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Extreme Couponing
Did anyone watch the shows? I caught a little of 2 different episodes. I could not believe how much money these women were saving (and stocking) and I just wanted to know how they get so many coupons.
I get emails from coupons.com and smartsource.com and most other websites I found that have coupons actually just post the same pages of grocery coupons from those sites. We don't get the newspaper, so I think we're missing out on a lot of coupons in the Sunday paper. Not sure I want to go out and buy a Sunday paper or not.
Anyways, I made a trip over to MM to see if those girls posted anything about the show, or any secrets and tips. Seeing how much money they save on the show I just felt kind of...inadequate. Like if they can do this how come I cannot save all this money for my family? I came across one post with a link to a blog about how one of the women on the show is basically committing coupon fraud. Of course this doesn't mean all of them do this by any means. But it does help me put stuff into perspective that I'm not a bad wife because I cannot get almost $2000 worth of groceries for $100.
Re: Extreme Couponing
I have not seen the show, but I did see the special on TLC that I think lead to the show.
From what I gather, these people buy coupons from other people. I also think it's ridiculous that they stockpile all this cr@p that they don't need - like 2,000 bottles of gatorade or 500 butterfingers. It is weird and greedy to me. I did see one guy who donated like 500 cases of cereal to his church's food pantry and that made me feel better, but it is clearly a disorder like hoarding or something.
NO ONE "needs" 3,000 tubes of toothpaste or 250 boxes of pasta.
I caught a little bit of it. I agree that it is amazing how big of a savings they get, but I couldn't help but have two thoughts. First, most of the food they are buying is junk. Some of it is stuff that I wouldn't eat if I made money on it (Buddig lunch "meat"? GROSS!). Second, I do not want my house to look like those people's. The stockpiles are ridiculous. It's hoarding.
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JT and I caught part of an episode last weekend, where the lady dressed up to go shopping and got like 80 bottles of mustard. He was all for it but I don't have 6 hours a day to spend on this and I'm sorry the stuff is trash.
No family needs hundreds of boxes of cereal, 80 toothbrushes and 80 bottles of mustard. I would like see how much they spend per month on all this stuff and see how it comes to what I buy.
Books read in 2011: 111
Books read in 2012: 100
my read shelf:
Also, if these people are really stockpiling 80 bottles of mustard, how does it not go bad? I know mustard is good for a couple of years when you buy it, but we buy a bottle every 6 months and we like mustard.
I wonder how much of what they buy goes to waste.
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Yes, this. Plus, I don't understand how they can buy yogurt and cheeses and then it takes 2 hours to check out? Hello, did you bring a cooler with you? I've done pretty well with coupons for products that we eat, like our kashi cereal or the cascadian farms granola that I like, I always have $1 off coupons, and when its bogo or 2 for $4, I stock up, but stock up for us is like 3 boxes. Most of what we eat is organic or fresh, so not many coupons are out there. I do try to buy it when its on sale. I try never to pay retail for shampoo, toothpaste, etc. But I don't have an obsession and need 50 of them, that are going to expire before I use them.
I think the way they get extra coupons is to have the newspaper deliver the extra, online services, etc.
The lady that refereed to her family as "the litter" kind of freaked me out. Plus how do you do all of that shopping with all 7 of your kids. I guess they were into it, so family bonding time? Or the lady with the black heels... pleeeeease,
Our yellow mustard usually goes bad before we use it all up with buying a small bottle.
I mine really none of the things they were buying lasted forever and I'm even laundry soap only lasts so long.
Books read in 2011: 111
Books read in 2012: 100
my read shelf:
Tee hee - coming from a WI girl, many hard cheeses can sit out at room temp for up to 10 hours and many soft cheeses are okay for a few hours ... BUT yogurt, yeah I am with you on that!
Claire, you clearly haven't seen how much pasta my family can eat
. And I don't even like it that much. But seriously, even though both B and P could eat it for every meal and be in heaven, we still only have about 15 boxes at a time, and part of the reason for that is because we have different kinds for all different types of applications.
I definitely agree with those who said it is like hoarding, and that the time it takes to do this to that level for things that aren't even useful, it isn't worth the "savings".
2012 Reading Challenge
Yeah the 60-80 bottles of mustard was ridiculous, and her husband doesn't even like it! I know a lot of that stuff doesn't go bad right away, but I'm not eating 10 year old mustard.
A lot of the stuff we buy usually don't have coupons, at least not online. I've never looked in the paper. Also, our grocery stores almost never double/triple the coupons. Shaws does sometimes, but only a couple times a year. In one episode the store had a $10 off $50 order day. That would be so sweet. Occasionally Shaws will give us a $5 off $50.
I've only seent he episode with the "litter" and the lady who got all dolled up. She is the one who apparently was commiting coupon fraud. I read that blog link posted above and it is shocking. Like everyone else, I don't get why they buy so much. Just b/c you can get it for free does't mean you should. Or if they do, they should donate it. When I stock up on cereal, that mean maybe 8 boxes at the most. Not enough that I need a storage shed!
The other thing I don't get, is how the stores let them use so many coupons. Our store only lets you double 5 coupons per transaction. I kind of wonder if the store bent their rules for the ladies just so they could film the episodes. B/c if they are really going back and doing multiple transactions, I think they should show that, just so they don't make it look like it is so easy to do.
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I think alot of these women-this is their full time job of Couponing.
I think I do pretty well when it comes to this but like many, most of the coupons out there are just for junk. I wonder if the coupons were more fruits and veggies, if less people would be obese and that more people would coupon.
Honestly, it does not take alot of time for me. I dedicate Sundays for clipping the coupons and meal planning for the week. It works for me.
I know some of them donate these items but I can not imagine hundreds of bottles of mustard or ketchup.
I get overwhelmed when we have to do our monthly shopping at Costco!!
One of the episodes I watched a store was running $10 off every $50. A couple came in and they had organized the order into 7 transactions to get the full savings but the store had a limit 1 $10 off per customer. So they called up 5 of their friends to come "buy" their other orders. I think it said they were in the store for 5-6 hours! Such a waste of time!
I wish I could find coupons for more fresh stuff, too. They are much harder to come by.Our local Farmers' Markets take Link (food stamps) now, which is really nice and a step in the right direction. I'm not sure how common this is in other places.
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Once in a blue moon I get coupons for fresh fruit and veggies but it is mostly with the store coupons (Target and Safeway). I do get coupons from our local farmers market but they are specific to certain vendors (ie free 1 lb of strawberries with a purchase of 2 lbs of strawberries).
It is a step in the right direction I just hope there are more steps towards this.
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