I have watched the "TLC Extreme Cheapskates" and some of the things I have seen, either the show is rigged or these people really, really go to extremes to save money..... I should mention I am frugal but the methods they use are disgusting.

Let's take todays episode: Guy lives in apartment, no furniture, he doesn't believe he should buy furniture... (okay....) but he takes shipping peanuts and puts them underneath 2x4's to make a bed. (umm..alright) but where I draw the line, he digs into dumpsters, wet, nasty bags of trash, pulls the lobster tails (empty of lobster of course) out of wet garbage bags with who only knows what else is in that bag and whatever else looks good in the trash refuse and takes it/the tails home, boils them, adds cans of tuna fish at 59 cents to make Lobster Thermadore.

He takes a shower at the park/beach with those outdoor spigots (he lives in an modern apartment with a shower) and he of course collects free soaps, mustard, etc. (I admit I have a few of the mustard packs) but THEN he serves this dumpster food to people, (he waits until they swallow it and then he informs them it came out of a trash dumpster) he tells them he finds partially empty bottles of wine, he pours the half-drank wine into a big vat of sorts, makes glasses of wine from all the wine bottles he finds in dumpsters and he encourages his students to eat the food, after they bite into the food, he TELLS them he got the food out of dumpsters and cooked it.

I should mention he is not a school teacher but rather teaches cooking classes to adults and everything he gets from the dumpster goes into his cooking classes. He also does not believe in buying a whisk but instead takes a hanger and twists it into a whisk and uses that in his class.

So, is this show rigged or are these people serious? Some reviews say they saw some of the "friends" on other shows and that they stage this whole thing for it's outrageousness!

Sounds like something my brother in law would do. My husband's brother makes a little hobby out of getting 2 ply toilet tissue and separating it into 2 separate rolls. Of course the other "rule" is that you are then not allowed to use more than 4 squares at a time.

Sounds pretty much like an illness. anything taken to an extreme like that can't be for the sane. How one gets over taking food from the dumpster is what I don't understand. Obviously if you were desperate and starving, you would probably get over it easily but just because you don't want to spend money? Yech. Do his poor students know what they are cooking with? Is dumpster a cuisine?!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2015 08:32PM by ShopSouthTexas.

I think they are either mentally ill or there is something really wrong with their thinking. The show is not about saving money, more along the lines of "My Strange Addiction". I like the show for that reason, but not to learn how to save money.

I used to have a friend who was something similar. She once served me toast and jam. The layer of jam was as thin as a piece of Saran wrap. I didn't know her well then so didn't say anything. I thought she might be running out of it. Another time she served me pasta which had about a tablespoon of meat in it. No sauce. She isn't my friend anymore. She has plenty of money but has a sick way of thinking about it.

The grossest episode was the large family that doesn't buy toilet paper. They use squares of cloth, then put them in a bin beside the toilet. Then they wash the squares. I think the cost of washing would exceed the cost of toilet paper, and the bathroom must stink.

@mistry wrote:

The grossest episode was the large family that doesn't buy toilet paper. They use squares of cloth, then put them in a bin beside the toilet. Then they wash the squares. I think the cost of washing would exceed the cost of toilet paper, and the bathroom must stink.

I read somewhere about the cloth toilet paper. It's called Family Cloth or something like that and I couldn't understand why they felt this was the place to save. I guess it brings families closer together?! I think my husband would have me committed for suggesting it!!

Some are mentally ill. I did read that a lot of the Extreme Cheapskates is exaggerated for ratings, and I believe that. TLC is known for that kind of stuff.

I have a relative who I believe is mentally ill. He is a heart surgeon who makes a boatload of money, but at Christmas will give out expired cans of soup and used clothing. He will pay a quarter for pair of socks at a thrift shop and give them as a birthday gift. I've seen him eat bananas while walking through Publix and not pay for them. It's one thing to be thrifty, it's another thing to be downright cheap. He brings it to a whole new level.

How old are these people? If they survived the Great Depression, they may be locked into an extreme poverty mindset.

They are not old.

Oooooooohhhh... I see.....

The one and only show I saw of that was of a lady who was early 30's (definitely not old enough to see the Great Depression). She would dumpster dive for food and then serve it to guests. I would think that if they came down with e coli or some other dreaded disease from eating food that has been out too long that their hospital and other medical bills would probably offset everything they have saved thus far and then some.

