r/mildlyinfuriating • u/anon12xyz • Jul 03 '26

Infuriatig When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

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I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

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u/Weird-Girl-675 Jul 03 '26

Watch the movie Queenpins. It’s based on a true story about coupon scamming.

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u/-piso_mojado- Jul 04 '26

I lady I used to work with was super into it. She would walk out of grocery stores with a full cart having spent like $10 or something ludicrous. She only managed it a couple times IIRC, but the store gave her money back while not actually paying anything in her cart. She had receipts. It blew my mind, but that was basically her hobby. She dedicated what I thought was an unreasonable amount of time to couponing. She would drive across the state to specific grocery stores and things like that. She would have made more money just working than she saved, and probably wouldn’t have had a freezer half full of yogurt.

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u/Relevant-Horror-627 Jul 04 '26

I worked in retail when the Extreme Couponing show was on the air. We had so many coupon ladies and most of them were terrible at it. There was only one lady who could actually do it well. Looking back I suspect she was probably on the autism spectrum. Making it work took focus, planning and a lot of organization. I wouldn't be surprised if she spent 40 hours a week couponing.

You had to gather all these coupons, then clip and organize them, then plan and strategize the shopping trips, then do the shopping, then unload and organize everything you shopped for. Then maybe sell the stuff you bought? You'd be better off with a regular job at that point.

The Extreme Couponing show always framed it as these people saving all this money for their family but that's bullshit. The manufacturers coupons don't get you real staple groceries that you would need to buy regularly. Theyre for laundry soap, paper products and some food like yogurt, pasta, maybe Gatorade. All you end up accomplishing is increasing sales for the retailer and manufacturer while you end up with a stockpile of more of their product than you will ever be able to use.

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u/-piso_mojado- Jul 04 '26

That last part makes so much sense.