I saw it once and thought the same thing.Also thought that if they are that good at it and enjoy doing it,why not share it with the food pantries??

Couldn't remember what day of the week it comes on,so never saw it again.
Kathi

we were talking about it in line at target, lol, when the customer in front of me was using them....i've yet to see it, but hope i catch it...i still don't know how they get all those free or whatever, to get such high results...we buy the sunday paper and i clip all the coupons...(usually give then to dd2) but despite using $1 coupon on a $4, you still have to pay $3...

I saw that on Ellen, a woman who had like a small warehouse of stuff all lined up on shelves. She said she gives it away, but she'll have to be giving it to lots and lots of people. How can they save hundreds of dollars with coupons? I just don't get it. And stuff gets old, so why hoard it?

I would love to be that good at couponing. Money is tight and it would be great to be able to buy that many groceries for less than 10.00. But I have no idea how to do it. even if I clip and see something on sale, I am still pay probably 2-3 dollars for it.. same as most coupons I see have buy 2 get 50 cents off, but 2 are gonna cost me almost 5.00 or more.. I judt dont know how to do it like they do

There are lots of sites to teach you to coupon.There are a lot more couponers than the ones you see that boarder on hoarding. Once you get organized it is pretty easy. Here are a couple of informative sites that I use, but there are many others. If you think you know about couponing, you will find out how little you really know after learning a few tricks.LOL
Couponteach.com and couponmom.com

I use coupons quite a lot, but much of what I get, I know I won't use before it expires, so probably about 75% of it goes to our church food bank.

The key to successful couponing is organization. And you need to know what stores have what on sale as Loss Leaders.

So far our grocery bill for January is a whopping $46.64 and most of that was for milk and fresh produce...for which I had no coupon..

They don't have coupons for store brands, and I buy a lot of store brands. I give them all to DD#2 who really used the diaper ones b/c she had twins--they're potty trained now, but she used them way back when. I would find myself buying something b/c I had a coupon. Now, on the other hand, the restaurants here have lots of coupons and DH and I really use those. TGIF's is real good about coupons, and a Mexican rest. here will give you a $10. gift card if you buy a $25. gift card, so we always do that--that's 40% off.

No ,but a couple of years ago when coupons were so hot we got a coupon club together,We met once a month,Tuesday nite,everybody collected coupons through the month,brought them to the meeting lay your pile on the table Everybody did,you looked through them picked out ones you need no limit.If you get enough people you can get coupons for your whole groceries,That was double and not like now instead of 1 product,most now say buy 3 buy 6.It was alot of fun.I would save 50 a week then you had refund forms so we organize boxes etc lay flat file because sometimes they wanted boxtops,some wanted upcs.

I saw it for the first time on Saturday. Its amazing how they can do it, I never could. I tried the refunding once and it was so much work it wasn't worth the time. Doing this kind of couponing is also a all day job and then trying to find the sales to match the coupons.Those people that stock pile for themselves are not right. I get the toilet paper & detergent but the other stuff in those amounts is just plain selfish. Giving it to a food bank is a good idea.
If your interested you can see a few videos about the show

Here is a link that might be useful: extreme couponing

The best deal I ever got was last year. The store had sour cream two 16 oz packages for $4. And I had a coupon for $2 off and the store doubles coupons. So I got two for free! That's my family motto "Free Is Good."

There's only 2 of us now and we only eat about 5 meals at home together. The rest of the meals are eaten out or just small meals eaten alone. I am trying to make a conscious decision to not have too much on hand that I end up throwing it out. That doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Even storing a lot of toilet paper, paper towels, etc doesn't seem to make much sense to me. I don't want my house to be a warehouse.

I can see where this would be really great for big families but not for the small familiy that I have. This is way too much work for me.

Years ago I used many coupons with a friend who knew all about saving money. We did this when our kids were young and we were starting our families home. I still shop with great sales in mind but don't take the time to coupon like I used to.

First hint for couponing would be to ask your friends for their left over Sunday paper coupons. My good friend would have brown bags of coupons she was willing to share if I would clip them out. We would go shopping late at night, often when the lines were short and the store was quiet. More than once she broke the scanner! Pretty funny to think about. Once we had two carts full of small sized soap to check out at 10 cents a piece. Gave all but 15 bars to the Katrina victims. Irish spring everywhere!

I've seen only one of the coupon shows and he gave away most of the food to a food pantry, including a tower of cereal! love it.

A little couponing is great, I'd say. But, these
people make me sad -- obviously, their time is
worth absolutely nothing to spend it so frantically
like this.

Sad people.

The Food Banks should hire them to teach what they know. Think of all the food that could be distributed to people who really need it.
Or perhaps these coupon fanatics could volunteer their time to the Food Banks or Charities and show them how it is done!
I love to save money, but I have more important things in my life.

