Coupon confessions: Are you a peelie pincher?

The one type of coupon I almost never mention on Spend Less, Shop More is the elusive 'peelie' coupon -- you know, those coupons that randomly pop up affixed to items in the grocery store, then disappear within a matter of hours.


The reason I rarely mention peelies as a savings techinque is that they're a) impossible to predict, and b) kind of  really controversial, depending on how you use them.  


In fact, I'm nervous just writing about peelie coupons, because they elicit such strong reactions in people!



Some couponers really, strongly, in their heart of hearts believe that taking peelies off items in the store is akin to stealing or coupon fraud -- like this lady.  Other couponers clearly don't feel that way, since I fairly often find rubber residue on bottles and cans, which means a coupon used to be on there but has since magically disappeared!


Well, I'm making a confession today -- I pinch peelies.  Sometimes.  Here's why.


A brief history of peelie coupons


First off, a little background on how peelie coupons are distributed:  some stores receive rolls of peelie coupons from manufacturers, who want to use them as in-store advertising for their product.  


Other stores have merchandisers who visit the store, then walk the aisles putting the peelies on appropriate items.  Either way, it's a coupon that's meant to encourage instant purchasing in the store you find the peelie in, which is why you don't see the same peelies in Target that you do in Walmart.


What the coupon isn't usually meant to do is to limit the shopper to that exact same item the peelie is on -- which means you can use it on other sizes and varieties of a product, assuming the coupon fine print lets you do that.  


(There are some peelies that are more limited and require coupon removal by the cashier in order to be valid.  Those are usually store-level coupons on marked-down products like meat that's near its sell-by date -- not what I'm discussing here.)


So if I find a peelie on an item that makes a better deal on a different size or variety, I'll snag the peelie, and use it to purchase the better buy.


Peelies bring in higher sales for stores


Here's an example: last week I was at my local Target store, and I found peelie coupons good for 70 cents off any size of Q-tips, excluding trial sizes.  Q-tips weren't on my shopping list, but this was a high-value peelie -- typically we see $1 off 2 coupons, or even sometimes coupons as low as 30 cents off one package.


The peelies were on a super-jumbo box of Q-tips that would have cost me several dollars, even after the coupon.  However, my Target also had in stock 170-count boxes of Q-tips, priced at $1.69 each.


99 cents is my stock-up price for generic Q-tips, so I was super excited to find this deal on the name brands.  So I took two peelie coupons off the big boxes, and used them on the smaller boxes.


I didn't swipe ALL the peelie coupons -- cause I'm not a shelf-clearer -- and I didn't hoard the peelies to be used at a different store somewhere down the line.  And I'm not selling the coupons on eBay.


I used the peelie the way it was intended -- to make an unplanned purchase in the store that was providing the coupons.  I just used it on a different unplanned purchase than whoever walked the aisle with the roll of coupons thought of.


I think there are several legitimate ways of looking at this issue, and I get that some readers might be pretty upset about my viewpoint.  It's frustrating to feel like other shoppers are actively preventing you from getting good deals.


There's a reason the peelie coupon thread at Hot Coupon World spans an amazing 25 pages -- people feel really strongly about this issue!


But I like best what one commenter said on that thread:  "This is the peelie law:  Do what feels right for you, and don't enforce your 'law' on anyone else."


Don't do what you can rationalize away.

Don't get mad because other people come to a different conclusion.

Do what feels right.


Your turn


What's your policy on using peelie and/or hangtag coupons?  Do you use them only on the product they're on, or apply them towards other items instead?  How many peelie coupons would you feel comfortable taking?   Share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section below.

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