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Selling New York: I love to see the 7.5 million dollar little apartment that this person buys or the 23 million dollar penthouse this mysterious European family buys. I imagine people who actually live there would be even more enthralled with it, knowing the parts of the city and everything (Laurel, have you seen this show?)
Pregnant in Heels: I watched one episode and was hooked. It was the perfect reality TV combination of I-can't-believe-these-people-are-for-real + working-through-the-craziness-towards-something-uplifting-and-wrapping-it-up-with-a-nice-big-bow. A couple who pay for a focus group just to review their baby name choices? Intriguing craziness, love it!
Extreme Couponing: This is one I can't handle watching, but I can't turn my eyes from it. It's INSANE. 9 grocery carts full of food+ 2 hours at the checkout counter+ $1100 bill turned to $41 after coupons! I kid you not. Spending 4-6 hours a day on couponing! $555 worth of food but only pay $2.97! It scares me for some reason. It is a really scary show.
Why is it scary? Why does it chill me to watch this? Because these people are completely, totally addicted to couponing. The first lady I watched was crying out for help. She said a few times "I'm addicted to shopping and couponing" with tears in her eyes. Her husband clearly resents using every nook in their house for stuff she gets. I thought TLC would bring in a therapist or something and that was what the show would be about, but no. It was about her getting 9 grocery carts full of stuff for $41. $1800 worth of groceries for $8.50 after 2500 coupons....shudder. Some of the women didn't seem totally crazy and I think couponing is really great. But when it becomes all you can think about, when you are spending all your time doing it, when you are shoving your entire house to the brim with stuff, when you are surrounding your entire life with this one cause, when your loved ones are resenting it, that's called an addiction my friends.
Good TV though!
These shows sound interesting! We don't have cable anymore so I can't watch any of them but I do have to tell you, I started couponing! I saw the first show on TLC back in December and decided I was paying way too much for stuff I could get 50-90% or even free. I subscribed to the newspaper and started printing online coupons. Now I just use the site krazycouponlady.com to see what good deals are going on and make one trip a week to CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and Safeway to stock up. I don't get things I wouldn't normally use and I don't get things I don't need if I already have a bunch of it. I now have laundry detergent, deoderant, toothpaste, floss, excedrin, comtrex, baby soap/lotion to last me a year. Plus, tons more stuff I can't think of. I've been keeping track of my savings and I figure if I bought all these things over the next year at full price I would have spent about $700 more dollars. And that's just in the 3 months I've been couponing!!! Plus, I haven't been spending more than I normally do in a month because I am getting so much more for my money. My mindset has changed as well. I don't impulse buy as much because I know I can get that item so much cheaper by couponing. I'm a huge fan but I admit it can be out of control if you let it. I don't worry about shopping every sale and if I miss something I know that it will be available again later. The episode I saw had a lady missing events and stuff just to shop. Ridiculous. I estimate I spend about 2-3 hrs a week clipping and preparing and maybe 1-2 hrs shopping, which I would probably do anyway. I have a coupon binder and everything :)
ReplyDeleteWow, this comment is long.
That's awesome, and I have lots of friends here who do it. I really do think it's great to a normal person extent, you know? And I know it's something I'll start doing eventually. The extreme that the people do it on the show can be crazy, hope I don't offend all my couponing friends! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd the few times I've gone after a deal that my friends tell me about really does give you a high and it's so fun. Like getting 15 boxes of cereal for $5, I mean what's not to love? Or 4 boxes of capri sun for FREE. Those were good times.
ReplyDeleteWe cancelled our cable so I haven't seen the first two shows, however my Mom and I did catch an episode of extreme couponing one night. I think I saw the very episode you talk about. What got me is she was purchasing things that I would normally not buy. Does anyone really need THAT many bottles of Gatorade or 100s of candy bars?
ReplyDeleteI really like that first show. I haven't seen those other two shows but I'm sure I'd find the pregnant show fun. The one thing I hate about Selling New York is when the next show on is something like house hunters. You can't watch the nest show because now the normal houses look like dumps.
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