Yesterday, I talked about buying newspapers because of the coupons. Today, I want to take the other side of the argument because coupons can sometimes backfire! I received two email offers today from Borders and Golfsmith and using either of them will not save me money! Sometimes I feel like people think they are making money by using discount coupons while the reality is that they are just using less money with it.

Let’s take a look at the coupons I received through email more closely.

Ahh. Great coupon for 20% off one item from borders.com! People however might not realize that Amazon.com might sell the same item at more than 20% off the price borders.com sells it at.

This is an interesting coupon from Golf Smith because the offer is very tempting! Let’s talk about this for a second because if the email did not pop up in my inbox, I wouldn’t be tempted to buy anything. The coupon is valid for items over $50, meaning that I might end up spending $50 that I did not plan for. 24 hours ago, this $50 was still very safe in my bank collecting interest.

Golf equipment is definitely something I have a hard time stopping myself from “wanting” to buy. What type of things do you have a hard time controlling yourself to purchase? How do you control it and how often? If there is a nicotine patch for shoppers, we want to know about it!

—
I’m giving away a free copy of Microsoft Money 2007 Deluxe! Click here for more details. Good luck!