The Exhilaration of "Extreme Couponing?"

Yesterday, I finally did it. I watched "Extreme Couponing." In my defense, I was fighting a nasty cold that left me with little energy to do much else. So I lay there half conscious listening to the narrator as he introduced the "Double Saving Divas," a pair of ebullient twins from Chicago, who have couponing down to an art form. I watched them on their birthday cashing in on every type of free birthday meal, ice cream, and jewelry they could. With a modest budget for the day, they cashed in big time. I saw their "stockpile" which included shelves of diapers....for the babies they do not have.

At moments, I was thoroughly hooked, and felt a miracle curing of my cold due to all the excitement. I watched a woman shopping for a family of seven, and a woman who began couponing after her husband temporarily lost a job, as well as a man making 1,000 care packages for the troops. Their rationales seemed reasonable enough. And watching the numbers on grocery bills drop from over $1000 to less than $50 is truly exciting. At one point, one man's stack of coupons was misplaced, and he went roughly $12 over budget. But lo and behold, the cashier found them, and I silently cheered, as he achieved his goal. A few parts were downright nail biting, as I watched the numbers drop lower and lower...but will they drop low enough, I wondered?

While a fascinating show indeed, I worry that perhaps the whole story is not being told. Is there something compulsive about this behavior, or at least marginally unhealthy? Why is a man buying up dozens of women's deodorant? Just because it's free, does it mean we must have it? I think one woman purchased about 70 bottles of mustard, even though her husband doesn't even like mustard. Sure, it's non-perishable, but what are you going to do with all that mustard?

One of the double divas said she saw her stockpile as being analogous to having money in the bank. One of the gentlemen rationalized his couponing by saying he was worried about losing his job. But some of these extreme couponers talked about spending 15-20 hours on this task. That is a part-time job! Wouldn't it technically be more efficacious to spend this painstaking level of attention to detail to one's actual job? The filing systems, alphabetized grocery lists, and other strategies these shoppers had were truly impressive.

Though the show is intriguing, I wonder if there is also something sad about this. I'm not a licensed clinician and in no way claim to be. I do not advocate blind "diagnosis" off on anything shown on television programs, and do not intend to in any way. I wonder though if I'm the only one who sees possible touches of addiction, obsession, compulsion, and perhaps even hoarding tendencies to some of this behavior. At the very least, I am comfortable to say it seems unhealthy. Hence, I ask this: Is extreme couponing really something that should be celebrated?