Huntington County coupon enthusiast Kayla Norman stands next to the stockpile of grocery items she’s acquired at little or no cost. Photo by Lauren Wilson.

Originally published Jan. 26, 2012.

Have you ever been inspired by a television show to do something that changed your life?

Kayla Norman has.

Once a regular shopper who paid full price at the checkout, Norman is now an "extreme couponer" who buys only items that are on sale - and sometimes even makes money on her purchases.

It all started after she saw the reality television show "Extreme Couponing" on TLC.

About a year ago, Norman watched the show and saw the results of shopping with coupons. She was so intrigued by the idea, she decided to take a stab at saving some of her own money and building her own stockpile of goods.

Today, she has a stockpile of more than $2,000 worth of products, which she estimates paying roughly $400 for.
By extreme couponing, Norman's savings equate to almost 80 percent off the face value of the products.

During a time when prices continue to rise to record highs, saving such a big chunk of money is a notable accomplishment.

So, how exactly does she do it?

Norman says she taught herself how to "manipulate" the coupons in a structured way, allowing for maximum savings.

She started slow, and she says it took much "trial and error" to learn the best way to use the coupons.

In the beginning, she remembers spending more than 40 hours a week finding the best deals and shopping to build her stockpile.

The stockpile is one goal of an extreme couponer, she says. Many coupon savings come from purchasing items in mass quantities. Once the shopper has purchased many items in bulk in order to (literally) pay pennies for each item, or even see a cash return on the purchases, the couponer builds her own stock of each item, until it really isn't necessary to shop anymore.

But the stockpile isn't the only goal, Norman points out.

"I do it to save money," she says. "And then the money I save is put towards something else."

Now that Norman has her stockpile built (she estimates she could live off the products she has stored for more than two years) she doesn't have to spend as much time cutting coupons and shopping for deals.

Today, she spends roughly two or three hours each week couponing, and she says that includes her shopping time.

Another way extreme couponing benefits Norman is her less-frequent shopping trips.

"I don't have to shop anymore, unless I need to get fresh food," says Norman.

But reaching that point is far from easy.

"It takes a lot of critical thinking to put the coupons together and make everything as cheap as possible," says Norman.

On top of all that, "Coupon rules are always changing," says Norman.

She notes that while some stores make rules more strict, others adapt to accommodate coupons and make their rules more lenient.

Because these rules are much different in Huntington than they are in other areas, Norman says what she does is much different than what viewers see on the reality television show, "Extreme Couponing."

Norman says she mostly gets her coupons out of the Sunday paper, and others are given to her by family members who don't use coupons.

Most of the time, she says she doesn't use any Internet resources to collect coupons, although she would recommend some couponing websites to anyone learning how to use them.

Norman is a good source for those who want to learn, too, and she offers classes to anyone interested in learning how to save money.

She has a Facebook page called, "Couponing: Getting More - Spending Less."

Although learning how to save was, "a long frustrating process," Norman says, "It was worth it. Now, I try not to buy anything unless it is on sale."