The TLC show Extreme Couponing is back on the air this week, and while it’s great to bring attention to helping people save money particularly in this economy – it’s not right to give them unrealistic expectations. The show depicts people who are getting tons of merchandise for free. But really, who needs 25 bottles of mustard at a time?
If you read any of the established couponing blogs that are out there, you’ll find many of them say that this idea of extreme couponing isn’t the best way to go about saving your family money. It’s true that using coupons will produce savings, but who has 60+ hours a week to spend searching for, clipping, and organizing coupons?
It’s also unrealistic to expect that using coupons will always lead to free stuff. This just isn’t true, despite what you see portrayed on Extreme Couponing. Most coupon users pay for their groceries and do pocket savings. But getting free stuff each week? Not going to happen.
The show operates like this: Cameras follow extreme coupon users who stockpile ridiculous amounts of items, often using coupons upon coupons upon coupons to end up getting many items for free. The thing is, they’re stripping store shelves bare only to bring those items home and stock their own shelves, often with way more than their families will ever use.
What isn’t filmed is when these same coupon users have to return to the store the next week to stock up on items they need for every day, like milk, eggs, bread, and meat. And they wind up paying full price for these items most of the time. So while they may have 14 bottles of ketchup and a year’s worth of toilet paper on the shelves, they still can’t cook dinner for their families without having to return to the store to buy more.
Let’s cut to the chase – the whole point of clipping coupons is to save money on your grocery bill, not to see how many items you can get free, or to stockpile 40 tubes of toothpaste. You don’t have to get extreme to save money.
The reason we all clip coupons is the expectation that in the end, we’ll walk away with a little extra in our pockets. We shouldn’t and don’t expect to never pay for groceries ever again.
Extreme Couponing would be much more useful to the average consumer if it provided real tips and tricks people can use day to day to save them money and time.
Guest post provided by Coupon Circus a website designed to help consumers save money while shopping online. Offering popular discounts such as Overstock coupons, Best Buy Coupons, and over a thousand other popular promotion codes and discount codes.
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