'Coupons seduce customers - especially the less well off.'

In the latest Email from America, Helen Angove, a British Anglican priest living in the United States, finds that in America, coupons are a way of life.

‘Give a man a fish: you have created a customer who knows where to come when he wants fish
Teach a man to fish: you have begun to erode the viability of your primary market.’

I realise that there is one great national pastime of the US that I have never yet covered in these articles - the activity of coupon clipping.

You may think, living in the UK, that you already know about coupons. You’ve hardly scratched the surface. Here, it’s a way of life.

Coupons are everywhere - newspapers, websites, supermarket receipts. I confess, though, that I’m not organised enough to take full advantage of the money saving possibilities they offer.

Either I’ve left the coupon at home, or I get to the checkout and discover that the expiry date has passed.

Sport

But another British expatriate friend of mine has fully embraced this national sport, with spectacular results. For example - she clips a coupon for $1 off a particular brand of toothbrush. Moreover, the pharmacy she goes to then runs an advert saying that if she buys this toothbrush ($2.99) she can claim a full rebate by mail.

She buys the toothbrush using the coupon, but then sends off for the rebate at full retail price. Even taking tax and postage into account she’s effectively been paid 50c for buying a toothbrush.

Another friend has a husband who is a compulsive clipper. Every weekend he goes through the newspapers with a pair of scissors, and regularly halves their grocery bill. To do this, though, requires rigorous clipping discipline - coupons must be filed, expiry dates highlighted, and one must never, ever leave the house without one’s coupon stash.

There are even internet message boards and public coupon swap boxes to help you maximise your returns.

Coupons seduce customers - especially the less well off - into trying a new product by holding out the illusory hope of saving money. Especially effective at this time of year when everyone is on the lookout for Christmas bargains!

But the truth is, of course, that unless you are more than usually disciplined, you end up paying more in the long term because prices have to go up in order to pay for the coupons and the special offers. Perhaps it is no coincidence that my favourite supermarket here is one that keeps its prices low by not offering sales or coupons.

False promise

Unfortunately, the false promise held out by coupons and discounts effectively discourages people from making any kind of more creative effort to save or make money. There is no incentive for anyone to “teach a man to fish” when his vision is filled by an advert for half-price frozen popcorn shrimp.

A friend of mine, an international aid worker, has described the depressing experience of visiting parts of Africa which have suffered lasting damage from poor decisions made by some of the less professional aid agencies in the ‘80’s.

Whole communities have been reduced to grovelling dependence because they were allowed to become reliant on free handouts. Neither my friend nor I would argue that there is not a time or a place for emergency relief - but it surely must be done in the context of helping a community to develop a long term strategy for its own independent survival?

My fear is - marketing tactics like coupons, by appearing to offer something for nothing - could they be responsible for inculcating something of the same mind-set in the populations of our own countries?

• Read other Emails from America