Interesting. I had thought one of the goals of Extreme Couponing was also to avoid unnecessary and excessive purchases.
Oh well. The idea of doing this doesn't sound too appealing. My free time has considerable value - to me, at least. I suspect that those who spend their time clipping and finding ways to use coupons probably feel differently.
And it isn't as if Extreme Couponing teaches people a good survival skill. If things get REALLY ugly, I suspect that great coupon offers will be among the things companies cut back on. Maybe someone here can show me evidence to the contrary.
But I *can* relate to the couponers. When I was young, my spare time didn't have much value. I was going to school and had a low paying job. I didn't have too much of a life and used to do things like keying hexadecimal operating system (MP/M) and language (forth!) listings into computers my buddies had made, and rigging my computer to auto-dial poll questions announced by the local news - when the results were likely to be interesting or funny:
I once forced Stan Atkinson, the NBC-affiliate news anchor, to announce at 11PM that, per the station's UNSCIENTIFIC poll, Sacramentans overwhelmingly thought David Duke's run for Congress was a good idea! I think the result was 80% to 20%... David Duke was a former Grand Poo-bear at the KKK. Wow - did Stan ever look miffed! I wish I could have recorded it! I think he said three times that the poll was UNSCIENTIFIC. KCRA permanently discontinued its telephone polls two weeks later and my fun ended.
So I *do* understand having nothing better to do with one's time. Fortunately, things have changed a little.
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