What is the value in being offended, like, ever? Surely if you could genuinely acheive your goals by leveraging coupon books, wouldn't that be worth considering? And, if after consideration, you Vickie it's not a viable substitute to a raise, you'll have an understanding of why it won't work beyond "well it offended me". Assuming that the math work or such that using coupons would result in the same outcome from the perspective of your bank statement, the most likely reasons I can think of are either status (you don't get any from using coupons, but you do for having a higher salary), or the externalities if putting a coupon book habit into place and the overhead of actually using them.

Of course the problem in the article was really one of communication. If the only problem to be solved was "keeping up with inflation" then coupon books could be a solution... once, until inflation continues and overcomes the buying power provided by the coupons. However it's a communication problem because the problem isn't "keep up with inflation", it's "maintain a consistent quality of life despite inflation". The latter would have meant the overhead of the coupons was a non starter unless they actually increased QoL beyond merely overcoming the impact of inflation on my back statement, which, they don't.

It's a bit of a ramble as I've written it here, but this is the approach I find valuable (not saying you should do the same, only that I find it works well for me), and I would never take the time to do this kind of thinking if I rejected ideas that "should offend me" without consideration.