests, or check out the show notes for pretty much any episode this season. So this one would be jessicamoorehouse.com slash 211 to check out the show notes. So please do that. But yeah, it's easy peasy. All the contests are lists there. You can win a copy

of the book. Why not? It takes you two seconds and you may get something for free. Why the heck not? Couponing, get free stuff. I mean, this is what we're talking about. Also, I really want to get to something importante. I am, of course, running my Millennial Money Meetup very soon, November 19th. And if you haven't grabbed your tickets, hopefully they're still available because I'm recording this a few weeks in advance. So if they're not available, sorry, but most likely there, I'm just going to let, let's be positive. Let's say they are.

So you can go to my homepage at jessicamorales.com or you can go to millennialmoneymeetup.com. And that is where you will find information about how to buy, get tickets, or just check me out on, you know, like Instagram or Twitter or Facebook or whatever. I I'm promoting it. So I'd like to see you there. And sorry, I should probably clarify. This is an event I'm doing in Toronto because that is where I live and it is easy for me to do events in the hometown of where I live. So, uh, hopefully I can see you there and that will, it'll be so fun. It'll be super fun. Okay, I'm going to leave us off by finally doing some podcast review. Shout outs because I looked and it's been like six months since I did that. I'm terrible. I'm a terrible human being. So I want to give some shout outs. I'm going to start

with CM Hannah. I love your program. I've been listening for six months is probably since the time I stopped doing show notes. Sorry. It's easy to understand lots of good information. I give you five stars have a face. Thank you so so much. Appreciate it. This one is from what's not name is 2353326. I hope that is not like an important number like a password. Hopefully not. It's just a random number. This podcast covers so many topics and questions about finance that you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask. Just listening for the past year has inspired me to make some drastic changes for a better financial future. That is music to my ears. Whenever someone says, oh my gosh, I listened to your show and I made some

really big changes in my life, that literally makes me want to cry from joy from joy not like just i and i don't cry like i don't cry and it makes it just like oh it just makes me feel so good um i've got another one from sleepy mouse 22 jessica so relatable and down to earth and she always manages to get interesting guests uh i'm always looking forward to each episode thanks Thanks. Oh, great. I'm so glad you've liked the guests. I mean, I like them, but you never know. Like, do you like them? So, okay. One last one and then I'll call it a day. This one is from Catherine T. Morrison. I love this podcast because Jessica is informative, super funny, always kind and gets great guests. It's also really nice to have a Canadian perspective. I think Jessica is

the millennial Gail Vaz-Oxlade and it's high time she gets a TV show. Oh girl, I'm going to take that as a compliment, but I've got some feels about Gail. All I'm saying is don't check her Twitter account. Like she, you know, you know, like, okay. Like it's, it's interesting is all I'm saying. Love her books though. And love Tildet do his part. But I am so pleased you said that because I would love a TV show. No, nothing's happening. But yeah, let's just put that in the universe, people. Let's put it out there. Let's put it out there.

Okay. Thanks so much for listening, y'all. I'm going to be back here next week with a fresh new episode. I hope you have subscribed or are following me or on my email list so you can find it when it is up. Until then, have a good rest of your week. This podcast is distributed by the Women in Media Podcast Network. Find out more at womeninmedia.network.