Extreme Couponing

I like to watch TV, but typically only a few specific programs.  I rarely sit and watch just whatever is on but that's something Brian likes to do.  Last night after I put Julian to bed, I came out to the living room and Brian was channel-surfing.  He stopped on TLC's program "Extreme Couponing."  I'd never seen this show before but I used to watch TLC quite a bit and I'm familiar with a lot of their other programs.  This show was both amazing and appalling to me at the same time.  Basically, the people on the show spend the majority of their lives finding coupons and ways to double and triple them so that they pay little or nothing for groceries and other items.  The first family we saw had 5 kids so they needed a lot of groceries.  They got about $1100 worth of stuff for less than $45.  Wow!  To me, that was impressive.  But I was not impressed by the products they were buying.  This happened with all the people I saw featured on the show.  We ended up watching almost 3 episodes, so saw 5 different families. 

These people saved thousands of dollars and had enormous stockpiles of stuff (that would last them several years) but most of the stuff they bought were things that I don't use or want in my home.  Okay, I'm picky about the food I eat and the toiletries and cleaning products that I use.  This doesn't mean that I need name brand products and have to buy expensive stuff but I care about what's in my food and what chemicals I use on my body and in my home. 

One of the guys on the show had 1000 bottles of body wash in his garage and bought 60 bottles of hand soap in one shopping trip.  Apparently he doesn't care about the toxic chemicals in those products that are harmful to his health and the environment.  It just disgusted me.  Also,  pretty much everything these people purchased was packaged in plastic and I'm sure most of it was going to end up in the trash. 

To me, most of these extreme couponers are just wasting their time (up to 5 hours a day) finding coupons for things that are wasteful and even harmful to them and especially to the environment.