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Gina
4-11-11, 12:52am
I'm just watching a program on extreme couponing on TLC (the learning channel). The shopper has 4 carts full of items, and is buying almost $2,000 worth of goods for $103.72. It took 2 hours to checkout. And a lot more pre-planning before going into the store - similar to a job. Another couponer had her 7 kids help her cut out and organize the coupons.

One woman got all of her coupons by having the newspaper give her all the extra flyers that did not go out in the sunday papers. Another gets 6-12 papers, the internet and store displays.

They showed the homes of a couple of these extreme couponers, and they looked like warehouses with closets, basements, under the beds, and even showerstalls absolutely over-flowing with hundreds of duplicates of papertowels, tp, bottles of mustard, shampoos, and the like. Not sure what one needs with all that stuff. Why buy it if all the stuff over-runs your life.

When I was doing couponing on a small scale, I found most of the coupons were not for things I actually wanted or used. I don't do much of it anymore - it wasn't worth my time.

chrisgermany
4-11-11, 4:17am
I guess it is just another kind of shopping addiction disguised as frugality, paired with messiness.

iris lily
4-11-11, 4:45am
One of those women lives in my neighborhood but I don't know her. She flagged everyone via our neighborhood listserv that she was going to be on this show.I didn't watch it--dont' have cable tv.

Catwoman
4-11-11, 5:47am
This kind of disgusts me..unless they are going to give that excess to a shelter or charity...I mean - what are you going to do with 600 bottles of shampoo?

Float On
4-11-11, 8:03am
When I got into couponing, a lot of it expired before I could use it because it was stuff I normally wouldn't of bought anyway.
It seems to be another form of hoarding for some people.

Bastelmutti
4-11-11, 9:23am
My max. is about 4-6 of any given item, because I know it will get used up. Basically I find this useful for toiletries, spaghetti sauce, pasta and stock. Otherwise I don't have the space & my family's tastes change enough that this wouldn't be worth it. I watched that show once, and I was honestly appalled. One guy gave a pallet of cereal to soup kitchen, but even that family had a garage full of stuff.

jennipurrr
4-11-11, 11:57am
I have gotten into couponing, but only stocking up on things that DH and I will use over time that will last that amount of time, or on things to give to the food bank. Some folks I really enjoyed hearing their stories, like the woman who had risen from poverty and was doing well, and the family with seven kids (I imagine they go through a ton of food!). I think some of the folks are bordering on mental illness...like the woman who kept bringing home stuff even though her husband was clearly upest about it and they didn't have anywhere to put it.

What they don't tell you on the extreme couponer show is that some of those folks are ebayers. The guy who gave the pallet of cereal to the food bank is an ebayer...he sells all the nonperishable stuff, like those 300 deodorants or whatever he was buying. He has paid off all his debt and bought a house by doing that.