Extreme Couponing

I love TLC. Sometimes. Other times I mourn the loss of a channel that in the blink of a "Jon and Kate" went from Learning to Ohmigoodness-look-at-those-people. No matter, though. All of my high mindedness is forgotten when I switch on my favorites like: 19 (or howevermany) Kids and Counting or Little People, Big World or even Hoarders. Needless to say, once I saw the previews, Extreme Couponing was on my list of show to watch.
Even though the sound bites were interesting, I was more than a little skeptical. How fun could couponing really be? Would I be more than a little outraged by the crazy consumerism of it all?
Turns out I was a little wrong and a little right. But for those playing the home game, here's a little background.
The show follows the selected subjects from their homes to the grocery store on epic trips to save money. Holy cannoli, do they save. Granted, they have to spend the equivalent hours of a full time job, buy multiples of products based on some crazy coupon calculus, and generally leave all pride at the door, but these folks are paying ten bucks for hundreds or even a thousand dollars of groceries. In-fricking-sane.
Unfortunately, the majority of show was not exactly riveting enough to prevent me from texting, updating Facebook and attempting another three letter word in my Words with Friends app. I was not transfixed by the scenes of them cutting their coupons...literally speaking. But the money shot was mind boggling when the couponers bought an incredible amount of goods for pennies on the dollar. To see the savings was amazing and I felt a little thrill with them after the total was announced. But then you get the wide angle. Fifty-four containers of yogurt, fifty bottles of laundry detergent, one hundred and fifteen bottles of nighttime pain medicine. Amounts that are nearly impossible for anyone but an army to consume. Or maybe the Duggars. Either or. To be fair, some donated a portion their stock. But the gleam in each of their eyes about their "stockpiles" was unnerving. While I admired their very specialized mathematical skills, I'm not sure I can get behind such excessive consumption myself. I'm not sure that anyone, even a family of six, needs more than twelve bottles of hot sauce. I can't quite get behind that kind of consumerism On the other hand, in the shows I watched, most of the subjects were not financially well off and were on tight budgets. In order to put food on the table, they needed to save money. Is this just another method of being self sufficient? Or is there a false economy in there somewhere? Perhaps it is easy to sit in a place of privilege since I don't have to make those kinds of choices anymore.
I'm not sure I'll watch the show again. But it was, intentionally or not, food for thought.