A number of years ago I took a couponing workshop to learn how to save a lot of money on everything from groceries to clothing to furniture. I would not say that my couponing habit was ‘extreme’ like some showcased on the TLC hit series, but I did have a pretty good stockpile of dried goods, paper products, and junk food at one point. Some women I met through the workshop even had regular coupon swaps to exchange the coupons they didn’t need or want, like baby food and diaper coupons, and others used couponing to help buy items for food banks and shelters.
I ultimately gave up the couponing habit after having a kid largely because I didn’t have hours of time to find and organize coupons from newspaper inserts and websites, like Southern Savers. However, I continued to take advantage of the fuel reward points through the grocery store up until the time we sold our last gas powered car in October 2020.
Now, every time my cashier points out that I have a gazillion fuel points rewards, I make a comment that I can’t use them because I only drive electric cars. I’m hoping those cashiers are passing this feedback to the managers so that they can evolve their fuel points programs, like reducing the price of my groceries (which would be awesome!), as fewer and fewer customers are motivated by that reward. While it may be awhile before that trend has a big impact, there are signs that interest is growing. Nearly 3% of all U.S. new vehicle sales in December 2020 were EVs, according to IHS Markit – the largest share of EVs to date.
On a recent Saturday grocery run, after telling my cashier I couldn’t use the points, he made the comment that I could share them with others. It instantly transported me back to the coupon swaps and couponing for charity, and made me wonder if there is a way I can share or donate these points to organizations still using gas-powered vehicles, such as Meals on Wheels.
This is just a small example of how an EV transition will have a direct impact on many different facets of our lives, but if done correctly, could have a positive impact on our communities.
EV Love 
Great post, Erika! I used to use coupons, then stopped because they seemed to skew toward junk food (which I don’t need an incentive to eat more of) rather than things like fresh broccoli and oranges (which I like, but they take more effort to eat — where is my incentive to buy and eat more of those?). As you point out, we need for our coupon lives, like the other parts of our lives, to reflect the transition away from gas-powered cars over to EV’s. In a future comment I’ll tell you about the new EV that Thor and I got yesterday!
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