Does Anyone Shop Sales, Groupon, Coupon, etc. Regularly?

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If so, feel free to share cool deals.

My latest thing is looking into getting free advance movie screenings. Good to save $ and enjoy a film before a bazillion reviews and friends/family ruin them for you with spoilers.

I do Groupon when I see some nice 50%+ off restaurant deals. And, lastly, I coupon at Target.

Always open to learning about new deals.
 

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There is a classical problem related to this, maybe you like it in case you did not know it already.
(I learned about it first from Volume 1 of Feller's An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications. Look for "collector's problem" in the index.)

(@Demystifier, given your interest in this sort of problem, it is actually something you might enjoy. As you can see from the above reference, your fellow countryman strikes again.)
 
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Krylov said:
There is a classical problem related to this, maybe you like it in case you did not know it already.
(I learned about it first from Volume 1 of Feller's An Introduction to Probability Theory and its Applications. Look for "collector's problem" in the index.)
I don't see how that relates to the subject of the thread. Please explain.
 
russ_watters said:
I don't see how that relates to the subject of the thread. Please explain.
Since we are on a science forum, I thought it could be interesting to approach the problem of coupon collection mathematically. In particular, using the results on the collector's problem, one may compute in certain instances whether the decision to collect coupons has positive monetary expectation. (As can be seen from the link, this depends on the number of required coupons, the expected number of trials and the price per trial.)

If you don't care for that, then by all means, don't bother. It very much relates to the subject, though.
 
Krylov said:
Since we are on a science forum, I thought it could be interesting to approach the problem of coupon collection mathematically. In particular, using the results on the collector's problem, one may compute in certain instances whether the decision to collect coupons has positive monetary expectation. (As can be seen from the link, this depends on the number of required coupons, the expected number of trials and the price per trial.)

If you don't care for that, then by all means, don't bother. It very much relates to the subject, though.
Well that link refers to "collect and win" "coupon" contests, which sale coupons are not. Your probability of getting all available sale coupons from a particular source is 100%.
 
russ_watters said:
Well that refers to "collect and win" "coupon" contests, which sale coupons are not. Your probability of getting all available sale coupons from a particular source is 100%.
I did not get from the original post that the discussion was focusing specifically on sale coupons.
 
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Krylov said:
I did not get from the original post that the discussion was focusing specifically on sale coupons.
I see sale coupons referenced specifically twice in the title and four times in the post...and no mention of contests anywhere.
 
Getting us back on topic, any time I buy anything online I check with retailmenot. The website really has saved me a lot of money in the past. I also get involved in rewards programs for services I often use. Couponing has never worked well for me. It seems the products with coupons are products I don't want.
 
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I use ebates.com to earn cash back from some retailers, and like Greg, I'll often check retailmenot.com before placing an order online. In the past, fatwallet.com was a good place to learn of deals. I try to take advantage of deals my credit cards offer as well.

If you're looking for test screening for movies, check out gofobo.com.

You can buy discount movie tickets passes online at Costco.com and AAA and print them out at home.
 
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I assume
kyphysics said:
If so, feel free to share cool deals.

My latest thing is looking into getting free advance movie screenings. Good to save $ and enjoy a film before a bazillion reviews and friends/family ruin them for you with spoilers.

I do Groupon when I see some nice 50%+ off restaurant deals. And, lastly, I coupon at Target.

Always open to learning about new deals.

I assume you're familiar with extreme couponing ? I have seen people obtain 3-4 shopping cart full of merchandise for some $20 or so. I assume supermarkets are not happy to see them coming in.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=extreme+couponing&t=hb&ia=web
 
Evo said:
Here's the thread https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/extreme-couponing-kinda-sexah.542921/#post-3573121

The couponers are the scammers.

Some extreme couponers might be scammers, but some are legit. A girl from the show Extreme Couponing has a YouTube channel with her husband (His & Her Money) that I sometimes watch and they are devout Christians with very high ethics. She's talked of her experiences on the show Extreme Couponing and of how she shops nowadays.

Extreme couponing is a lot harder post-EC show, because stores, manufacturers, third parties, etc. got smart to what was going on. You can still do nice hauls, but you probably won't see people doing the crazy stuff on that show ($1,000+ of groceries/goods for like 10 cents after all the discounts and coupons are applied).