A coupon a day means you can put the scissors away

By Olivia Barker, USA TODAY

Wendy Nelson's "gateway into a bad habit," as she puts it, sounds innocent enough: a Stanley three-in-one LED flashlight bundled with two keychain flashlights ? $24.95 for the whole shebang ? that she scooped up as a birthday present for her husband two years ago off Woot, the housewares-heavy daily deal site.

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  TLC

  Stocking up: Twins Tarin, left, and Tai Perry learned their frugal ways, which were featured on TLC's 'Extreme Couponing,' from their mother. But now, in lieu of clipping coupons every Sunday, they have to sort through 20 to 30 deals a day in their e-mail inboxes.

TLC

Stocking up: Twins Tarin, left, and Tai Perry learned their frugal ways, which were featured on TLC's 'Extreme Couponing,' from their mother. But now, in lieu of clipping coupons every Sunday, they have to sort through 20 to 30 deals a day in their e-mail inboxes.

But then, "the angels sang and the heavens opened," and Nelson, a preschool teacher from Duluth, Ga., branched out to coupon sites such as LivingSocial, joining the millions who scour hundreds of such places in search of everything from pizzas to pedicures at 50% to 90% off. Her haul among the close to 100 deals she has amassed so far includes $4 movie tickets, three cases of Martha Stewart sample paint ($4 a case, plus free shipping) and helicopter flying lessons for one of her sons ($159 for two vs. $189 each).

Coming up is a facial and massage as a treat for her wedding anniversary. But these days ? when an ad for daily-deal titan Groupon teases, "All your savvy friends are paying half" ? "do you really need an excuse (to splurge)?" asks Nelson, 57. "It might be Flag Day."

The coupon is cool, having shed its stigma thanks to the rise of sites including Groupon, LivingSocial, Thrillist and Lifebooker, which lure bargain hunters with often achingly cheeky ads (In search of an off-price gynecology exam? "Look out below!"). Also helping is the popularity of the TLC show Extreme Couponing, which wraps its first season June 15.

Twentysomethings use them, as do relatively wealthy people ? and guys. iPhones are checked first thing in the morning for the day's discounts. Romances are kindled over daily-deal restaurant dates, often at pricey places couples couldn't otherwise afford. Vacations and honeymoons are planned around boutique hotels and unique activities dug up from daily-deal sites. Christmas lists get ticked off thanks to clicking, not clipping.

And with no flipping or snipping required, the modern coupon is relatively hassle- and pain-free: Instead of subjecting themselves to ink-stained and paper-cut fingers, today's discount devotees merely need to flash an image of their purchased deal from their Droid X.

"No matter how much money you make, you always love a great deal," says Doug Clinton, a research analyst who tracks the daily-deal industry for Piper Jaffray, an investment bank. "There's not a stigma attached to pulling out a Groupon vs. pulling out a coupon you clipped from the newspaper. That makes you look totally out of touch."

Student mind-set lingers

Newlywed Manhattanites Rachel and Jeff Behm regularly turn to daily deals for date nights, such as the BYOB painting class they scored last September through LivingSocial ($22 each, down from $45). "It was really fun, something totally different that we wouldn't do normally," says Rachel Behm, 28, who, along with her husband, is a recent New York University MBA graduate. Six of the inns and spas they're checking into during their 10-week camping-and-hotels honeymoon were booked through LivingSocial Escapes, the company's travel arm.

Even though the couple are about to embark on careers in marketing and brand management, Jeff Behm, 28, can't imagine they'll stop their deal-seeking student ways. "Maybe it's our Midwestern roots or sense of value," he says.

Clinton has another idea: Daily-deal shopping is "just kind of the normal now. It's the new every day." As another Groupon ad asks: "Why are you still paying full price?" The site's 83.1 million first-quarter subscribers, up from 3.4 million a year earlier, sure aren't.

LivingSocial's 28 million members ? up from 120,000 in January 2010 ? are "very desirable," says the company's communications director, Maire Griffin: 51% are younger than 35, 50% are college graduates (28% have grad school on their r�sum�s), 30% are men, and 38% boast household incomes of $100,000-plus ? more than any other income category .

