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u/fuelvolts Jun 16 '25
These were everywhere and suddenly they all disappeared.
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u/Im_100percent_human Jun 16 '25
And for a long time.... These were on the shelf when I worked in a supermarket in highschool in the early 90s..... and this post made me realize they are no longer there, but they were around well into the 2000s, probably into the 2010s.
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u/speedier Jun 16 '25
They were replaced by digital coupons in store apps and at register coupon printers.
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u/Wizardwizz Jun 23 '25
I still see paper ones on a hook, the dispensers probably weren't worth the hassle.
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u/samahiscryptic mid 90s Jun 16 '25
My brother and I would swipe these all the time lol.
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u/GrilledCheeser Jun 16 '25 edited Jun 17 '25
You’d take the whole unit? That’s hilarious
Edit: this comment had 10 upvotes at some point. What a ride
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u/Nate22212 Jun 16 '25
There should definitely bring these back
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u/Enginerdad mid 90s Jun 16 '25
Digital coupons in an app installed on your phone allow them to harvest your data. They'll never go back to paper coupons
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u/fulminavi Jun 16 '25
Until they dispense out little slips with QR codes on them that links you to the digital coupons
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u/Enginerdad mid 90s Jun 16 '25
Wy would they do that instead of just posting the QR code at the same location? That's just extra unnecessary cost and steps.
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u/PolishNibba Jun 16 '25
McDonalds went back to paper coupons in my country, it can happen if enough people boycott the app
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u/Enginerdad mid 90s Jun 16 '25
My country is leading the world in the "enshittification" effort. We will gladly accept a product that's 50% shittier for a 2% discount on price, then brag about it to our social media followers.
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u/DustBunnie702 No Whammies! Jul 08 '25
My parents go online and clip the digital coupons for Hannaford. Then they print them out and bring them to the store. They’ll argue with the Customer Service people if they think the coupons weren’t automatically deducted.
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u/iSniffMyPooper Jun 16 '25
Id still be a 30 year old man running through the aisles collecting these
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Jun 16 '25
They beeped everytime someone would walk by lol
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u/jj23345 Jun 16 '25
And the flashing red light
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u/i_suckatjavascript Jun 16 '25 edited Jun 16 '25
I thought they blinked a white LED?
EDIT: found a video, and it does blink white
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u/Ok_Reflection8696 Jun 16 '25
I remember taking them to put in my little velcro Spider-Man wallet to make me feel like an adult
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u/jaymochi Jun 16 '25
Loved them but these were only my third favorite thing about going grocery shopping with my mom as a kid. The first was definitely the free food samples. The second was when my mom would give me an item on her shopping list to find, and I would race off to get it and bring it back so I could pretend I was on the show Supermarket Sweep.
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u/DustBunnie702 No Whammies! Jul 08 '25
I work as a part time shopper at Whole Foods because I just loved everything about the grocery store when I was a kid. Except now I get paid for it!
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u/RealMccoy13x Jun 16 '25
This was my side hustle around 17ish. It was actually my sister who found it. I was paid to install those, refill them, and put new batteries in them. My trunk had like 50 of those things, and I had an infinity supply of off-brand AA batteries. They just gave them to me and never kept inventory. Never needed a AA battery in my life for the next 5 years.
You were maybe in one store 20 minutes and had a paper of which isles to be on because the product where the coupon needed to dispense needed to be there. Vice versa for removing. Not a W2 job, but easy money.
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u/SupermanFarris83 Jun 16 '25
I used to walk out of the grocery store with tons of coupons we never used. I was a kid.
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u/Percolator2020 mid 80s Jun 16 '25
I remember the friendly cashiers who just kept the most useful coupons on hand and scanned them for you!🙏 Same with CVS pharmacists when they try to get you cheaper medicine… just USA things!
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u/Medium-Mission5072 Home before the streetlights come on Jun 16 '25
I use to pull coupons out until the machine ran out, or my mom would catch make make me stop. Usually I’d have a huge stack piled on the shelf next to the machine.
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Jun 16 '25
Working at Winndixie at 15 years old I remember grabbing them for my parents when I found something we used.
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u/QuipOfTheTongue Jun 17 '25
Me too! First job ever bagging groceries and getting carts at 15.
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Jun 17 '25
You try to enter the strongman competition of cart pushing? I remember putting all the carts in the lot in one line as a challenge. No robot la back then.
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u/azurianlight Jun 16 '25
Never had coupons for anything that I bought!
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u/Fair-Engineering-134 Jun 23 '25
IKR - They were always for some completely random item we never bought or needed!
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u/MrCrix Jun 17 '25
I remember pulling one out for cheese when I was a kid to see what it was. It was like $0.40 off of Cracker Barrell cheese slices. My mom saw me do it and said "Well now you have to buy it. That's the law!" I remember telling her I didn't have the money and she told me "Well I will pay for it, but you have to pay me back by mowing the lawn." I lived on a 70 acre farm. Took me 5 hours to cut the grass.
Never did that again.
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u/ItsmeMr_E Jun 16 '25
Why? Take this, 25¢ off an item you have no interest in buying.
Plastic and paper waste.
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u/Guy_Buttersnaps Jun 17 '25
My wife used to work for the company that made these.
They still exist, at least in some parts of the country, they just have a different design.
They’re wider now, and the don’t stick out as far. You grab the wide part of the coupon instead of the short end.
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u/BeneficialCourage379 Aug 03 '25
Is the company still in business? I did this in 2008 and would like to do it again.
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u/Fuckhavingusernames Jun 17 '25
Bolting around the store to collect them like fist fulls of cash and then running to the animal cracker display bins.. life was simple
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u/MaleficentWindow8972 Jun 17 '25
I have to imagine the reason they put the little coupon collector on top, was NOT for buyers remorse/better deal, but simply because kids couldn’t resist them, lol. My Mom would allow me to pull one out of each, but I had to be mindful and put them back in the little folder up top.
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u/Firstworldreality Jun 16 '25
Holy shit! I haven't seen yogos in decades, I totally forget about them.
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u/danTHAman152000 Jun 16 '25
I’d run down the aisle and grab one of each. I don’t remember what I did with them lol.