Extreme Couponing

I have a secret (well not that much of a secret now) vice in a TV show and no it’s not some late night pervy kind of thing my vice is ‘Extreme Couponing’ on TLC. I get a daily fix every weekday around 2pm.

It’s not a new show it has been around for a while but I did recently hooked up with it during a bout of boredom that found me channel hopping. A docu-series, come reality show in which people have an unhealthy commitment some might say to saving money via coupons and lots of them.

In each episode ordinary people normally two have a hard nose focus and a willingness to shop for over eight hours including the checkout buying hundreds of dollars’ ( it’s an American show) worth of goods for next to nothing and free. They stalk their bargains via the internet and pre shopping scouting missions in a David v Goliath kind of way. Once they have their shopping targets they then have to spend hours cutting out coupons from magazines and flyers as well as downloading printable vouchers from the internet.

These shoppers take little apparent pleasure in purchasing or consuming; the thrill is the save. The show is about saving money and it would seem some savings are for just the frill. Take a young man who buys over a 100 ladies products, why! Because he got them all free and the woman with no pets but has a stockpile of hundreds of pet’s food.

Someone's stockpile

Then there are the houses the shoppers return to, which run from biggish to big, roomy enough to hold several years’ worth of paper towels and body wash in their stockpiles. The stockpiles are oh so important, some just take over their homes, and look like a mini store remembering to rotate by expiration date.

Many of these extreme couponers have struggled financially at some time and used couponing as a way to fight back. I can understand that remembering one Christmas Eve we had like under a pound cash and since that time, we have always saved for Christmas. Pity we can’t extreme coupon over here.

Watching I find it’s not about greed more about security and it is not just about them. Most donate to food banks and other charities as well as freely supplying family and friends. Some also teach disadvantaged group as well as family and friend how extreme couponing works.