Meet The 31-year-old Who Saves Up Tp $8,000 A Year Clipping Coupons

How a small habit inspired by a reality show transformed one family’s finances.

- Sergei Klebnikov

IN 2009, KATIE HERNANDEZ had just graduated from college in the middle of a recession. Like many other millennials she was broke and looking for a way to pay back thousands in student loans. Today she’s a debt-free mother of one with a successful online business.

Her secret to success might sound surprising for a person her age. Hernandez, 31, says she saves hundreds of dollars a month by taking an extreme approach to a money-saving tip generally favored by the analog generations before her: clipping coupons.

Initially, she and Ernest, her future husband, were looking to trim their spending. It soon became a personal calling. “I thought if I could save even 30%, that would give us some breathing room,” she says. “It turned everything around in our finances.”

While Hernandez’s approach may seem unique, she’s hardly alone. As coupons have migrated from the Sunday newspaper to store websites and mobile apps, millennials have followed.

On average today, more than half of millennials search for coupons on the Internet before shopping, according to a recent report by Coupon Follow, a coupon code website. Another survey, from nonprofit research firm PRRI, indicates that as of 2016, 48% of millennials used online coupons— that’s even more than 39% for Gen Xers and 32% for baby boomers.

Of course, saving money is never an easy feat. Hernandez—who blogs about couponing on her website, Kouponing With Katie—spends three hours a day running her business and scouring for deals. She spends another 90 minutes each week doing her own personal couponing. In other words, couponing is work. But the good news is that with even a fraction of Hernandez’s effort, you can still reap savings.

THE 90% THEORY