The truth about extreme couponing...

[LuvSulley]

I have never seen this show as I dont have regular tv, does anyone know if they get paid for doing this? Do they use the same people over and over again?

Nathan (the guy who donated cereal in the first special) will be on again but they have different people on.

 

[momof2intx]

I've been couponing for about 3 years. I just couldn't see how these people in the show got their bill to go from $400 to $5. Even on my best shopping trip I paid $120 for over $400 worth of groceries.

I went today and everything I bought was on sale and I used a coupon for each plus several store coupons. My bill was originally $112 and I paid $44.

Their stores must double up to $1 or it's complete BS made for TV. I'm a huge advocate of couponing but these ladies are just too much!

 

[skiingfast]

How do you make family sized meals with industrial sized cans of vegetables? Make 20 pizzas and freeze 19?

How much do all of those shelves cost?

 

[DawnM]

Oh, come on, you are WAY over-exaggerating! It was *only* 63 bottles of mustard!

The funniest part to me is that she still PAID .39 per bottle, they were NOT free. The only conclusion I could come to was that she bought them for effect for the show.....to bring her total purchase price up.

We go through 1 jar a mustard every 2-3 YEARS, and yesterday I saw regular mustard on sale for .59 jar with no coupons.

Dawn

Just watched the show, and I turned it off. This is about the dumbest 30 mins of tv ever invented.

Sorry, 150 bottles of mustard? Am I supposed to be impressed? give me a break, 90 cans of processed, fake chicken noodle soup?

Well I guess it takes all kinds but the only impression I got of these gals is that they are border line compulsive obsessive.

 

[DawnM]

Can't answer the pizza question, but I do have industrial shelves (metal) from Costco. They are $88 per shelving unit. I didn't buy these for hoarding though. I have one in the laundry room and two in our storage area. They fit plastic tubs well and are so sturdy as they hold very heavy items.

I do want to get one or two more as our storage room in the basement is now finished and ready for more shelves.

Dawn

How do you make family sized meals with industrial sized cans of vegetables? Make 20 pizzas and freeze 19?

How much do all of those shelves cost?

 

[GinnyEmma]

Oh, come on, you are WAY over-exaggerating! It was *only* 63 bottles of mustard!

The funniest part to me is that she still PAID .39 per bottle, they were NOT free. The only conclusion I could come to was that she bought them for effect for the show.....to bring her total purchase price up.

We go through 1 jar a mustard every 2-3 YEARS, and yesterday I saw regular mustard on sale for .59 jar with no coupons.

Dawn

lol, that is $25 for mustard that they won't use...not a deal to me!

 

[eliza61]

Exactly ---- would they get millions of viewers watching a regular family saving $30 or $50 on their grocery bill through coupon use? No way! They'd rather watch someone with 3 or 4 carts full of pasta, mustard, gatorade, cereal, and soup pay $6 for $300 worth of stuff.

Can't answer the pizza question, but I do have industrial shelves (metal) from Costco. They are $88 per shelving unit. I didn't buy these for hoarding though. I have one in the laundry room and two in our storage area. They fit plastic tubs well and are so sturdy as they hold very heavy items.

I do want to get one or two more as our storage room in the basement is now finished and ready for more shelves.

Dawn

Dawn,
We got the same shelves from costco. they are great, we put them along a wall inour garage. now the garage looks less like a dump than before.



You definitely have point there NYC, the only thing that I find a bit different with this show is that how the participants seem ridiculously happy that the brought 62 cases of mayo. with shows like intervention and hoarders, heck even some episodes of Oprah, the guest realize that their particular "problem" is not a good thing.
I guess it would have been nice to throw in a "normal' shopping trip where some one had a well rounded shopping experience a saved a 100 bucks.

 

[Marionnette]

Oh, come on, you are WAY over-exaggerating! It was *only* 63 bottles of mustard!

The funniest part to me is that she still PAID .39 per bottle, they were NOT free. The only conclusion I could come to was that she bought them for effect for the show.....to bring her total purchase price up.

We go through 1 jar a mustard every 2-3 YEARS, and yesterday I saw regular mustard on sale for .59 jar with no coupons.

Dawn

We go through a lot of mustard in our house. I use it to make salad dressings, marinades and in sauces. It's a great no-fat substitute for mayonaise in tuna and chicken salads. I can go through a jar a month.

