Saving with Spenderella

Ashley Dougherty, AKA Spenderella, has long had a nose for deals, crediting her mother and grandmother with instilling her love for coupons. 

The Navy spouse first began doling out money-saving advice in 2011 while living in Hawaii. She became known as Hawaii’s “Coupon Queen” after her family moved to Oahu from San Diego and she was unable to find a job as a building design drafter. Hawaii’s high cost of living forced her to find new ways to save money.

Dougherty, 35, now shares her money-saving tips on her blogs, The Spenderella and Military Spouse Living. 

The blogs reflect couponing’s shift from paper to app-driven deals. 

On The Spenderella, she blogs about online shopping and free shipping deals, smartphone apps, travel discounts and military spouse-made products.

In her first experience with a blog, Hawaii Shopaholics, Dougherty’s blog became one-stop shopping for couponing tips and local restaurant and shopping deals. Dougherty also began offering couponing classes and organizing coupon and grocery swaps.

Soon, Dougherty wasn’t only saving money, she was making money too. In its heyday, Hawaii Shopaholics was attracting 16,000 visits a day, a level of website traffic that began generating a steady income that increased to more than $40,000 a year after Dougherty’s book Couponing in Hawaii was published. Dougherty was as surprised as anyone by her success. 

Dougherty, whose family now is stationed in Augusta, Georgia, recently rebranded her blog to The Spenderella when her family left Hawaii, but the decision also reflected couponing’s shift from paper to app-driven deals. 

She hopes to continue her success, reaching an even larger market of both military and non-military deal-seekers with both The Spenderella and Military Spouse Living. “[The Spenderella is] a place where you can come and learn how to save money from the comfort of your home,” she says. “It’s shopping made easy.”