Extreme Couponing, which premiered on TLC, has elicited some extreme reactions. Some reviewers and viewers have scorned the show as an example of obsessive selfishness. Read the full post.
Apr 6
2011
11:48 PM ET
'Extreme Couponing' review: Weird, selfish people, or thrifty smarties?
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I like the show…the one lady said she only buys what she needs and I believe that is the purpose of coupons to help the average shopper save money on their monthly grocery bill. I dont know anyone who would not like to go to the store and get their groceries for a little of nothing. All the negetive comments must come from those who have millions of dollars in their account(s) and a $200 grocery tab is like $5 out of their pocket. People talk of processed foods, so you telling me that you make your own spaghetti sauce, your own bread, ketchup, BBQ sauce etc. Exactly if you do all that, I agree couponing may be a waste of your time, but hey you wouldnt have time to coupon anyways. Eat healthier? Yeah those of you have made that comment, do you actually eat healthy? I agree that one couple who bought all of that candy (nasty) that was “EXTREME” however for the other people it seems like smart shopping. One couple even stated that at one point they had no money to buy groceries…maybe she is a little scared of being back in that place and feels the need to stock up. Sure wasteful, but who isnt wasteful. I am most definitely wasteful and I am sure a lot of you guys are also. (you dont throw way leftovers? You dont let food expire? What about moldy bread and cheese, do you eat that?) So dont judge others.
Actually, it doesn’t take very much active prep time to make any of things you listed. It takes about 10 minutes of active prep to make enough pasta sauce to equal 10 jars at a cost of less than $3. Same thing with bbq sauce and there are lots of great quick bread recipes that equal about 10c/loaf. I usually spend one day a month baking bread and making sauce to freeze, and only spend an hour of that day actually in the kitchen. We always plan our week out so that there are no leftovers, only “planned-overs” that are used in the next day or so. Vegetable trimmings and those slightly past their prime go in the stock bag. “Moldy” cheese can have the outer layer cut off and the interior is still good. Also, if you keep the bread you are not planning to eat right away in the freezer it won’t mold and doesn’t suffer for defrosting. We don’t use coupons, buy only healthy and fresh food and our grocery bill for two people is about $70/month.
Actually I was a health inspector and to jar food you have to know what you are doing and proper cooling would take you more than an hour to complete 10 jars of sauces. Unless you want to risk botulism and other foodborne illnesses.
My arent you perfect, I call BS on your 10 jars of sauce for less than $3.00 You cant even Grow your own tomatos that cheap!!
MEE – I’m not wealthy and I don’t buy these processed foods. Yes, I do make my own sauces and bread. What you do is: 1) plan your meals around the fresh meats and produce that are on special that week, 2) buy in season, 3) make use of farmers markets. As Neenie said, it doesn’t take that much time nor does it take much money to make your own healthy versions.
We eat fabulously every night and are very healthy in weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and all the other areas that count.
You aren’t doing your family any good by feeding them hotdogs, Corn Pops, Fruit Loops, prepackeged in the dairy case lunch meat (gross), soda, gatorade, chips, cookies, etc. I don’t care if you throw in some bagged salad on the side, you are harming your family.
Wanna know the very best thing? No one is telling you that you can’t live the way you choose even if they disagree with you. You might all try that sometime. Stop condemning anyone who does not think and act exactly as you do. See, I have a job and live in a city so I can’t run a farm so easily. I make my own bread and sauces at times, but since I don’t have year round vegetables growing in my yard, cattle, hogs and chickens to slaughter whenever I get hungry, nor wheat and corn fields to harvest my won grains and a grist mill to make flour..hopefully you get the point. Buying a jar of spaghetti sauce on sale for 75 cents (no, not thee $4 jar of elitist sauce) is a reality of life.
Gee, which cover of Fit Magazine are you guys on? lol
I plan menus with two weeks in advance…the whole family helps. We grow some of our vegetables and all of our herbs. We DO eat healthier…we eat very well…and we are all healthy as per our family doctor. If you are as organized as these women are, shopping for healthy ingredients and making healthy meals isn’t that much of a problem. My husband is the only one who works outside of the home and he is not making an obscene amount of money, but we buy good cuts of meat, whole chickens, fresh vegetables…it’s not rocket science. I use coupons, yes, but not to buy crap that’s going to sit on the shelves as a monument to my prowess as a shopper.
