Extreme Couponing

So, yesterday there was a marathon on TV of that show, "Extreme Couponing," and I, of course, watched some of it. It was impressive to see how much stuff one could buy for practically free when one works at it.

The whole time I was watching the show I thought about how my Church has asked us to have a food storage and to plant a garden. As a recent college graduate with little money, it has been very hard to start either of those. In college I once accidently bought a box of oatmeal- it looked good in the store- and forever called that my food storage, although usually when I ran out of food and all I had left was the oatmeal I would just go hungry because, let's face it, oatmeal is disgusting. I finally gave it to a friend as a birthday present. I also did try to grow plants in college, although that as well was hard, as I lived in small apartment buildings with no place to grow a garden except inside. As I said, I did try to grow plants... but... they always died. I don't know what it is about me and my watering habits, but I always killed them- not on purpose, of course. For Christmas last year my roommate got me a little cactus, since I'm from the desert and Idaho... well... it mostly is covered in snow... To my surprise I have not killed the cactus yet, and it has grown to be very big! I am so excited about it, you have no idea.

Anyways, I have not been able to plant a garden because I currently do not have a place or the money for one. That also is why my food storage consists of... well, nothing right now. I currently have a box of cereal, some peanut butter and jelly, and pasta to keep me alive until I give in and spend more of my precious money. That's why this show really caught my attention. These people were able to buy so much for so little. They had tight budgets and yet were able to have food storage to fill their basements. As I watched the show I realized how much time and effort the people had to put in to get these deals. Extreme Couponing is like having a full time job.

When I worked retail in college I hated when these type of people came in- the extreme couponers, I mean. Know why? Because something always went wrong- the computer would freeze in the middle, the coupons wouldn't work right, the catalina would run out of paper, the coupons would be expired, the customers would become angry, and it would steal one of my cashiers for a good half hour and normally end up with the manager explaining to the customer that they were sorry for the inconvenience... It was a nightmare. Watching Extreme Couponing brought back all those memories. I know, spending $20 on a purchase that would normally cost $1000 is amazing. I would love to do that. But it is sooooooooo stressful for the store to handle that. I know, I know, it's their job, blah blah blah. I get that. But I also get that customers like that can be extremely rude. Like VERY rude if something goes wrong. They do not understand that it is not our fault that something went wrong, or that the coupon isn't working. Extreme Couponers can be the scariest customers.

So, having been on both sides of the fence- the poor college grad, and the store cashier, I am unsure what to do. I want to save money, obviously, but at the same time I do not want to be "that" customer- the one all the cashiers hope does not come to their line. I of course want to start couponing, but I am afraid that I will go to the extreme and sooner or later I will be the crazy woman on that show showing you my basement full of so much food it looks like you are at Walmart.