LEAN GREEN FAMILY: 5 Ways We're Getting More Bang for Our Buck

by Leah Ingram

Frugality is here to stay. According to a recent consumer survey conducted by Valpak, the company that sends out those blue envelopes filled with coupon offers, consumers expect their hard-earned money to stretch farther than ever before.

Using coupons of all shapes and sizes – print, digital and mobile – this new generation of “cautiously optimistic” consumers have embraced couponing and thriftiness, and have no intention of giving up their value-seeking ways. (I’d said this exact thing in the proposal for my book Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier and Healthier for Less.) Bottom line: today’s consumer expects the most bang for her buck, and here are five ways she’s getting that:

Consumers use coupons more than ever before.
- 66% say they search more for coupons and discounts than previous years.
Travel tops the list of categories consumers plan to spend their money on in the next six months – by a wide margin.
- 65% plan to make purchases on travel or vacation (including international and domestic travel and cruises)
- Additional top categories:
  - 24% on auto (new or used auto purchases)
  - 24% on interior home improvement (including: flooring, kitchen/bath renovations)
  - 22% on exterior home improvement (including: patio/deck, windows, roofing, siding, painting)
  - 22% on home entertainment technology (including: plasma televisions, HDTV, satellite TV)
New shopping habits will remain unchanged, even after economic recovery.
- 75% say searching for coupons and discounts will remain routine after the recession.
- 70% say searching for coupons and discounts is a routine practice for me, despite the recovering economy.
Americans expect more for their money.
- 79% planned to spend about the same or less this summer versus last summer; evidence that consumers continue to do more with their money.
Couponing has not only gone digital – it’s going mobile, too.
- 77% say they have used the Internet to access coupon savings in the past 6 months, up from 62% in 2009.
  - 91% have redeemed an Internet coupon, compared to only 65 percent just two years ago.
- 250% increase in those who have redeemed a mobile coupon via their cell phone.
  - 7% of all respondents have used a mobile coupon to make a purchase, up from 2% in 2009.

I know that I fit the profile of this survey pretty close to the mark–except for the mobile couponing part. That’s simply because I’m too cheap to upgrade to a Smartphone, which would require me to get a more expensive data plan from Verizon Wireless, my cell phone carrier. But I’m thinking that after my current phone dies–a hand-me-down from my teenage daughter, if you can believe that–I might have to bite the bullet and go for that Smartphone after all.

Most mothers teach their kids to cook and clean. Leah Ingram’s mother taught her to compost. These days she’s passing along this green message to her own daughters as they all try to live a green and frugal lifestyle as The Lean Green Family. She’s the author of “Suddenly Frugal:How to Live Happier and Healthier for Less.” Visit her blog, Suddenly Frugal.