Extreme Couponing

So, because I refuse to watch Cougar Town, I find myself watching Extreme Couponing--or rather, the last half of it.  I am of two minds on this show.

The thrifty side of me loves it.  I love getting good deals, and I love watching other people get good deals.  I love that they are, in a sense, beating the stores at their own game--stores play a lot of tricks to get you to believe something is a bargain when it isn't, and this tends to circumvent that by getting things for less-than-cost, free, or even having the store pay you.  Yeah, it takes a lot of time (most of the people profiled on the show spend 35+ hours per week just cutting/organising coupons), but usually the people doing it are stay-at-home parents of school-aged kids, so they have the time. 

But then I watch the show.  And the thing that jumps out at me the most is...sale hogs.  Are these bitches the reason why I can never find the super-on-sale stuff when I go to the grocery store?  This woman had crouton coupons that, when combined with a good sale, made it so that she got free croutons.  So she bought all the croutons--93 bags.  Look, I'm glad you're getting free croutons, but how many croutons can one person eat?!   What about other people who want some croutons?  Why not just get, say, 50 bags of croutons and let the rest of us have some?  It's not like you are getting paid to purchase the croutons, and even then, I still don't think you should take all of them.  There was another woman who had coupons for super-discounted painkillers, which basically ended up paying her $0.51 per box.  So she bought 112 (or rather, she tried to.  I don't know for sure because the dog decided he had to poo ASAP, and the pre-commercial teaser made it look like there was some sort of law--IMAGINE THAT--against buying a gazillion boxes of painkiller.), netting herself $51.  That woman, at least, donates most of what she gets for free, but...leave some for the rest of us.  This is why stores have limits on how many you can buy, ladies.

And yes, I know there are plenty of other downsides to this type of couponing--namely that the food is usually really crappy/processed, if they don't donate the excess it probably goes bad, etc.  But the sale hogging is what really jumped out at me.