HUMBOLDT—No one was more surprised than Stacy Wright that the money-stretching practice she started less than a year ago would lead to a TV show appearance, teaching classes and speaking invitations.
Due to undisclosed reasons, Wright found herself unemployed three years ago, struggling to make ends meet and keep food on the table for her family of five.
“I never wanted my children to go to bed hungry,” she said referring to Calan, 8, Kaden, 4, and Brittany, 3.
She turned to community food banks for help and in order to stretch every dollar looked to using coupons.
“I started studying coupons, what they meant, how they read and the history of them,” she said. “I studied them for two years before I started using them in May of 2011. In a month’s time I had enough laundry soap and bath and body items to keep my family for three months.”
She dug deeper and discovered the secret to cash back, earning enough to buy her children some of their favorite snacks, which wasn’t possible before. In just a few months, putting into practice what she learned, she moved from a broken-hearted mom to a couponing success.
“I had a stockpile that would last my family of five for more than two years,” she said. “After getting over $300 in groceries that cost me nothing and receiving $48 cash back, I was no longer feeling helpless and needing to use food banks to get through the month.”
Wright believes that when a person gets, they should give and when they learn, they should teach. She’s put the two principals to practice. When a friend’s family needed some items she had in her stockpile, “I was so happy to be poor and yet be able to help another family.”
In October, Wright created a dress out of coupons for a Halloween party, which caught the eye of a television show producer. “I was adding some people I call my ‘coupon family’ to my Facebook page and at that time the producer asked to be added. Unknowingly, I added him and it wasn’t long until I received an e-mail asking me to do a show,” she said.
It was only about two weeks until she was sent to Florida to start filming, but not before she investigated the invitation to determine if the person was truly a producer and represented a real show. In compliance with her contract, she cannot reveal many details about the show, but can say it will be a couponing competition and will air sometime this year on the OWN network.
In the meantime, she was approached about teaching others how to coupon successfully and a class was formed, but she didn’t want to charge a fee for the information. She remembered how grateful she was for the food banks and decided attendees should bring food to donate when they attended the class.
“There were over 90 people at the class,” she said, “and a truckload of food donated.”
Because she wants to give back and teach others what she has learned, she is offering two additional “coupon learning food drive” classes on Feb. 11 at the Iola Public Library. Anyone wanting to attend should contact the library. Once again non-perishable food items will be collected to be donated to various food pantries.
Classes will explain how and where to get coupons, what they mean and how to organize them.
“I’ll cover the ins and outs of couponing and cash back offers right here in Southeast Kansas,” Wright said.