I wonder if they spend a lot of time and gas driving all over to get the best prices before using the coupon.

My local library has coupons for everyone to take and add to.

Sheryl - NJ

I have a friend who does it, she's obsessed with it and very good at it. Spends many many hours a week doing it, and driving to stores to redeem all her special offers. Fortunately, she lives in a big city and all the stores that she needs to go to are close by. She keeps her family supplied with toiletries and food and pet food and has enough left over to hold a few huge yard sales every year where she makes an amazing amount of money.

She's earned that money, too, because this stuff takes a lot of time to do. I think the thrill for them is in walking out of the store with bags full of stuff and spending practically NO money. And it's all legit, too. Just don't ever get behind her in a line. :)

I have always used coupons but they were never a priority .....lots of time they were at home when I was shopping. Cathy ID mentioned a class she had been to and the thread got me thinking about getting myself organized. Last week I had nearly $60 deducted from my total because of coupons. There are lots of coupons..Did you know that the manufacturers make all their coupons available online. When I write something down on my grocery list, the next time I am at the computer, I look for a coupon. Many of them are there, all you have to do is look for them and print them. There are ways to use them that maximize the amount. Last week I bought 10 cans of spaghetti sauce for .55 per can. I could only find one coupon otherwise they would have been almost free. There are tricks to learn but there are people on the web that will tell you how to do it. You can sign up for many sites and the new coupons being issued and the best way to use them will arrive in your daily email. Get a coupon email to use if you don't like having your regular email crowded. Once you get yourself organized it doesn't take a huge amount of time and the nice thing is that there are blogs and websites that allow you to sign up and they will tell you what's hot and what's going on in your local stores and how to use your coupons to get the best value. Basically it's a game but if you do it right, you always win.

The same coupons that you find in your sunday paper are available to print on line and there are blogs that tell you how to be good at it. Just google couponing..
http://www.supercouponing.com/
http://couponteach.com/
http://www.couponing101.com/
http://www.couponmom.com/
http://coupons.redplum.com/offers
https://www.pgesaver.com/default.aspx
http://www.thefrugalshopper.com/

All the big markets in your area will have websites and it's good to check and see what's on sale or what they are using as a loss leaders because nearly every thing will have a coupon. It's important to learn that it isn't saving money if you buy something just because you have a coupon. It does allow you to try something new at a cheaper price but I rarely buy anything that I don't use. Many people including myself say the Wal-Mart Great Value is still cheaper and that is true if you don't have a deal...but the game is to buy it locally at a place where they double your coupon or you find it as a loss leader and wonderful when you find both...that's when you score.

It has become a game for me and it's fun. It's not even about not having the money for my food, it's about why pay when I don't have too. People stop me in the grocery store and chat about how they are going to do that and they have to look at my coupon notebook.

Here is a link that might be useful: My coupon book

There are only the two of us now and I am way too lazy~~I like a sale but very seldom do I have a coupon for the sale item if I do it is only a dollar.

That's all and good if you live where you can use coupons like that. Here there is only one store that doubles coupons and then only up to 49 cents. Any over that amount they won't double.

I find that so many coupons nowadays have expiration dates on them and only good for about a month or so, and stuff goes on sale AFTER the expiration date

Printing out coupons uses lots of printer ink and that's not cheap.

When I lived in Ca. and had more stores for shopping I used quite a few coupons and some times there were days when they tripled coupons.

I don't get a Sunday paper, would have to drive to town to get one to get coupons and price of gas prohibits me from making any extra trips. Sunday papers aren't delivered out in the boonies.

I quit refunding when the price of stamps escalated.

I do take coupons I receive in magazines and I don't use, to the store and leave them by the appropriate products that someone can use them.

Yes - we were talking about this on another thread last week. I called them "tidy hoarders". There's just no way a family of 4 is going to use 80 containers of salad dressing before it expires, so I just don't see the point of buying more than they need, unless it is for sharing or charity.
Our stores don't double coupons, so I don't think we can achieve the same results. Also, I'm not interested in buying something simply because it is a good a deal unless it is something I'd normally use.
What these folks are doing is a lot of work and I congratulate them for their effort and their expertise, it is just the overstocking on food items that makes me wince.

I also question the overstocking, it defeats the purpose imo, if you're buying and buying just so you can use those great coupons. I wonder if those couponers would be willing to tabulate their give aways and losses versus money saved, the amount would not be as outstandingly impressive and it would not be as interesting for them to hoard huge quantities.

I take advantage of special deals on things I need , and I never stock up, since I live close to everything.

I think the couponing is a hobby with a purpose, and I can see how the challenge is enticing, and how you get good at it with time and experience.

