Recap: TLC's Extreme Couponing Episode 5 Desirae and Stephanie

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Another episode of TLC's Extreme Couponing aired last night, if you aren't familiar with this show it's about the real-life experiences of some of the biggest couponers around. It airs Wednesday nights on TLC. Apparently there have been investigations done on some of the people on this show, when mentions of coupon fraud started flying around. I don't know about that, but I do find this show hilariously entertaining, I would personally never do some of the stuff that these people do, or collect as many products. I like getting stuff for free too but I prefer to get that on products that I actually need and will use up, instead of having it sit in a basement or garage ready for the next few months or years to be used up. And have you noticed that the products that these people are buying are all processed, frozen or junk food? I don't see them saving money on real food like produce, breads, fruits and veggies etc (I did see small mentions here and there, but overall not so much).

Here is my summary of what went down this week:
Desirae collects massive amounts of coupons and will dumpster dive to get her coupons. The show starts with her climbing in and falling into a dumpster (sign outside says not climb in). Coupons to her are money and she doesn't believe people throw them away. She has a stockpile that she didn't spend hardly anything for, she has 45 bottles of dish soap, 105 deodorants, 125 bottles of hair and body wash, 480 razors. She goes on to say how the retail value of her razors is over $4000 and she paid nothing for them. If she is ever pressured for space, she will donate products in her stockpile or have her neighbours come over and shop. She dedicates 60 hours to couponing each week. She checks shopping deals sites every hour in case anything new has been posted. She has a daily schedule by hour what she will do each day ie prepping, organizing and shopping. On her shopping trip she fills 6 carts of groceries, spends over $1000 and ends up paying $21.66.

Stephanie steals coupon inserts from unoccupied foreclosed home driveaways. She buys 30 Sunday newspapers every week to get all her coupons. She explains how with online coupons you can only print out 2 coupons per computer, but she has 5 computers so she can get up to 10 printouts of each one (not sure what she means by that, if you save a coupon as a pdf if it has a limited number of views, then you can print as many as you want). Her stockpile dominates her entire garage and includes 43 boxes of cereal, 165 rolls of paper products, 200 bottles of water and a freezer that holds 160 pounds of frozen food. Her house is really popular, her son's friends come over to eat there. The one friend says if there is some type of nuclear accident he knows whose house to come to! (I agree!). She spends 35 hours a week preparing for her shopping trips. Her grocery store website has coupons too that you can load up on a store card (that is cool). She spends $516.16 on her biggest shopping trip, but only pays $29.06.

I love the part at the end, when they are cashing out at the till and they get so anxious and worried that all the hours of hard work preparing for the shopping trip may not work out at the end, and they'll end up paying more than they planned for. And the poor cashiers, I bet these couponers would jump all over them if an item scanned wrongly. I am actually really impressed with the attitudes of the cashiers, they seem to always pick out the nice and accommodating ones. I know when I go shopping sometimes and I have 5 coupons or more I get the rolling of the eyes, the sighs, and I feel bad about the whole thing, and a bit of a loser for holding up the line. While these people seem to have a really easy time, maybe the cashiers are just nicer out in the states?

Did you watch this latest episode of Extreme Couponing?