I agree with everything you are saying…my comment was posted for those individuals who judge others for their choices. Its a television show and meant for entertainment, but everyone in life is savvy enough to prepare their own sauces etc and coupons do help out with your grocery bill. Saving money is never a bad thing with this economy. I only buy what I eat because I cant afford to buy because its on sale; not my cup of tea anyways.
***is NOT savvy enough****
I love it. I started a few months ago and only buy and save on food that my family likes and eats. Last month, I got free FREE split chicken breast. Paired that with extremely cheap asparagus and fruit – both fresh and it was a great meal for less than .20 a serving.
I think some of you are missing the point,I think some of these episodes were shot in the time of year where kids were possibly out of school and this is how they stretched their money.I perfer them to shop like that if some of the families like the one with 7 kids didn’t shop like that instead, or would you perfer to pay for it when they go sign up for foodstamps? I am not knocking anyone that has to get assistance,I’m on a fixed income due to my illness,and I would much rather shop like these ladies than have to take a hand out! I think some of the things that they purchased were a bit much like all the chips and stuff but one lady was planning a party. I like to entertain and would do it more if I could afford to feed my extended families and one family had saved 40,000 towards their kids education. I think if it’s legal, not harming anyone and they provide for their families instead of taxpayers footing the bill I’m all for it!! I want to know one thing from some of the people being so judgemental do you help other families that they see in need besides giving food and things besides Christmas and Thanksgiving people eat more than twice a year, I’m just saying.
No, Letittia you missed the point. I don’t know what the kids being out of school has to do with it but that’s just absurd. The point is, they are stockpiling food they will never use, cluttering their homes with stockpiles of TP and paper towels they don’t need on hand (you do NOT need a 3 year supply), and feeding their families crap. No one discounts the need to get groceries and household items as cheaply as possible, it is the way these people are doing it and the hoarding that is of concern.
Whether or not people who don’t agree with this extreme couponing is not relevant and beside the point. These aren’t people who don’t have jobs. The first woman, the one who has to have her make up just right when checking out, said it is so she can continue to have girls night out with her friends. I don’t have a problem with someone needing fun in their lives. But, please don’t pretend this is what is keeping people off of food stamps. They didn’t say they didn’t have the money, they said they didn’t have it budgeted for groceries because they use the coupon. They could spend less in other areas if they needed to do so.
Letittia, ignore the haters. You do get it. They are saving money where they can so they can afford other things. Like college for their kids as you mentioned. Those who are so negative are most often those who probably still have mom and dad pay their bills, inherited enough to never look at the price of an item, or are likely using food stamps to pay for things so they don’t care what it costs the rest of the taxpayers.
Hawk, you don’t know what the h ell you are talking about. No one pays my bills. Shut up.
The only thing I ever bought more of when the children were on vacation was Neosporin, Calamine Lotion, Band-Aids and fruit…
I have been couponing for six months. I have a family of six. I have brought my grocery bill down from 750 to 350 a month and have donated over a $1000 of products to food banks. I have lost 30lbs in this time also. I have a stock pile. I buy enough to last 6-12 months or until it would expire. This show is extreme but coupons can help u save. I pay $.05 cents a diaper for pampers instead of .17 cents I get formula for my daughter who needs soy for less than a $1 a jug instead of $6 a jug. If people used coupons for non food items alone they could save and give hundreds a year. I also average about $70 savings per paper so $2 a paper is acceptable to me.
RIGHT ON!
I worked my way through high school and university by working at a local grocery store, and every week I’d look up to find myself face to face with the sweet as pie but totally infuriating “coupon lady.” She had coupons for everything, but nothing ever matched up and half of them were expired. So here comes the coupon for 50 cents off six cans of frozen OJ, but she’s buying two one litre tetra packs. Oh, and here’s the coupon for $2.00 off a 12 pack of Brand X toilet paper, but she’s buying 24 rolls of Y. Also, the coupon expired in 1997.
I remember patiently explaining to her why we couldn’t take coupons for items she wasn’t buying and then cowering as I waited for her to bring the thunder, but it never came. She was always so sweet and understanding. In retrospect, I think she was just testing me to see exactly how much she could get away with. It always struck me as more of a compulsion than a legitimate way to cut expenses.
Sandra – Or maybe the “sweet as pie but totally infuriating coupon lady” was extremely lonely and would listen to a nice high school girl that would patiently explain to her that her coupons could not be used, just for some human contact. So, instead of remembering the occasions as annoying maybe you should remember them as bringing some light to someone that appreciated what you brought to her life.
