Driving a gray Honda minivan with “thecoupongirlz.com” sprawled across the side in bright pink letters, extreme couponer and Columbia resident Michelle Waggoner makes a statement from the moment she arrives at Patricia’s Foods, located on North Keene Street.

Filling her shopping cart with multiple bottles of Pepsi and cans of SpaghettiOs and Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup, Waggoner pulls out a wad of coupons from a pink binder, matching each one to the proper item.

As Waggoner proceeds through the checkout line, a manager is called when the register does not ring one of her coupons correctly.

“I always make things difficult,” Michelle Waggoner said, laughing. “If I don’t get a manager called up at least once, I’m not doing something right. I always try to look at it positively though. I am saving money.”

After a lengthy checkout, Patricia’s Foods cashier Tatyana Stalter reads Waggoner’s final receipt.

“Wow, your original bill was over $100,” Stalter said. “Your final total is $38.73.”

**Where it all started**

Four years ago, Michelle and Cory Waggoner decided Michelle should stay at home with their two children, now ages four and seven.

“Going from two salaries to one was a shell-shock moment,” Michelle Waggoner said. “I felt the need to try to find a way to save money.”

Inspiration struck her when she saw a television show about saving money by couponing.

“I did the research, and through trial and error, I figured out how to do it,” Michelle Waggoner said. “Once I started, I was unstoppable.”

Since beginning to coupon, Michelle Waggoner has saved $10,000 in hopes of building her dream house one day. She has also brought her monthly grocery budget from $800 to $200.

“Our coupons are way more important than my salary (is) for buying groceries,” Cory Waggoner said. “We would be out without a paddle if not for Michelle.”

In 2009, Michelle Waggoner launched her blog, www.thecoupongirlz.com, to help others learn how to save money through coupons and in-store sales.

“My mom would brag to friends about how much I was saving,” Michelle Waggoner said. “I decided to start a website to help working parents figure out how to save money.”

Michelle Waggoner dedicates about 30 hours a week to couponing and maintaining her website. She sifts through 20 to 30 newspapers every Sunday, organizing them into two binders that weigh about 14 pounds apiece.

“The more organized you are, the more time and money you save,” Michelle Waggoner said. “If I go into a store with a organized and neat binder, I can easily find clearance items, match them up with coupons and get them for free.”

Local Hy-Vee cashier and MU freshman Richard Waltman said he foresees extreme couponing similar to Michelle Waggoner’s methods becoming more popular in the future.

“It’s all about saving money, especially with rising food costs,” Waltman said. “It’s also become like a game, even fashionable. Now it’s a part of pop culture.”

**To the extreme**

Michelle Waggoner’s immense savings did not go unnoticed, and earlier this year she received a phone call from television network TLC, asking her to participate in the Oct. 5 episode of “Extreme Couponing.”

“When I first learned I’d be on the show, I was so excited,” Michelle Waggoner said. “I never dreamed of being able to show all these people what I can do. It was nice to go kick butt and save money.”

For two weeks prior to filming, Michelle Waggoner tediously checked sales at her local stores, matched sale items with her existing coupons and scouted out deals.

“I didn’t sleep for a couple of days,” Michelle Waggoner said.

Michelle Waggoner chose to film her segment in Patricia’s Foods. She said it is the best place to shop with coupons.

“We had a lot of fun with the TLC show,” said Patricia’s Foods Assistant Manager Dave Crowe, who was featured on the episode. “We have had a lot of new faces in here as a result and a lot of people asking questions about couponing.”

Cory Waggoner refers to Patricia’s Foods as the “holy grail” of stores for couponing because they do not place a limit on the amount of coupons a shopper can use, nor do they impose a limit on how many coupons they will double. The store also will match any ad from other stores within a 50-mile radius.

“We love extreme couponers,” Crowe said. “We feel like we are all in this together. They save more and we get more business out of it.”

When the day of filming came, Michelle Waggoner said she was nervous but ready to shop.

“I don’t like stress, and I just knew I would be one of those people to go onto the show and have no problems,” Waggoner said. “It didn’t exactly turn out that way.”

Waggoner’s goal for the TLC shopping trip was to buy a month’s worth of groceries for under $10. Bringing with her almost 4,000 coupons, Waggoner filled three shopping carts full of groceries. After four hours of shopping, she checked out in three separate transactions. The first transaction was more than $5.

“When my first transaction was over half of my $10 goal, I was freaking out,” Waggoner said. “I didn’t want to go way over. I didn’t want to be a failure.”

Crowe announced after Michelle had finished checking out for over $20 that the register had rung up the tax incorrectly. Waggoner had actually bought $857.79 worth of groceries for only $4.84, a 99.4 percent savings.

“When Dave announced that I spent under $10, I could have passed out right there,” Waggoner said. “I can’t even go to McDonalds and get a couple of burgers with that amount of money.”

**Giving back**

In the beginning of the year, Michelle and Cory Waggoner decided to start hosting classes in which they educate local people on shopping with coupons.

“The thing about couponing is that it’s addicting,” Michelle Waggoner said. “Once you figure out you can save, you can’t stop. I want to get others involved.”

Every few weeks, the couple hosts a “Coupon Crash Course,” in which Cory Waggoner presents couponing tips and Michelle answers questions.

Teresa Babb and Jessica Rosenkrans, a mother and daughter from Columbia, were two of 67 people who attended the course last Tuesday night at Pizza Hut on Clark Lane.

“We saw Michelle on TLC and discovered this class after we looked her up,” Rosenkrans said at the meeting. “When I moved away from home it was more expensive to buy things and couponing helps. It was nice to have some questions answered tonight.”

Giving back to the community through couponing was an idea stressed by the Waggoners on Tuesday night.

“We want to be able to help others,” Michelle Waggoner said. “Military families can use coupons for up to 6 months after they are expired, so we can send expired coupons to overseas families instead of just throwing them away.”

Cory Waggoner emphasized the importance of maintaining a stockpile, or buying items in bulk and storing them. The Waggoners use their guest bedroom to hold over 1,700 items, such as canned food and protein bars.

“We can’t afford to give money to organizations, but we can give from our stockpile,” Cory Waggoner said. “We gave almost $1,000 worth of groceries to Joplin after the tornado.”

The schedule for future Coupon Crash Courses can be found at www.thecoupongirlz.com.