Review of TLC's Extreme Couponing Season 2 Sneak Peek Episode

I was surprised to find out yesterday that TLC was going to air a sneak peek episode for season two of their hit television show Extreme Couponing. My guess is after the teaser clip featuring a woman named Michelle, who claims to be the "Extreme North Carolina Coupon Queen" on her Facebook page, clearing shelves while laughing about it didn't go over as well as the show intended. They had to do something to soften the negative and sometimes downright nasty comments from angry couponers all around the country. That's right. If you were using coupons before this show aired, more than likely you are not a fan of the show.

It appears that TLC has made a few changes for season two. The first change I noticed is that they have added a disclaimer at the beginning of the episode. Another change is that we didn't see someone walking out of a store paying a penny or two for their groceries. The amounts paid at checkout were a bit more realistic but there were still common sense mistakes made that a seasoned couponer knows can not be done in a normal, everyday transaction at your local grocery store. If you watched the show, you witnessed another possible case of coupon fraud committed right in front of your eyes, on camera and the narrator even briefly explained it.

The first couponer to be featured on this episode was Judy. I liked Judy! She seemed sweet and sincere and was shopping for a family with two kids. Their goal was to keep it below $150.00 and in the end, they were successful with the transaction ending at $79.49 which was a savings of 88%.

Judy was shown buying things like marinade, canned mac & meatballs, deodorant and body wash, a LOT of lemonade, 170 beverages and 30 bottles of condiments. Hopefully there was some meat and produce in that transaction for the family too but if there was, it wasn't shown anywhere that I noticed in the show.

There was one red flag in Judy's transaction that was obvious to seasoned couponers. She purchased 10 Old Spice deodorants using 50 cent off coupons (doubles to $1.00 at her store) then turned around and used more coupons for buy one Old Spice deodorant, get a body wash free. Old Spice is a P&G product and P&G's coupons read: Limit one coupon per purchase of products and quantities stated. Limit of 4 like coupons in same shopping trip.

What that translates to in coupon verbiage is that you can only use one coupon per product you purchase. She used two on the deodorants. One for the $ off then another one for getting the body wash free. She also used 10 which another no no because the coupon states 4 like coupons in same shopping trip. You will NOT be able to get away with using this combination at your store because it is written right on the coupon that you can't do it.

Everyone has a dream and Faatima's dream is to move her family from Detroit Michigan to Hawaii by saving enough money with coupons to do that. On the show, it appeared that it was her, her husband and teenage daughter in the family. Faatima was a firecracker on the show and I really enjoyed her personality and determination.

At the time this episode of Extreme Couponing was taped, she had a two room stockpile that had things like 3,000 bottles of water, 80 bottles of laundry detergent, 200 units of bath soap and 300 dental flosses. In my opinion, that's a bit over the top but to each their own.

I understand the dental floss because of the $2.50 off two Reach Dental Floss that came out earlier this year. Since they are 88 cents each at Walmart, for every two that you purchased you ended up with 74 cents overage and for that number of dental flosses, she made $111.00 in overage by purchasing them.

During her shopping trip she purchased things like 200 bags of rice that were free after her coupons and 1,200 single serve boxes of cereal. The cereal was an interesting transaction because it ended up giving her $300.00 in overage that she was able to use to purchase things like meat and other items. The coupon that she used could have been one that was released just in her area because I'm in the same region (Indiana) and have not seen a cereal coupon without a minimal size requirement in a LONG time. That is how she was able to accomplish the overage.

I have to add here that I saw in a Facebook feed that she actually pre-ordered everything that she was wanting to purchase so she didn't clear the shelf and to ensure the store actually had everything that she wanted to buy. Kudos to her for NOT clearing the shelves. That's a nasty habit that we will actually see featured when episode one is aired on the 28th of September.

Faatima and her family spent over five hours in the store during their shopping trip. That a LONG time to shop. I didn't catch her exact transaction total but do remember it being approximately $1,200.00 which is a pretty hefty grocery bill. The transaction was a combination of processed junk food and the meat that she purchased with her $300.00 overage and appeared to be a more accurate combination of items that a lot of people purchase in a transaction at the grocery store. Again, I don't remember what her total was (I'll do better next time!) but if I remember correctly, she was able to get the total down to below $100.00 which is extremely impressive.

Faatima is planning on shipping her stockpile to Hawaii when they are actually able to move. I sure hope that she won't be disappointed because Hawaii has some extremely strict rules as to what can be brought onto the island like that. The cost would be unbelievable so she may be better off starting over once she gets there.

Oh I am still skeptical of this show but I have to admit that I did enjoy the sneak peek episode last night. There was a different vibe than what they had last season and it seemed a bit more realistic but they aren't quite there yet. The disclaimer at the beginning was a nice addition but they should have said that Faatima pre-ordered her items that she purchased.

Episode one for season two will be aired on September 28th and from the sneak preview of that episode, it really looks like there will be more of the same from last season. Let's just hope that new couponers don't look at this show and expect to be able to duplicate it at their local grocery stores. Extreme Couponing is NOT reality television because the transactions aren't real. They can't be duplicated in the majority of the country and cause confusion for anyone learning how to coupon.

It's great entertainment and good for conversation but that's about as far as the accuracy of this show goes.