Like many of you, I love to coupon. I can not go anywhere without at least checking my digital coupons to see what offers are available. I love to save money and get quality items for less. When I first started out I would go shopping every day. I had my coupon book ready to go with all my clipped selections. It was excited and I was eager to catch free to cheap items. I studied the deal sites hard, made notes on what I was supposed to buy, and loaded up my digitals all before getting to the store. While it was fun back then, its kind of become a chore now. If your love of couponing has hit a wall, learn about couponing burnout and how to avoid it.
What is Burnout?
Burnout means exhaustion. It relates to sometimes physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion related to stress. While it is hard to think couponing brings on this type of feeling, it does. For me, it wasn’t until I moved further away from the store. A few years ago, I could easily write out my deals, gather my coupons, and hit the store in a few minutes, day or night. That All changed when I moved to a new city. Now I’m 15 minutes from the store. I have a hard time planning or justifying driving that far out of my way to chase a deal. As far as my morning coupon runs, that seems impossible. Right now, I can barely wake up early enough to shop and get to work on time. The whole ordeal of having to plan couponing trips has become inconvenient. It has also left me overwhelmed and drained.
How To Avoid Couponing Burnout
While burnout can cause the thing you love to become a nightmare activity, it’s not the end of the road. Burnout can be easily turned around with a few simple steps. You can start by setting realistic couponing goals for yourself. You probably do not need to go to the store daily. Instead, try once a week or twice a month. You can try only digital deals or Ibotta deals. Either way, Curate the deals you want the most in that time frame by planning ahead. Set a few minutes of your day to properly plan.
What I Do
For me, I take about 30 minutes a day to pick out a few deals I would like to do. If they require physical coupons, I use a clipping service. A clipping service can save you time by pre-clipping only the coupons you want from the circulars. That means no more sitting around for hours meticulously cutting and organizing every coupon in the paper. If you get tired of couponing, do not be afraid to take a step back.
Couponing burnout can turn the activity you love into a pain. Don’t let that overwhelming feeling take over, instead employ simple strategies to avoid burnout altogether. For more information on coupon burnout, check out the posted video.
