COLUMBIA, S.C. (WLTX) - Frances Rodgers spends hours searching for ways to slash prices at the grocery store. On average she'll save about $700 each month.
"Every girl is a diva, so I'm the Coupon Diva," she said. "My grandmother started me couponing when I was a little girl. When she walked in the grocery store everyone was (saying), 'Hey. How you doing? (Are) you shopping today."
Not much has changed. As Rogers strolled through the Kroger on Killian Road she was stopped by employees who have become friendly faces.
"Good morning! My favorite manager. Hey love! How are you?" she said.
Rogers saves money, donates what she doesn't need to organizations and teaches others how to do the same. When we caught up with her she was doing a mini haul and grabbing the essentials.
"We have three more items to get with those matching coupons," she said. "I guess it's an adrenaline rush because you watch these numbers go up, up and up and then you get them to slowly take it off your cards and then whatever was on sale, that comes off with the sale price and then you hand them the coupon and when you hand them the coupon, you see it go down (and) your heart stops beating so fast."
Rogers cut her bill by 52 percent.
"We cut that in half, so before we finished with everything I saved 52 percent on my total today," she said. "Another day, another coupon extravaganza. We did pretty good."
At one point Rogers said she was $20,000 in debt, but after two years of saving strategies including her coupon extravaganzas she canceled it all out.
"It makes me feel really good to be debt free, so it makes me feel even better when I can go in and save 50 percent. Otherwise I would have paid over $112 for this little bit of groceries, but when you go in with coupons and you are able to save and you can see right there on your receipt that you saved 52 percent, you saved 60 percent or whatever you save, it makes you feel extremely happy and extremely blessed that you have the knowledge to know how to do that and go from there," she said.
Rogers often updates her Facebook page with receipts and tips on how you can save using coupons.