Extreme Couponing = Insanity?

Everyone is trying to save money with the economy how it is, but some people are on a whole different level. Last night I watched a show on TLC about extreme couponing. I had read about it before but this just reinforced to me that this is both brilliant and insane. Extreme couponing is where you wait until a time when a particular item is on sale at the store and you also have coupons for it, whether they're from the internet, circulars, or dumpster diving. Then you buy that item using the coupon which essentially makes it free. You buy enough of that item so that you won't need to purchase it until it goes on sale again, which is generally every 3 months.

These people spend hours preparing for their shopping excursions. If you have the time and the tenacity, more power to you. They are getting thousands of dollars of food for practically nothing. I like to save a few dollars and I do clip coupons, but I just can't see myself going to this extreme (Jake says he can picture me doing this).

If you're interested in becoming an extreme couponer, howtoshopforfree is a good place to learn the ropes. Even if you don't want to be quite so extreme, she posts links to online coupon sites.

The thing about coupons is that a lot of times people get excited about the prospect of saving money and they use a coupon just because they have it. They end up purchasing something they normally wouldn't have, which means they just ended up spending extra money. I try really hard to only use coupons for things I would normally be purchasing anyway.

A lot of companies will mail you packets of coupons and free samples. Register here and here.