Its that time of the week where I sit down and reflect on the week that has just passed! Well this week nothing exciting has happened, just the normal of going to work, tidying the garden up and going food shopping!
Now there is something I love more than anything is grabbing a bargain, but using my coupons makes it more fun, especially when something is all ready on sale then you just added a £1 of coupon and bang, something that would normal coast £12, goes down to £4.50! This week for instance I saved over £40, so I am one happy person. But I an't the only one who is doing it...............
'We bought a trolley full of hair removal sachets we DON'T need': Extreme lengths teenage voucher vulture went to for discounts... And now he reveals his secrets
- Jordan Cox , 16, saves mother Debbie hundreds of pounds on shopping
- Teenager started 'couponing' to help out when parents divorced
- His biggest success is being PAID to buy hair removal cream
How many ways are there for our children to leave us red-faced in the supermarket queue? You might assume that, as the mother of a 16-year-old boy, Debbie Cox is over the worst of it.
Jordon no longer tries to climb onto the conveyer belt at the checkout, rarely has tantrums when he isn’t allowed Smarties — and it has been a while since he tried to use the plastic grocery divider as a light-sabre.
But that doesn’t mean she can go skipping serenely around Sainsbury’s on their regular shopping jaunts together.
‘Going shopping with Jordon can be quite embarrassing,’ she admits. ‘There have been days where I’ve gone beetroot-red. Once he bought a trolley full of hair removal sachets because they were such a bargain. Obviously I was standing beside him and was mortified as the girl on the till scanned each one. She never said a word, but it went on for ages. I stood there, wanting to die, thinking: “She must think I am a gorilla.” ’
Voucher vulture: Jordan has bought more than £100 of shopping for less than £2 using vouchers
Jordon Cox is, of course, the teenager who was this week branded the Coupon Kid because of his talent for spotting a bargain.
He hit the headlines when it was revealed he had bagged £105.88-worth of groceries for just £1.62, after some spectacular juggling of money-off coupons.
While he declares himself an expert in what is being called ‘extreme couponing’, it seems his mother is becoming well practised in ‘extreme embarrassment’.
The hair removal moment is a perfect example: no one in the family needed hair removal cream; Jordon has barely started shaving and his mother doesn’t use it, but that didn’t stop him filling their trolley with as much Nair as he could nab.
‘Ah, but it was one of my biggest successes,’ he explains. ‘The sachets were on offer so only cost 80p. But my coupons were for £1 off. This meant that for every one I bought, the supermarket actually owed me 20p. They were paying me to take them away. That’s called “overage” in couponing, and it is what you aim for.
‘If you’re lucky, the store will let you exchange the overage for other goods, so you go away with a load of free shopping. I got a lot of fruit that day, effectively for nothing.’
As hilarious as their shopping expeditions sound, there is a bittersweet story behind Jordon’s precocious thriftiness: it was prompted when his parents’ marriage broke up a year ago and for a while for it looked like the household income would drop from £80,000 to £8,000 overnight.
‘In the end, it didn’t actually happen,’ says Debbie, who works as an administration assistant. ‘His dad does still contribute, but obviously at first I was worried. Shielding Jordon from all that wasn’t really an option — he has always been older and wiser than his years. He could see me worrying about how we would manage.’
‘He watched the American programme Extreme Couponing, where contestants vie to make the biggest savings. He was hooked.’
Hobby: Jordan says he would continue to use coupons even if he was rich as he enjoys 'beating the system'
Proud: Jordan's mother Debbie says it can be 'quite embarrassing' at the checkouts but it is more than worth it
Hooked indeed. The spare bedroom of the family’s Essex semi has been commandeered as a storage facility for all Jordon’s bargains. Hence the washing powder and cleaning products stacked high.
That mountain of hair removal sachets is here, too, not to mention toothbrushes as far as the eye can see. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever need to buy another toothbrush,’ he says.
