How come people are starving if you can buy food with so little money?

[deleted]

I know this is an old post, but I thought I would add my 2 cents in.
1. Not all of the foods people want/need have coupons
2. Not all stores in all areas accept coupons
3. Unlike they show on the TV, I don't believe there are quite as many shows that double the coupons. I've heard that some of the stores that doubled coupons for this show do not normally double coupons for customers.
4. As stated by another poster, people aren't always able to get the coupons. They come in newspapers, advertisements, recycled paper centers, trash cans, etc.
5. I would say that most stores limit the number of items on which you can use a coupon. Many coupons say "Only one coupon per customer". So you can't just get a bunch of duplicates and buy a bunch of the same product.

Where I live there are no recycling centers, the local newspaper doesn't have coupons (and even if it does, it is very expensive), stores do not double coupons, sales tax is 10% (I believe it is 4 to 6% on some food items), and many stores have limits on how many items you can get with a coupon or on how many coupons you can use.

Also, prices are consistently going up and they are actually putting less food in the cans/boxes. Walmart used to sell these popcorn chicken things with dome tops and filled them to the rim. Now they have flatter tops and don't even fill them up to the top but charge 50cents more for the same product. You just can't get as much bang for your buck.

For people who are working or looking for work, they might not have time to go and look for coupons. And sometimes people go to get the items with their coupons and someone has beaten them to it.

Hi - to answer some of your questions

1 - it is important to know that for the most part - the supermarkets are not losing money on the coupons. It is usually the product manufacturer that makes the coupon. they supermarket also gets 4 cents to "process" the coupon (including mailing the coupon to a processing centre). So if a person uses 1000 coupons, the store gets 40.00 dollars just to accept and mail the coupons back.

In the case for "coupon doubling", this is when the store absorbs the cost of the coupon.

2 - As another poster said, many of these people either buy the coupons, or they get them through expensive means, such as a newspaper or printing on a computer (if someone is homeless, it is hard for them to get a newspaper delivered or get internet service on a computer!). I also think some of these people get such a large volume of coupons through nefarious means. You should only get 1 insert of coupons, these people have like 100. Some of them are so cheap, so I do not think they buy 100 papers. I think they steal the inserts or get them through some dishonest way.

3 - These are "extreme" examples. Some of these are once in a lifetime shopping trips. They may have taken weeks of planning to get the maximum discount.





Canada for President 2012!

Most coupons are ploys made by companies so you will buy their brand. There are few coupons for fresh produce.

There are also many people who don't have cars. There are also neighborhoods that don't have grocery stores so people have to take a bus or 2 buses to get to a grocery store.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.