Embarrassed by couponing? Why what people think shouldn't matter

Couponing shouldn't be something you are embarrassed about. Couponing isn't just for those with small budgets or a big family, it makes smart money sense to get the most from your hard earned cash. 

Even coupons themselves play on the embarrassment factor of using coupons to scare you into not using the coupon illegally, usually its worded something like 

"please do not attempt to redeem this coupon against the purchase of any other product, as refusal may cause embarrassment and delay at the checkout."

 So if manufacturers want more people to buy their products by giving out coupons, why are they trying to scare you off using coupons altogether? Even the most experienced couponers get nervous at the checkout, as we are made to feel like by using coupons we are doing something wrong or illegal when we're only trying to save a bit of money, and coupon use is becoming more widespread every day.

Another fear of using coupons to build a stockpile of lower priced goods is what people will think of you. An online commenter called Wylah on this site addresses some fears from a non-couponers perspective but also fails to notice couponers generally know where to draw the line. 

My sister is an extreme couponer, but she’s also an extreme hoarder (in denial of course). She hoards pets (around 30-40 cats and dogs currently), food (three deep freezers, a large pantry, and the walls are lined with several bookshelves crammed with food), electronics (she has a couple rooms in her house lined with about 100 old computers, not to mention more stockpiles of electronic parts and broken gadgets, plus she has to have a new phone, tablet, GPS, or other device every two months), children’s toys (she does have kids, but to dedicate an entire room to be filled floor to ceiling with old broken baby toys seems excessive – plus they’re covered in cat pee), software (she can’t stop buying more updates, templates, skins, and other senseless crap to use with her 3D rendering programs which she uses to make pictures of aliens and space ships.I’ve gone with her on trips to the grocery store, and many of them ended with her stomping, huffing, and yelling at the cashier, supervisor, and manager about not accepting one of her coupons. She also BUYS the coupons online, pays for shipping, ends up with coupons for items she doesn’t need and doesn’t normally buy, but buys the items anyway because of the coupon. Sometimes she rushes out to buy these unneeded items when the coupons are about to expire, from the nearest store (a publix) that has these items at double the price they would cost at walmart, and overspends on an unnecessary item just because the coupon was there. Buying coupons online is a part of her online shopping addiction, and feeds into her hoarding habits.I’ve never met an extreme couponer who wasn’t like my sister, so my judgment is that these women are housewives or lonely crones who live in a world so small and isolated that they think they can fill this void in their lives with hordes of crap. Some are probably open enough to snap out of it if someone cares enough, but some, like my sister, are blindly stubborn about it, so what can you do? They just don’t realize how stupid they look. On the contrary, they think everyone ELSE looks stupid compared to them.

But why should we let the thoughts of others influence our actions? Does their opinion really matter that much to us? When the fear of being judged by others or what they will think stops me from doing something, I purposely make myself do that because if I want to do it then I'm going to do it, especially if it means I have more money to spend on the things I enjoy. I will never stop couponing and I will never let what other people think stop me from doing what I want to do. Put perfectly by a Ms Cyrus "It's my life I can do what I want to".

What are your thoughts on this? Let me know in the comments.