Extreme Couponing...

Okay - I am back people.... I don't know if you have been watching the Extreme Couponing show. It is quite comical. I have recently been couponing and I have saved quite a bit of money. However, I refuse to buy items my family doesn't need even if it is free. Ok, so if you haven't seen the show, I must describe it to you. Basically, they follow a typical shopping trip for an extreme couponer. They show their stockpile of years worth of groceries and everyone oooh's and aaah's. The person usually has 10 grocery carts full and has shopped for hours before getting to the cashier where they are there for another few hours. It is really quite fascinating to see them get a $1000k bill down to like 20 dollars. I sat there for the longest time trying to figure out how some of these less than competent people could do this coupon thing and I can't. I am a pretty smart woman. I surely could do better than they could. Then I started doing research and finding out how they do this crazy couponing. Then I started really watching the show. If you have seen the show, have you seen what they buy?! I don't need 126 pkgs of tic tacs. I don't need 56 three musketeers bars. One lady bought 42 containers of yogurt. I am all for being regular but even I have my limit as to how much yogurt I can eat before it would go bad in the fridge. Do we need 53 bottles of spray glade? The more I sat and watched the show, the more I realized how crazy this whole thing was. The women would justify that they were just providing for their families and not hoarding. I swore if I ever had an over abundance of something that I would donate it to the food pantry. There are so many people in need. It is such a control thing. These people were freaking out if they were down to only 3 months of a supply of toilet paper. They spend 30 hours a week between collecting coupons (sometimes in dumpsters), cutting coupons, and planning out shopping trips - not to mention the actual shopping trips. They would spend 8-10 hours at a store. Can you imagine how effective we would be if we worked that hard trying to share our hearts with other people? Can you imagine the impact we would have if we got our heads out of our computers and spent that 30-40 hours focusing on people around us? If we would only take that same time and spend it in the Word - imagine the answers we would get from God. Wow... I think this scripture speaks for itself: Luke 12:20-21 "Just then God showed up and said, 'Fool!' Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods- who gets it?' "That's what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not God"