It would take us YEARS to ago through 63 bottles! And in the mean time, it would be occupying valuable shelf space.

I think that the 63 bottles were needed to get her individual orders over the $50 limit so that she could get her $10 off. So in a sense, they did end up being nearly free but it was a roundabout way of doing it.

 

[GinnyEmma]

Exactly ---- would they get millions of viewers watching a regular family saving $30 or $50 on their grocery bill through coupon use? No way! They'd rather watch someone with 3 or 4 carts full of pasta, mustard, gatorade, cereal, and soup pay $6 for $300 worth of stuff.

Lol, you are right. Look at the talk it has generated.

 

[Purseval]

There are plenty of people who get 100 jars of mustard for free then hold a yard sale and resell them. We have even had people in the CVS thread who brag about how much money they make reselling items they get for free. Odds are this is what's happening more than just hoarding the stuff.

We have a local lady who runs ads on Craigslist for all of the stuff she sells every weekend. Apparently people are taking exception to it and flagging her ads. It's come to the point where she is asking people to please stop flagging her and now she's changed the wording of her ads to make it harder to flag. People like her consider themselves to be hard working, creative entrepeneurs but to me they're vermin who are ripping off not the companies that give out the coupons or even the stores that stock the merchandise but the people who play by the rules and want to save money for their families.

So, if you go to a CVS or supermarket to stock up on an item only to find the shelves cleaned out try checking the yard sale ads. If you see people selling razors, toothpaste, deodorant, tampons, vitamins, mustard, etc., you'll know where all of the stuff you couldn't buy ended up at.

Even the folks who claim they are cleaning out the shelves so they can give the food to charities are doing a disservice to the people who are working to stretch their food dollars. Do you think it makes a woman who scoured the papers, clipped her coupons, piled her kids into the car and wasted her time and gas to find the shelves emptied out feel any better knowing her food went to some other family who waited for a handout?

 

[GinnyEmma]

That is just nasty. I'd never buy that stuff at yardsales.

 

[starann]

I have several episodes DVR'd but from the looks of it, it will be like watching Pregnant in Heels.....Crazy people being paid to be crazy!

I LOVE to coupon, for me it offers a challenge to save some money and just the 'hunt for a deal' thrills me! I do stock pile dog/cat food when the coupons are really good, but then I take my kids ot the local no kill shelter to deliver it. Toothpaste and such also gets donated when free to our yearly drive, as does 'extra' free food to the food pantry.

 

[MEM]

There are plenty of people who get 100 jars of mustard for free then hold a yard sale and resell them. We have even had people in the CVS thread who brag about how much money they make reselling items they get for free. Odds are this is what's happening more than just hoarding the stuff.

We have a local lady who runs ads on Craigslist for all of the stuff she sells every weekend. Apparently people are taking exception to it and flagging her ads. It's come to the point where she is asking people to please stop flagging her and now she's changed the wording of her ads to make it harder to flag. People like her consider themselves to be hard working, creative entrepeneurs but to me they're vermin who are ripping off not the companies that give out the coupons or even the stores that stock the merchandise but the people who play by the rules and want to save money for their families.

So, if you go to a CVS or supermarket to stock up on an item only to find the shelves cleaned out try checking the yard sale ads. If you see people selling razors, toothpaste, deodorant, tampons, vitamins, mustard, etc., you'll know where all of the stuff you couldn't buy ended up at.

While I agree with you, the CVS in my area limit the number of sale items you can buy. Not per transaction or even per day, but per each week-long sale period. It would be very difficult, I would think, to stockpile so many sale items. I know some people have more than one CVS card but I'm not sure how they manage that without lying.

 

[Marionnette]

While I agree with you, the CVS in my area limit the number of sale items you can buy. Not per transaction or even per day, but per each week-long sale period. It would be very difficult, I would think, to stockpile so many sale items. I know some people have more than one CVS card but I'm not sure how they manage that without lying.

Not only that, but CVS will issue a non-expiring raincheck for any out-of-stock items complete with ECBs to be manually generated when the purchase is made. All you have to do is ask when you check out.

I'm not defending the cheats and hoarders but just putting that little bit of advice out there for anyone who has been disappointed by the shelf-clearing crazies that hit the CVS stores at midnight Sunday morning.

