He could’ve reserved his extreme couponing skills for his struggling mom this holiday season, but Jordon Cox, 16, decided to also use his talent to make sure poor families have enough to eat.
This whiz of a saver –- who spent about 16 cents on his family’s to-the-nines Christmas dinner last year –- took his hobby to its most extreme level yet when he loaded up three carts of groceries for the hungry, the Telegraph reported.
Cox, who lives in Essex, started collecting coupons for this particular mission at the beginning of the month and then showed up at his local supermarket with 470 of them in hand.
When the cashier rang up his bill, it came to 572.16 pounds, or about $935. But once his savings were factored in, Cox just owed 4 pence, or about 0.07 cents.
He then decided to give it all over to Doorstep, a charity that disperses food to disadvantaged families.
"The Christmas shop was definitely the best experience of my life,” Cox told the Telegraph. “I feel so pleased that I could help so many people."
But what has become a passion -- and even a driving point for his career -- actually began as a means to simply make sure he and his mom could make ends meet.
After Cox’s parents got divorced last year, his mom, Debbie, was left to support her son on a meager salary, the Daily Mail reported. That’s when the teen started clipping coupons, and hunting down bargains to do his part to help.
"Before my mum and dad split up I didn’t have a care in the world for what I spent,” he told the Mail last year. “But now mum has to support both of us and it’s quite hard. I just want to help her any way I can and I found the best way to do that was through couponing.”
His knack for saving has made him something of a celebrity among committed couponers.
He was invited to address the American couponers at a conference in Orlando. Cox gives lectures at a local theater in Brentwood and he shares his best finds on Facebook and Twitter.
Cox is currently taking an entrepreneur course along with 11 other young budding business students at the Brentwood Innovation Centre.
He hopes to soon launch his own coupon-hunting website.
“I’m just trying to help people save a lot of money,” he told the BBC.
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