Why I don't Extreme Coupon

Have you watched the show Extreme Couponing on TLC? I have, several times. Jon and I watched it and we were both amazed at the amount of money someone could save on groceries. But I still won't extreme coupon.

The first reason is the space issue- we don't have the room for the type of stockpiles some of theses families have. Seriously, their stockpiles take up space equal to half (or more) of the square footage of my house (I have no basement, a crawl space attic and my garage is now our playroom/office). So if I got rid of my furniture and confined us all to two bedrooms and the bathroom, maybe I could stockpile...not worth it.

Another reason I don't extreme coupon is because of overages. Have you noticed that on this show often the coupons' worth will total more than the actual cost of the item? And that extra money is then applied to the other groceries in the cart. Well, not all grocery stores offer that bonus. The two I use won't give overages. If your coupon's value is more than the cost of the item then the item is free, nothing more. I am not complaining about free, I love free. But the idea of buying things I may not need (or have space for) simply to have extra money towards other groceries isn't realistic for me.

A third reason is time. Yup, time. I don't have a lot of it. What little extra I have I try to put into this blog (and you can see how well that is going lately.) So if I were to put 30+ hours a week into couponing I would need to give up sleep. It doesn't make sense for me. The only way it would make sense for me to put 30+ hours a week into couponing is if I could quit my job. But I can't, plus my current job requires 10 hours a week of my time.


For some extreme couponing works. I use a simpler approach. I buy the weekly Sunday paper and clip my coupons. I use couponbug.com and swagbucks to print off other coupons. I stack my coupons against sale items. Doing just that I am able to save at least 30% off of my bill each week, often I save more. If I go to a store that offers their own coupons (like Target and BJ's) I am able to stack the manufacturers coupon with theirs and save even more.

Yes I could possibly save more if I put more time into the process. But for now this works for me.