Oh please Mary. That’s reaching. You can have contact with your cashier without coupons. I’ve stood in line behind people who became their cashier’s best friend during the transaction. They are all too happy to stand there and chat.
It’s not reaching. It’s not unusual for people who are lonely to call customer service to chat up someone. When we lived in an apartment complex some of the elderly people would talk to whatever delivery person was around.
Funny thing about the three ladies that were featured on last night’s show not ONE of them said that they donated ANYTHING to charity.Just becauswe you can get it for next to nothing doesn’t mean you should take virtually all the product off of the shelf!(mustard lady)The last women on the show stated she loved her stockpile almost as much as her children!!Are you for real??Her stockpiles in EVERY nick and cranny of her home were ridiculous.
What percentage of your income goes to charity? Wanna share your 1040 itemized deductions with us all to prove what a paragon of virtue you are? Do people really go around bragging about helping others? If you do then you are NOT doing it for others, you are doing it because you are a selfish, narcissistic attention seeker.
How much did you donate last year?
I would donate lots of the free stuff I got if I were these people, no one is saying donate the stuff they need or spent money on. They are saying donate the excess instead of letting expire.
i thought the same thing about the mustard – if you won’t use it you are just wasting that money. That’s why I stopped going to bulk stores. I was saving money but on things that went bad a lot of times
Are you insane, these people are hoarders. Who needs hundreds of anything. They seem to have a compulsion to have things around them. This is a sickness. I watched it for a while but when some woman bought 35 bottles of antacid I left
I made the same observations…a lot of the stuff they were stockpiling was junk…all the soda and junk! I find it quite disturbing and really isn’t any different from hoarding but I think it’s more acceptable because it’s food????
I give the guy who bought all the Total cereal credit for donating it to his church.
Then again that same fellow got a cart full of tooth brushes and deodorant. Guess he was into hygiene?
ridiculous is the one word that comes to mind. if you are buying things that you will never need or use, ie 64 jars of mustard, you are not saving any money, you are losing it. i use coupons when it is for something i would normally buy, or a new product i would like to try, but never to this extreme. of course, the american obcession with reality shows, just makes the producers come up with more compulsive shows…sorry sorry state of who we are.
I’m impressed with the organization & planning that it takes to “coupon” (is this now a verb?) on this scale.What disturbs me, is that these people appear to be getting ready for the apocalypse with rooms devoted to storing all this stuff.
I agree…some good tips on normal, non-extreme couponing can be gleaned. Especially tracking sales and then lining up coupons with sale items.
A grocery cart full of candy bars (even if you get them for free) is just wrong.
Couponing Common Sense
My family of three used to spend on the average of $150 per week adding up to $7,800 per year. I have already cut back my grocery bill to about $40 a week using coupons in conjunction with sales and stocking up on items that are on sale. At the end of the year I will have saved over $5,000. Just by spending about an 1.5 per week in planning and couponing, and a few extra minutes in the checkout line. So, unless you make over $90 per hour a small time investment and a few coupons saves a lot of money.
So you can get free junk food and coke now and pay later by taking insulin shots…great…
No, I DON’T buy junk food at all. For example when boneless skinless chicken breast is on sale I buy enough for about a month or so. Usually about $2 cheaper per pound. As well as produce, I check local ads if Broccoli is on sale, then that is the produce I buy or Carrots or whatever for that week. Healthy Choice soups for lunch… not on sale around 2.87 with coupons on Sale about 1.00. Most of the big savings comes from Cleaning and Health and Beauty products. This stuff is greatly marked up at most stores. If you choose to clip a few coupons and use them when those products are on sale and stock those up for a month or two. That saves big money. For example three 60 load bottles of Tide regularly around $14 each; I purchased three bottles for around $15. That’s 50%. I have too agree with you about the show, way too much junk food and items that they will never use. However, their is a big difference between being a smart consumer and having an addictive behavior like those featured on this show.
While I think that stockpiling certain items like paper products when they are on sale is not a terrible idea, the majority of the stuff that these people purchase do have finite shelf life. The one woman stated that she bought 62 bottles of mustard because mustard doesn’t go bad. Wrong – mustard has an expiration date. And even if there isn’t an expiration date, do you really want to use that shampoo that you have had in your stockpile for 15 years? I only hope that the majority of these extreme couponers go through their stash occasionally and look to see what is going to expire soon and at least donate to their local food pantry.