June ‘Coupon Queen’: The Atlanta Interview
Tuesday afternoon we sat down with June ‘The Coupon Queen’, AKA Alana Thompson (Honey Boo Boo Child‘s) mom from the hit show ‘Toddlers & Tiaras‘ on TLC…
June shared several of her extreme couponing tips, including how to buy bulk coupons on eBay, what to do with expired coupons, and the best newspapers and stores for couponing in Georgia.
How did you get into couponing?
June: My mom’s been couponing for years and said you can save money, but I never did like the thing. There were a couple of pageant moms that was on the pageant scene doing the couponing and posting pictures on facebook. So I said OK I’ll give it a try.
So I bought a couple of papers that weekend, did my first transaction and I was hooked. It’s all about catching sales and looking at your sales papers. I know for Atlanta the best paper to get is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday. They may be a little bit more but it has some of the best coupons.
eBay is another good place if you’re looking for bulk coupons. You get them on there for like two or three dollars, it’s not bad. And there’s other clipping services, that’s pretty much what I use.
I haven’t been couponing in like a month, and as you can tell my couponing stockpile looks really sick. You wouldn’t think that because there’s like hundreds of products in here, but to me, my toilet paper’s like normally up to the wall and it’s not.
I’m actually going to go do some stuff today to stock it back up, because it looks sick. I’ve really missed couponing the past month because it’s something that I thoroughly enjoy doing, but you know I’ve been doing adventures with Alana.
How does buying coupons online work?
June: What you do is you go on eBay and type in what you’re looking for and it will pop up. Whenever you find the best deal or whatever you PayPal the money and then they send it out to you.
And if they’re from your area, a lot of times you’ll like meet up. Because there’s a lot of people online on eBay that sell out of Atlanta. Like the Woodstock, Marietta, Atlanta area.
What are some of the best stores in Georgia for couponing?
June: Dollar General, Kroger, Publix you can use a manufacturer’s coupon and a store coupon on top of one another. The same thing at Dollar General – a store coupon and a manufacturer’s coupon so it’s like stacking. CVS and Walgreens is the same way.
What we call stacking is you put a store coupon on top of a manufacturer’s coupon, so you max your deal out.
How do you choose which products to go after?
June: It’s really what deals are going on for that time. As you can see, if I can find the main staples – because there’s not a lot of food coupons – if I can find the staples that we need, then I can save on the other things.
What do you do with stuff that you don’t need?
Alana: We like help the community with it.
June: We help people who have been burned out, we take it to the school, they’ll call me if they like go to a house or whatever, the Sheriff’s office. It’s all about giving back.
Alana: We give it to the school, we give it to the Sheriff’s department, because we help. We help some stuff.
June: We do a lot of outreach programs besides coupons. We help at Christmas time with the kids here in Wilkinson County. We’ve actually got a fundraiser coming up in April. I know it’s a little early for Christmas, but we’ve got a couple of fundraisers coming up in April. It’s all about giving back.
Alana: It’s my birthday in April!
June: It’s not your birthday in April, your birthday’s in August.
It’s kind of a hard skill to coupon.
June: I actually taught myself. It’s not hard, I promise you. I’m almost blind, and for me to be able to coupon, it don’t take too much.
So it’s a skill that you have that you use to help others.
June: A skill, yeah. I like helping other people.
You have to be good with numbers and math though.
June: I mean it ain’t bad, sometimes I don’t make a list – most of the times I do – but sometimes I just wing it and whatever happens happens.
How much do you think you’ve saved overall?
June: I’ve been doing this since June, and I’ve probably saved close to $10,000.00, if not more.
Alana: Boom!
June: Because each of these things right here are $2, these are like $4, and they’re absolutely free. The laundry detergent…
Alana: No they’re not. Coupons don’t make it free.
What are your top 3 couponing tips?
Alana: I know!
June: Watch your sales, watch your ads, Walmart now price matches, and get the max out of your coupons and do whatever for your family. This right here provides for my family. If I don’t coupon ever again, this stash would probably last about six or seven months.
If coupons have expired, is there any way to get around that?
June: Actually it is a good thing if they have expired, you can send them to Coups for Troops. Send them overseas and they’re able to use them for like up to six months at the commissary.
You cannot do that here that I know of in the state of Georgia, but I do know that you can send them overseas and at the commissary they can use them up to six months. And a lot of people do that.
What’s the difference between this and that show Hoarders?
June: I’m an organized hoarder!
So you would say that you’re a hoarder?
June: No.
Alana: If you go on Facebook and look at the picture in there that it was all over the floor, this couponing mess – you will see she’s a hoarder.
June: People say she’s a hoarder, I would prefer them to say hey she’s an organizer. Because it is very organized, it’s all together. It’s all in the same category.
Alana: No it’s not! Look at this! Look at this Brawny! It is supposed to be in there!
June: You’re goofy.
Alana: You don’t know how to organize! Your daddy – your boyfriend has to do it.
June: OK boyfriend do it – your daddy.
Anything else you want to say about couponing?
Alana: I do! Because look at this Brawny! It’s supposed to be in there, and you don’t know how to separate, so your boyfriend has to do it
Alana do you help organize or clip coupons?
Alana: Yeah, but most of the time you don’t let me!
June: Yeah, I’ve gotten very anal when it comes to couponing and my stockpile. I can know when something’s out of place or when they’ve come and gotten something. You can’t get nothing and me not know it.
Alana: Yes you can!
- To learn more about Alana ‘Honey Boo Boo Child’, join her official Facebook fan page.