Editor’s Note: In light of the economic recession, Daily Illini reporter Andrew Maloney began keeping track of his purchases with and without coupons. With the help of some experts, here’s what he found.

Whether it’s on TV or newspaper stands, in home offices or the Oval Office, the status of U.S. and global markets has dominated the nation’s conscience for the last several months.

The issue has hit home too, and while administrators at the University are looking for ways to cut expenditures, students are likely keeping a sharper eye on their personal budget situations as well.

This begs the question: how can college students – a demographic already known for their lack of exorbitance – continue to make the most of their finances in the face of a recession?

Enter the coupon, a scrap of paper that manages to promote saving money and spending it at the same time. I’ve been charged with finding out just how viable a cash-saver they can be, so I’ve kept track of some of my recent purchases and consulted individuals who may have some answers.

One such question-answerer is Tiffany White, a professor of business who said using coupons is one way people are trying to “recession-proof” their lives.

“I think that there are lots more people using coupons and just finding small little subtle ways to feel better about their fiscal responsibility,” White said. “Certainly the circumstances now are such that you would be irresponsible to ignore or flat-out dismiss something like that.”

Vivika Vergara, spokeswoman for Walgreens, indicated that shoppers there are definitely not dismissing coupons.

“I know we’ve seen a lot of people taking advantage of cost-cutting measures like coupons, and our rebate program is also doing extremely well,” she said. “In general, consumers are more conscious about saving whenever they can.”

A traditional place to obtain some coupons other than the Sunday newspaper is save reviews coupons site which may be well-worth its weight in manufacturer and retailer coupons. Some of the advertisements feature name-brand products like Prairie Farms ice cream and Lysol kitchen cleaner, while others like Mrs. T’s Pierogies and Ban antiperspirant might be a bit more, uh, esoteric.

Regardless of the brand, and regardless of the large number available, a popular stipulation is that the consumer can only use one coupon per product when there might actually be multiple coupons available. And as White noted, consumers have to be smart enough to realize that they shouldn’t purchase something just because they have a coupon for it.

“For every consumer that’s been lured into a store under the guise that they’re going to save a lot of money, a lot of times what that means is that they sort of make up for it in volume,” White said. “Coupons aren’t necessarily in the consumer’s best interest if they take those discounts and buy more than they normally would’ve purchased or more than they need.”

Sorry, White Castle microwaveable mini-burgers. Maybe I’ll need you next time.

Additionally, sifting through each advertisement and determining which coupons to cut might not exactly be convenient. Time is another resource college students are often short on, but while I’d normally use this space to say that people don’t just hand you things, that’s actually sometimes the case with coupons.

At restaurants in Campustown, I used booklets of coupons that numerous others probably also received (and then immediately threw away) at various locations to save some cash. A $6 Mega bacon cheeseburger at Murphy’s Pub was $3. My second $2.50 slice of Antonio’s pepperoni pizza was free, and the booklets also contained coupons with deals at Legend’s, Howbowda Bagel, Zorba’s and others.

But booklets aren’t the only place to get coupons either. The Internet is one means that local restaurants are using to offer students discounted prices, said Dan Glazer, junior in LAS, former Illini Media employee and co-founder of EatCU.com.

“If students don’t know exactly what they want to eat, they can browse around and look at the coupons we have going, and usually they’re pretty exclusive coupons to EatCU,” Glazer said. “That’s one of our things – to help out the students because we know what it’s like to have no money and be poor college students as well.”

Glazer added that he thought Fat Sandwich, Geovanti’s, Papa John’s, and DP Dough were some of the restaurants in the area that gave pretty good deals consistently.

“DP Dough has a really successful market, just doing the calzones. And Geovanti’s has something like a $5 pizza exclusively with us right now,” he said. “They also have online ordering. Those are the ones we definitely have the best relationships with, the ones that do online ordering.”

After my own shopping trip, the coupons I’d spent time cutting and stashing actually only netted me a total of $7.47 in savings. Most of the eight coupons available for items I needed were for $1 or lower. However, during the week I was able to cut two of my restaurant bills almost in half and get some free cheese sticks with restaurant coupons.

And there are still other ways to be thrifty besides using coupons. Part of the reason the meal tabs were cheap was because I drank water instead of another beverage. Also, when I needed to buy trash bags, the off-brand was still $2 cheaper than the name brand with a $1 coupon.

So there are other, perhaps more subtle ways to save money.

But if the economy is at least partially driven by consumer spending, what kind of implications does excessive saving have for business? White said in the long-run, smarter purchasing might be beneficial, but if smarter buying becomes not buying at all, on a larger scale, it won’t help.

“If people are simply stopping the purchase of the things that are the bread and potatoes of this economy – like cars – that’s not a good thing,” White said. “The consumers need sellers to offer goods that they need at good prices. Sellers also need to cut consumers a break because if you don’t give consumers any reason to buy, at minimum, they’re going to try to go to the competition, but worst case, they’re not going to buy at all, and that’s not going to benefit anybody.”