Couponing

Hey all, been away for a bit and just enjoying my summer...
Took a 3-week trip to Ottawa to visit family, and the weather is beautiful over there! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you guys. But it's so much nicer than cold, cold Vancouver =(.

And I broke my favourite Ray-Bans! Those things cost me like $150, and they were new too... Damn. Guess it's time to shop for a new pair.

Anyway, updates are in order!
Recently I saw an episode of Extreme Couponing on TLC and my mind was freaking blasted. Just.. blown away. Wow. Some woman walks out with $600 worth of stuff... And she walks out with $40 of store credit in hand (yes, she got PAID to take merchandise basically). In my mind, that begs two questions...

1) What kind of store would allow that? I guess you can say that the store actually doesn't mind, because they can and will redeem all of those coupons with the manufacturer for money. At least, that's how the manager explained it - he even seemed pleased with this one avid shopper. But seriously though, she took up like an hour of the cashier's time just scanning the damn coupons. Everyone around was crowding to watch the spectacle.

2) Who the hell needs that much stuff? I caught a glimpse of her grocery bill and shopping cart... For instance, she has enough men's deordorant to last at least 4 years by my estimate and daily usage. She could feed a family of 7 for a year, solely on Pringles. And what does she do with this stuff? She stockpiles it in her goddamn basement. That's just incredible, even built racks and stuff to display her prized "trophies". I mean seriously, why not donate them to the food bank or something, to people who actually need this stuff? Instead you're going to hoard it all and let it go to waste? Just utterly incroyable.

Anyway, I would love to take up on the sport (who wouldn't want to get paid cash to get groceries?). But these people are basically full-time employed when it comes to finding coupons. That's simply the type of commitment that I can't make, and not just because I'm a student... Because I have a life. And for those kind of hours, even at minimum wage I'm sure I could pull in that kind of money working a decent job.

Alas, Canada's couponing scene is not anything like that of the US. For one thing, noone here duplicates your coupons (i.e. some US retailers will double an outsider's coupon). Another thing, is many stores don't allow you to use multiple coupons on one item. And lastly, many stores will STRAIGHT UP deny "coupon stackers" as we call them here (the except to this, I believe, is London Drugs).

Go figure.