 

[Purseval]

While I agree with you, the CVS in my area limit the number of sale items you can buy. Not per transaction or even per day, but per each week-long sale period. It would be very difficult, I would think, to stockpile so many sale items. I know some people have more than one CVS card but I'm not sure how they manage that without lying.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2557631

That thread was from last year. Here is a local Craigslist ad from 2 days ago:

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/gms/2314294586.html

Are you really trying to make the case that people can't work around CVS limits?

 

[MEM]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2557631

That thread was from last year. Here is a local Craigslist ad from 2 days ago:

http://atlanta.craigslist.org/nat/gms/2314294586.html

Are you really trying to make the case that people can't work around CVS limits?

No, not at all. I suppose I was trying to say that my CVS stores in the Boston area make it difficult. My grocery stores too - one chain will only double up to four like coupons per transaction, the other, six like coupons. They both have limits per customer - any item above the limit will scan for regular price. One store doesn't double coupons at all. Like everything, if there's a will, there's a way. Thanks for sharing the links above.

 

[MEM]

Not only that, but CVS will issue a non-expiring raincheck for any out-of-stock items complete with ECBs to be manually generated when the purchase is made. All you have to do is ask when you check out.
I'm not defending the cheats and hoarders but just putting that little bit of advice out there for anyone who has been disappointed by the shelf-clearing crazies that hit the CVS stores at midnight Sunday morning.

Good point, and I have started to ask for them. In the Extreme Couponing show, that J'aime person cleared the shelves of something and then sent her DH to get rainchecks since the shelves were cleared (by her!). That is just wrong.

 

[delmar411]

While I agree with you, the CVS in my area limit the number of sale items you can buy. Not per transaction or even per day, but per each week-long sale period. It would be very difficult, I would think, to stockpile so many sale items. I know some people have more than one CVS card but I'm not sure how they manage that without lying.

I don't CVS anymore but you used to be able to get as many as you'd like. I have a few different CVS cards and I'm not sure how they handle things now but I used to just run different transactions with each card. You normally get to know the cashiers at your local stores and they let you do whatever you want.

I haven't been in some CVSs in years but if I run into the cashiers elsewhere they still recognize me and ask how I'm doing and how my kids are doing and ask where I've been.

 

[DawnM]

I could not agree with you more.

I hate shelf clearers....and I am very happy our local stores only allow 3 like coupons per store card per day. So, it isn't even per transaction or per person, it is PER STORE CARD PER DAY, which does help with stock.

Dawn

There are plenty of people who get 100 jars of mustard for free then hold a yard sale and resell them. We have even had people in the CVS thread who brag about how much money they make reselling items they get for free. Odds are this is what's happening more than just hoarding the stuff.

We have a local lady who runs ads on Craigslist for all of the stuff she sells every weekend. Apparently people are taking exception to it and flagging her ads. It's come to the point where she is asking people to please stop flagging her and now she's changed the wording of her ads to make it harder to flag. People like her consider themselves to be hard working, creative entrepeneurs but to me they're vermin who are ripping off not the companies that give out the coupons or even the stores that stock the merchandise but the people who play by the rules and want to save money for their families.

So, if you go to a CVS or supermarket to stock up on an item only to find the shelves cleaned out try checking the yard sale ads. If you see people selling razors, toothpaste, deodorant, tampons, vitamins, mustard, etc., you'll know where all of the stuff you couldn't buy ended up at.

Even the folks who claim they are cleaning out the shelves so they can give the food to charities are doing a disservice to the people who are working to stretch their food dollars. Do you think it makes a woman who scoured the papers, clipped her coupons, piled her kids into the car and wasted her time and gas to find the shelves emptied out feel any better knowing her food went to some other family who waited for a handout?

 

[sydneysmom]

lol, that is $25 for mustard that they won't use...not a deal to me!

Did you hear the husband when she was clearing the shelves ?? he said "I don't even LIKE mustard, why are we getting this ?"..... now, that's when you know you've gone WAY over the top! It's a sickness with these people....they try to beat / cheat the system.

We saw an article yesterday on FB where someone broke down her purchases and coupons. it seems as though she was using high $$ coupons for Fiber One cereal on the cheaper cereal, so when they doubled, it made the cereal basically free. Well, I don't know about all of you, but in our Kroger, if you don't buy the EXACT item, the coupon isn't going to work. I think the whole thing was just for show.