I Suck At Got2B Fat-tastic

During my hiatus from blogging, I decided to get into the seedy underworld known as couponing. My fancy started shortly after watching TLC's Extreme Couponing. Naturally with my curious nature, I wondered how difficult it would be to do something like that here in New England.

For those who have never seen the show, each week Extreme Couponing chronicles a couple of people who are considered "extreme couponers" because they can make purchases of thousands of retail items for over 90% off the price. Watching it being done on the show is simply amazing.

Granted, most of the people on the show seem to be hoarders or have some sort of compulsiveness because they have these stockpiles chock full of items that they themselves claim that they do not or will not use. For example, one woman has thousands of baby diapers in her stockpile, yet does not have a baby. Weird.

Regardless, I wanted to see about the feasibility of getting items for over 90% off the price here in New England. The major grocery stores here in Massachusetts seem to only double coupons under $1 up to a certain number. Once that limit is reached, the coupon is taken for face value.

Now, I'll admit. I am quite lazy. The majority of the extreme couponers featured on the television show find ways to get the weekly insert of coupons in the Sunday paper. To acquire these coupon inserts, they have gone dumpster diving, rummaged through other people's recycle bins, asked other people, etc. Like I said, I'm lazy. I don't want to do any of that. Instead, I'll stick to using the good o' internet for online coupons. (Of course, if someone were to offer me these coupon inserts, I would gladly accept them.)

Consequently, my chances for saving big on items seem pretty bleak. Today, however, I was able to get something close to free. All I had to pay was the state tax on the item. That item: Got2B Fat-tastic Mousse. Now, I suck at Got2B Fat-tastic. I have never used the item, probably because I have very little hair to style. And as luck would have it, Rite Aid was advertising the mousse this week as an item eligible for a full rebate.

Despite the fact that I never used (and probably will never use) the product due to my lack of hair, I decided to get the mousse. That doesn't make sense, right? But, I can now see why extreme couponers buy things they don't need. It seems to me that the act of buying these items are merely a means to an end. In my case, the reason why I purchased something I will never use is because of the fact that I would get a rebate of cold hard cash on the item.

That still doesn't make much sense until you discover that the method I had used to pay for the item in the first place was a coupon. Using a carry over from a previous week, I had accumulated enough Rite Aid +UP rewards (it's version of the store loyalty saving program) to pay for the mousse. So essentially, I was converting these additional rewards/coupons over into money. That was my reasoning.

Anyway, I was quite happy with my couponing excursion! Granted, it's not the greatest deal, but it's a step toward figuring out this whole couponing thing of getting items over 90% off. Baby steps.

By the way, if anyone is interested, they are always welcomed to the mousse.