Extreme Couponing

It sounds like they make tv shows about it.

Sometimes they make a point out of saying they will donate it to their favorite charity. Usually they buy nonperishables, or shelf stable things that last awhile.

I watched that show a few times. Some families donated a large quantity to charity, another family contributed a lot of food to their church's weekly dinners for church members. One program was all about a woman getting all the refreshments & decorations for her daughter's birthday or some similar type of celebration.

If you watch closely, though, you'll note that an awful lot of the stuff they buy is non-food, like cleaning products, personal hygiene items, etc. There was even a guy who had a stash of tampons - why, I don't know. For some of those people, it's an obsession, for others it's like some kind of challenge to see how much stuff they can get for the least amount of money.

Even if I had the room to store all that stuff, I wouldn't be an extreme couponer. They spend way too much time finding & sorting. Easier for me to use the electronic coupons at my King Soopers & Walgreen's.

I like to coupon but only for things I want, need and will use. I don't stockpile but I do like to save when I can.

The thing is with the TV shows I have seen..who wants 30 bottles of hot sauce or VO5 shampoo etc.

I watched this show for a while and it was a VERY small percentage of them who donated anything. The vast majority of them seemed to just be hoarders. It was the 'thrill of the kill', so to speak, for them and they reveled in seeing the rows and rows of merchandise/food.

They usually seemed to have so much more than anybody could ever use that it just seemed so piggish to me.

Plus, it became a full time job doing this. What do you save when you cannot work, you have to purchase all those newspapers and memberships online, etc? Not to mention that you don't save anything when a large percentage of your hoard will go bad and/or not be used in a reasonable amount of time that would justify the purchase. How much can I save when I purchase 50 years worth of deodorant? A) I won't be alive in 50 years; and 2) that money is better spent on something that will be used during the time that the money is worth what it is worth now, not all those years from now.

One of my least favorite things to do is grocery shop. So the last thing I want in my home is a "grocery store"! I do use coupons, and certain things I only buy when I have coupons or it's on sale, or both. But as another poster said, this must be an obsession for a lot of these people. If I had to look at all that stuff in every nook and cranny of my house, I would hope someone would take me out and hang me up by my thumbs until I got some sense!

Some of the people DO donate things to their churches, food pantries, or other charities.

I have wondered if some know that even "non perishables" will go bad at some point!

Hyacinth

On 4/14/2014 CouponQueen said:

The thing is with the TV shows I have seen..who wants 30 bottles of hot sauce or VO5 shampoo etc.

Well, they can be washing their hair while spending a lot of time in the bathroom after consuming all that food soaked in hot sauce