I can't see hoarding either and stocking up is one thing but the store sales come in cycles. The coupon sites teach you to count the number of boxes of cereal (or whatever) you are going to need for 6 or 8 weeks and buy that amount because it will be back on sale and another coupon coming up.

mitchdesi is right and that's a good description.....a hobby with a purpose..to get your families food at less than the asking price. Turn your noses up at a 50 cent coupon but when you have 20 or 30 of them at the register, they add up.

That show was just an extreme example......but with the cost of food, everyone should be on board.........MinuteMaid orange juice has a buy1 get 1 right now. If you want to try it, go to facebook and "like" minutemaid and they will give you a coupon.

its not sad ,you buy groceries if you have a coupon great get it cheaper,thats the whole idea. the way our economy is you need to do all you can to save.We arent near out of the woods yet.

There's a lot of "tools" to saving money and being frugal and coupons are only one tool. Some use it more than others and some misuse it. I have a cousin who is so wrapped up in coupons. It's a hobby for him and I understand that. But he's fooled by looking at his receipt and seeing he "saved" 46% or whatever on his bill. That "savings" includes the "sale" price from an inflated base price. They normally sell baby back ribs for instance for $3.59/#, then mark them up to $5.99/#, then put them on "sale" for $2.99/# so the register says you saved $2.40/# where I say you saved 50¢/# but had you bought country style ribs for $1.99/# you would have actually saved $1.60/#! I can't get him to understand that he didn't save - he spent and there's a difference. He bought TV dinners, doesn't like them - throws out 2/3 of it or used to feed it to the dog. Bad for the dog and wasted money. Some things he gives away. That's fine, to a point but he also needs to factor in the $2/week for the paper to get the coupons to start with. Few people do factor that in so that takes quite a hit on some of the average "savings". If you do it as a hobby then it's a different story, but I take issue with people who claim to save so much on coupons. Rarely does anyone save a huge amount if they look at other options.

A price book or similar will do a lot to help save money. Learn prices. Don't just look at a sale sign or a coupon. See what it costs. When I can take a coupon and use it on a 75% off clearance item that I need anyway, *there* is a savings.

I take advantage of a lot of the free after rebate items that Menards has. No I don't need 10 tape measures, but for the cost of sales tax I made a lot of people very happy. For them, it was like a $10 gift.

Cleaners seem to be a good thing for coupons, especially if the place will double coupons. However doubling coupons isn't always good. Often the places that double or triple coupons are much higher priced anyway so it offsets any perceived savings. I do find that many brand name cleaners work better than generic so I do buy some of them. I'll only buy Dawn, Joy or Gain dish soap. They're the only ones I like and why waste money on the "cheaper" stuff that doesn't work. However I can buy Dawn (sometimes Joy) cheaper than generic. Small bottle on sale for 79¢, and a coupon for 30¢ off. Far cheaper than BulkCo warehouse places, which I've never found to be good values regularly.

For a lot of staples, I do better at Aldi than coupons. Many coupons are for junk food unless it's a store coupon.

Store coupons can be fine for certain items but there too you have to be careful. They used to have roasts for buy one, get one free, but when you looked at the per pound price, there was no significant savings.

I just bought some paper towels on sale, then there was a coupon on them for $1 off a package and if you buy two packages you get a $5 gift card for the store. I needed some paper towels and like the select-a-size so this worked well for me. Dropped the price to a reasonable level and I like Bounty over a lot of the cheaper brands. Similar deal available on toilet paper but I have a stock so no need for it. Only consider it in that case if it's next to nothing, free or pays me to buy it.

There's a lot of different things to do to save money or more aptly put, spend less. Don't go to the store so often is one. Use a price book and compare (and record) prices. Use coupons carefully. Cut your waste. Compare unit prices. Maybe a bottle is cheaper because it has less? Hint: Any time they change a bottle or container, check the contents. They may well have changed the size. I noticed Palmolive dish soap is now an 8 oz bottle! Really, now *that* is getting crazy. And the funny thing is they make this weird shaped bottle to look so big. I laughed.

I have been "stashing" half of my savings and have saved $237 since the week after Thanksgiving. It takes me about 30 minutes to organize my weekly coupons now, but it is well worth it. There are only two of us, but we have a large extended family that is often around, so having some of these things on hand make complete sense. We live in a town of 600, so I don't do the bulk of my shopping here, but save until I get to a larger city 20 miles away. I was so ignorant about how to do it, but then took a class with a couple of my dgd's and saw I didn't have any idea what I was missing. I have been able to not only save a conciderable amount for us, but give some coupons to others, including the military which takes even expired coupons overseas. If I get freebies or really good deals on things like diapers, I take the excess to the shelters. It isn't for everyone, but is for many, with the economy being so tough for families these days.