Such is his fame, getting an audience with Jordon is something of a feat. He is in the middle of a radio interview when we arrive, and has been on TV twice this week alone.
Now he is hopping about with excitement over an email asking him if he would be interested in having his own TV show. Debbie looks as if she might faint.
First, though, there is the small matter of his GCSEs. He has his first exam next week. He hasn’t yet decided what career he’d like to follow, but has thought in the past about acting or journalism.
Was being a TV presenter and money-saving expert on the list? ‘No, but it is now,’ he grins.
So who is this little kid with a nose for big bargains? First of all he’s not so little.
Jordon is 6ft 4in tall, built like a whippet and bears an uncanny resemblance to Ricky Gervais’s comedy co-writer Stephen Merchant. He has Stephen’s dry wit, too.
Suffice to say that, even before you get onto the granny-ish hobby of roaming supermarket aisles looking for bargains, he’s not like your average 16-year-old.
‘I’m a bit of a geek,’ he confesses, perfectly cheerily. ‘I’m not really into normal teenage stuff — I prefer things like amateur dramatics. Some people my age have a problem with that, but I don’t.’
Not your average teenager: Jordan, a self-confessed 'bit of a geek', has been bullied but says he doesn't mind
In short, he’s the sort of lanky, bespectacled kid who can have a rough time in the playground.
‘I have been bullied,’ he admits. ‘There has been some name-calling, but I let it wash over me. I’m happy with what I’m doing.’
Unsurprisingly, he isn’t the sort of teenager who insists on a certain brand of trainers, or has to have the most expensive phone.
‘It’s actually the opposite. I would feel sick if I had to pay that sort of money for anything,’ he says.
When it comes to couponing, however, compared to the Americans, Jordon ranks himself as an amateur.
‘There are mega savings to be had there — they do double couponing where the face value of any coupon under 50 cents is doubled at the till, which ups the stakes. But as soon as I saw that TV programme, I thought: “It must be possible to do something similar here.” And I started to look into it.’
This is where being a computer-savvy teenager proved to be a distinct advantage.
Since the recession hit, there has been an explosion in money-saving advisory websites, such as MoneySaving Expert run by Jordon’s idol, Martin Lewis.
At first, Jordon started getting involved with the family finances by getting his mum to switch energy suppliers. But soon it was the weekly supermarket shop that became the focus of his attention.
‘Before that, I’d just shopped in the normal way — being a bit vigilant, but basically putting whatever we fancied in the trolley,’ she says. ‘But Jordon started to produce these coupons. The more he got, the more savings we could make. It got to the point where he was on the computer every night printing out more.’
Haul: Jordan and his mother Debbie bought more than £100 of goods for just £1.62
Hold up: Quite a queue can develop at that checkout behind Jordan when he gets out his coupon folder
So began his education in the art of couponing.
Some money-off vouchers came from specialist sites. Others were acquired by writing to manufacturers praising a product.
‘That works surprisingly well. You just write and say, “I do love your mustard”, or whatever, and chances are you will get a coupon off the next pot. Or even a free pot, if you are lucky.’
Last Christmas — their first alone — could have been a miserable affair for Debbie and Jordon.
‘We’d always had a full house in previous years, but last year it was just the two of us, with dinner on our knees,’ she says.
TIPS YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO MISS
- Research, research and research. You may be cock-a-hoop at getting £1 off Pantene shampoo at Tesco, but is it even cheaper (say on special offer) at Sainsbury’s?
- Be careful with branded products, even heavily-discounted ones. Sometimes a supermarket own brand is still cheaper. Online comparison sites such as mysupermarket.co.uk are useful.
- Voucher websites such as supersavvyme.co.uk can also help. You can print off vouchers (usually up to 30 a month). The savoo.co.uk site lists voucher codes for online shopping. And Jordon swears by freestuff.co.uk for vouchers and freebies.
