Extreme Couponing - UNimpressive

Last night I watched TLC's Extreme Couponing.  I was sort of interested, because I love using coupons, and I spend a bit of time each week searching sale ads and coordinating my coupons before doing my grocery shopping. 

This is supposed to be a "reality show", but "reality" is NOT what these folks are living in!  Clearly, they get a high from watching the savings (so do I), but these people are stocking so much food and paper supplies in their houses that it is unreal!  One woman purchased a fancy shelving unit (wonder how much THAT cost!) to store her 1000+ cans of soup.  Another woman went to the store with the intention of buying 77 bottles of mustard.  Seriously??  Doesn't anyone eat that much mustard in their LIFE???   And finally, the one that sent me over the edge: a woman purchased 150 bottles of Excedrin because her coupons were going to force the store to actually PAY her for getting them.  But, HELLO, medicine expires within a couple of years.  Let's say those bottles expire in 2014 and they were 50 count, that means she bought 7500 pills to use up in 3 years.  In other words, she'd have to take Excedrin almost non-stop (8 pills/day).  That's a WHOLE LOT of headaches!  Not to mention that she took the whole stock, so nobody else would be able to buy a single bottle for their genuine headache needs.

And here's the other thing... none of these episodes showed the shoppers stocking up on fresh meat or produce.  Why?  because they don't make coupons for that stuff!  So, either these people eat almost exclusively processed foods, and are therefore leading severely unhealthy lives, or they just left that stuff out for the episode so their savings would look more amazing (hence, the non-reality that is this show).

Oh, did I mention that some of these women spend 35 hours/week clipping coupons and scanning ads???  Don't they have a LIFE?

As interesting as extreme couponing might be, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be watching this show again.  I am perfectly happy with my own 30-50% savings on most shopping trips, without buying crap I don't need, and eating fresh foods.  I certainly don't need to watch this ridiculousness to get "tips" on how to "save" more money.  These people are out of control and seriously out of touch with reality!!