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Good
shoppers use coupons to save money. Extreme couponers have something a
bit more in mind whenever they scour their Sunday circulars: they want
stuff for free. That's right: Free, as in zilch, zip and zero dollar.
With a bit of knowledge and a lot of planning, the practitioner of "extreme couponing" can get a lot of stuff for free (or practically free). Billy Baker of The Boston Globe has the fascinating story of the couponing craze:
Spencer’s approach requires significant planning and effort, a willingness to stand up to hostile cashiers, and, some say, a lack of shame. But the reward she offers is too good for her thousands of devotees to pass up.
The goal is not simply a good deal, she says. “The goal is free.’’
On that seminal Sunday last month, a combination of factors collided to bring an entirely new pack of extreme couponers to the scene at once, unable to resist that first taste of “free.’’ After the Great Toilet Paper Rush, nothing would be the same.
“It was the day that sent a seismic wave through coupondom,’’ said Melanie Feehan, a veteran extreme couponer who arrived at a Rite Aid near her home in Plymouth shortly after it opened, only to discover the toilet paper had been cleared from the shelves by a man who bragged to a clerk that he had already emptied three other Rite Aids that morning.
“When a newbie couponer is birthed they are very much like baby vampires,’’ Feehan wrote on her popular blog, The Coupon Goddess. “They go on a couponing rampage that wreaks havoc at every store they descend upon . . . Carnage.’’
(image credit: Flickr user sharkbait)
This is an interesting concept – just for February, the Little Bay Restaurant in London is letting diners eat their meal and then pay whatever they think that meal was worth… including nothing (excluding alcoholic beverages). I think it’s probably not a bad idea in theory – I’m definitely willing to pony up for a wonderful meal. But the problem lies in maybe not realizing how much a meal is actually worth. If I had duck salad, which is one of the items on the menu, I would have no idea what the going price for duck meat is, so I could potentially be totally stiffing the restaurant without intending to. At any rate, it’s definitely getting the restaurant some free publicity… which is probably the point.
Many of you have heard the phrase “Knowledge is Power,” but what about
“Knowledge is Philanthropy?” At freerice.com, your intellect and breadth of vocabulary allow you just that, the opportunity to give.
By simply playing word games, freerice.com gives you have the ability to donate an unlimited amount of rice grains to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP.) The process is simple. For every correct answer you submit 20 grains of rice is donated, for every 5 correct answers 100 grains are donated, and so on and so forth. No risk, just reward.
From the Upcoming 
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