Going To Extremes

This day sucks so far because of the constant drizzle outside that seems to continue FOREVER. BLECK! That's all I have to say about that. Let's move on and distract ourselves with some blogging. Shall we?

Last Sunday I watched the show Extreme Couponing for the first time, and was AMAZED. (FYI Apparently 'couponing' is not a word since it keeps underlining itself in red. Still, that doesn't stop them from using it in a show title.) The women on that show could get THOUSANDS of dollars worth of groceries for mere pennies or even for FREE! One woman got so much free stuff that she gave most of it to a food shelter and then made a mini store in her own house where her family could shop for free. Adopt me strange couponing lady!

As soon as the show was over I was all ready to run out the door and start couponing even though it was 10 o'clock at night. After all, I am a very organized person, I am good at planning things out, and I like getting things for free! But once I thought about it for a little bit, I realized couponing would not be a good activity for me for these reasons -

Number One: Couponing is a lot of work. Most of the women on the show spent at least 30 hours a week working on it. While I am not opposed to hard work, I'm not sure if I want couponing to be my full time job. I am a lousy boss. I would never crack down on myself for not getting something done.

Number Two: Couponing is complicated. One woman had to plan out 18 DIFFERENT TRANSACTIONS at the store to get the prices she wanted. She also had a detailed list of everything she would buy and how all that would fit into her monthly meal plans. It took her HOURS to go through the check-out. I salute her for her commitment, but I couldn't take on all that. While I love organization, I also love simplicity. I would never wish to plan out what I would eat for an entire month and then search through thousands of coupons to find the best prices for what I want.

Number Three: A necessity of couponing seems to be buying in bulk. I'm not sure why that is other than you want to get the most of something that you can for a good deal. But I only feed Mike and myself and the occasional friend. If I went couponing, most of the stuff I got would go bad before I ever used it. I could give it away, but I'm not THAT committed to charity work. Also, you can't be picky about what you want to buy when couponing. The coupons dictate the majority of what you get. I like to stick with certain brands and products that I like. If I couponed, I wouldn't be able to do that.

Number Four: Couponing just seems wrong. Let me explain. I have no problem with getting free stuff. But the fact that it is possible to get all your groceries for free bothers me. It means that grocery stores are being tricky, and if you can be more tricky you can beat the system. I don't like trickiness. I value honesty and openness in myself and others. We shouldn't need to compete to see who can be more tricky. If there were fair prices for everyone, there would be no couponing. I guess that's just how it is with capitalism, but I can still dream of a better world, right?

So there you have it. No extreme couponing in my blood.......although that mini store of my own is very tempting.