- If you see a free supermarket magazine, don’t pick up one, help yourself to about ten. Even if the coupons inside say only one per transaction, you can use one every week for the two months it is valid.
- Email or write to manufacturers. They love feedback whether it is good or bad, and Jordon reckons about seven out of ten times you get a coupon from them.
- If you have a good/high value coupon, wait until the product has a separate money-off offer to maximise your saving.
- Do not impulse buy. And don’t buy anything you don’t need, unless is it so cheap you are effectively being paid to take it away. It’s not a bargain if you don’t need it.
- Make a point of knowing the terms and conditions attached to every voucher. You may need to argue at the checkout, so go prepared.
- If you have a wallet-full of coupons to use at once, make sure to visit the supermarket at a quiet time. Otherwise be prepared for some irate customers behind you.
Yet Jordon was determined to make it special, in a way only Jordon could. He managed to do the entire Christmas grocery shop for — wait for it — 10p.
‘That wasn’t just with vouchers,’ he admits. ‘It was with loyalty points we had built up. But I proved you could have a good Christmas without spending what people usually spend.’
There were also presents galore for his Mum — mostly jewellery, which she adored.
She says: ‘After I’d opened them all he said: “Mum, I have a confession to make — all of this together didn’t cost me more than about 30p.” I told him it didn’t matter a bit what it cost. It was the effort he’d put in that mattered.’
Debbie fills up a couple of times during our interview, her pride in her only child palpable.
‘He’s a good boy,’ she says. ‘He’s kind and considerate and genuinely helpful. I would have been lost without him.’
He is horrified at how other people shop. ‘The other day a woman in front of me was spending £150 and I thought: “How is that even possible?”'
When I tell him that, ahem, it’s not unknown for me to spend £150, or even more, on a big supermarket shop — in Sainsbury’s last week my bill soared scarily towards the £200 mark (albeit because I was seduced by some lampshades and a paddling pool) — he looks at me as if I have three heads.
Jordon is clearly not a guy who has ever impulse-bought a paddling pool.
‘I’d expect to get the whole shop for that much,’ he says.
When he goes shopping, it is with military planning. He admits that he has been known to do spreadsheets before tackling Tesco.
He has a special plastic folder with all his discount vouchers in and he cross-references items online.
‘I’ll never just use a voucher when I get it. I wait for the items to be reduced in a sale or promotion, too. That’s where the real key is.’
And he does know his stuff. In his company, you do rather feel like an out-of-touch politician who doesn’t know the price of milk.
He goes all misty-eyed at the memory of one particularly fragrant deal where he and his mum got a packet of 33 Bold Washing Machine Liquitabs for £3.30.
That’s, erm, quite cheap? I venture (actually, I haven’t a clue. I do look at prices on the shelf while I’m shopping, but I don’t carry them round in my head for eternity).
‘It’s unheard of,’ he sighs, wistfully. ‘I don’t think we will see the like of it again.’
He’s right. Checking the Tesco website later, I find a pack of 33 Bold Liquitabs costs £11.
So why aren’t we all doing ‘extreme couponing’? The simple answer is it takes too much effort, says Jordon.
Yet he’s the first to concede that it isn’t just about saving money. ‘I’m pretty sure I’d do it even if I was rich. It’s a hobby, a way of life, an obsession. It’s about beating the system and feeling you have won.’
His mother, meanwhile, insists any embarrassment felt at the checkout is more than worth it.
‘I do often pity the people standing behind us as Jordon gets his folder out,’ she says. ‘But we are going on holiday to Rome next month on the money we’ve saved and that wouldn’t have been possible without him.’
And there is a certain security to be had in her son’s extreme thriftiness. She strokes her arm. ‘If I ever do get an excessive hair problem, I’ll be sorted, won’t I?’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2322786/Teenage-voucher-vulture-reveals-saved-1-shopping-80p-sachet-bought.html#ixzz2SyxZ8U4I