The 2 million users of 8coupons, which aggregates offers from 300 daily-deal sites, consist of "single (60% to 65%), mainly urban dwellers with a lot of disposable income looking for stuff to do," says CEO Landy Ung. The average age is 18 to 40. The average income is $65,000 to $100,000. And there are 8coupon kings as well as queens: 35% of users are male.

"It's just a new generation of how to be thrifty," says Jason Servary, 27, a technology consultant from Baltimore who has spent $3,000 to $5,000 in more than 50 digital deals this past year (average discount: 50%), including an upcoming spin in a race car in West Virginia (a $370 value for about $150).

Justifying a discretionary purchase with a coupon "takes away the guilt of using luxury things," says Stephanie Nelson (no relation to Wendy Nelson), who runs the 10-year-old CouponMom site, which started promoting daily deals from Groupon and LivingSocial in December, when member interest shot up. "It takes away the guilt of spoiling yourself. And maybe that's what (daily-deal sites are) tapping into here at the end of the recession."

Role models on TV

Three years ago, CouponMom had 180,000 members; now it has 4 million. "The recession got people to think more about being smart about their money," Nelson says. "More people are using coupons, even if their economic situation has improved over the past couple of years."

Nelson is convinced that what's also driving the droves to her site is the (relatively) extreme success of Extreme Couponing, which has averaged 1.9 million viewers per episode (most TLC shows average about half that) and was just renewed for a second season that will premiere this fall.

"We're really thrilled with how it's done," says network general manager Amy Winter. Even if the effect of the recession on households is easing, "everyone is coming out of this a little wiser than they were going in, and it's just incredible to watch people who have learned from it and are benefiting from what was a downturn in the economy."

Winter calls the toothpaste-and-tuna stockpilers the show profiles "models. I think they're inspirational. ? Previous to this show, people might have looked at a coupon here and a coupon there as an extra buck saved, but to see some people come at it so systemically to make a big impact, I think that has changed the perception."

Among the show's audience, there's "rabid interest in getting tips" from the stars via their blogs, websites and Facebook pages, Winter says.

No matter that some viewers thought that one of them, Tarin Perry, was crazy for buying a wall's worth of diapers ($2.50 for a package of 32 to 35) before she was even pregnant. Because she and her husband plan to have kids this year, "we're stocking up. I buy before I need it," explains Perry, 31, a Chicago banker whose 24-year-old couponing skills (she got her start under her mom's tutelage with two-hour Sunday clipping sessions after church) were featured in the show, along with those of her twin sister, Tai.

Not surprisingly, the Perrys were early adopters of the Groupon phenomenon. Soon, discount bowling outings and a handy $13 subscription to the coupon-crammed Sunday Chicago Tribune led to an inundated inbox. With 20 to 30 deals a day, "it was too much," Tai Perry says. "It was annoying to the point where I didn't want to see another deal." So they set up separate e-mail addresses strictly for daily-deal sites, because they will "bombard you."

Read the fine print

Indeed, Clinton sees the future of deals expanding beyond the inbox, to, say, Facebook's newsfeed or Google's search results page. (Both companies have announced plans to enter the daily-deal fray.) "It's starting to get a little crowded," he says.

The Perrys' guru in the world of traditional couponing, mom Gayle, also has been seduced by the daily-deal juggernaut. But as with many recent converts, the fine print ? like expiration dates ? has eluded her. In December at church, the master bill-slasher dangled five downtown trolley ride tickets from Groupon ($5 vs. about $30 for a 90-minute tour) in front of her daughters. The catch? They had to be used the next day, a Monday.

"I'm like, 'There's no way,'" recalls Tarin Perry, who (gently) scolded, "Mom, you waited till the last minute! You cannot buy these like this all the time!" Gayle Perry's retort? "But the price was just right!"

The tickets went unused. "That will never happen again," Tarin Perry insists. "Now we're showing her how to do it because, obviously, couponing has changed."

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