@kimmiemae wrote:

The one and only show I saw of that was of a lady who was early 30's (definitely not old enough to see the Great Depression). She would dumpster dive for food and then serve it to guests. I would think that if they came down with e coli or some other dreaded disease from eating food that has been out too long that their hospital and other medical bills would probably offset everything they have saved thus far and then some.

Yes, she lived in New York and slept on a mattress pad on the floor that she had found while dumpster diving. She didn't use toilet paper but instead used a hose to wash herself off. She had one pair of shorts that she wore the elastic out so she used paper clips to hold the shorts together.

Another gross one was the woman who refused to use a toilet (didn't want to spend money flushing) so she peed in a big jug and saved it up until she dumped it in her garden. She kept the jug in her bathroom. Her boyfriend moved in with her and she wanted him to use a pee-jug too.

The problem with their "lifestyle" for me is that I have a weak stomach. ...I could not use wipe cloths that you use over and over, with poo washed out and re-used. This is not the 1800's... where they likely "did" have to do that (not sure when toilet paper was invented..) "but" some of this stuff they do is just sick!

I remember the pee jug show, the show where the lady lived in New York and had the giant baggy pants. I seriously wonder though, this reminds me of the hoarder disease. There is a reason they do this. I don't know what it's called. But "dumpster dinner" is not my style!

As one poster suggested: If you were seriously starving to death and near the pearly gates door and you had to resort to this, then I guess I can see it...But not someone who has an expensive New York apartment or lives a modest income.

Completely rigged. Also, many of their "savings" tips simply pass the cost on to someone else. Additionally, penny-wise, pound-foolish comes to mind, like the woman cooking lasagna in her dishwasher.

Same with the couponing show. It's been exposed as bogus, with store owners making deals for coupon-use and fraudulent coupons being printed. It's possible to save big LEGALLY, but the people on this show weren't doing so.

Yup. I remember now. I couldn't watch the show after that because it grossed me out too much.

@DareWright wrote:

@kimmiemae wrote:

The one and only show I saw of that was of a lady who was early 30's (definitely not old enough to see the Great Depression). She would dumpster dive for food and then serve it to guests. I would think that if they came down with e coli or some other dreaded disease from eating food that has been out too long that their hospital and other medical bills would probably offset everything they have saved thus far and then some.

Yes, she lived in New York and slept on a mattress pad on the floor that she had found while dumpster diving. She didn't use toilet paper but instead used a hose to wash herself off. She had one pair of shorts that she wore the elastic out so she used paper clips to hold the shorts together.

Another gross one was the woman who refused to use a toilet (didn't want to spend money flushing) so she peed in a big jug and saved it up until she dumped it in her garden. She kept the jug in her bathroom. Her boyfriend moved in with her and she wanted him to use a pee-jug too.

@PasswordNotFound wrote:

Completely rigged. Also, many of their "savings" tips simply pass the cost on to someone else. Additionally, penny-wise, pound-foolish comes to mind, like the woman cooking lasagna in her dishwasher.

Same with the couponing show. It's been exposed as bogus, with store owners making deals for coupon-use and fraudulent coupons being printed. It's possible to save big LEGALLY, but the people on this show weren't doing so.

Actually, you can cook things in your car, on/in the engine, wrapping baked potatoes in foil (never did these things but heard people cook under their hood)...

The "extreme coupon show" irks me to no end. Talk about obsession! Their "pride" is a warehouse full of stuff. I hope they eliminate a lot of this because it has gotten ridiculous. I used to use coupons when my kids were little and did pretty well but did not have a garage full of 600 jars of mustard... (I had 3 jars)...

I think they should STOP the madness of these people wiping everything off the shelf in their endeavors. What about the regular customer who wants a sale item? They should have more respect for the other customers and put some signs up restricting more than 3 deodorants w/ coupons, for example. When I asked recently about coupons (part of my grocery shop) they only double 50 cents. They only allow up to $10 worth of groceries to be couponed.

No more: 3 different coupons to get each item free that they double/triple and then walk out with 6 carts of groceries.

I saw a couponing show where a woman got something like 100 bottles of Tylenol for free... How much Tylenol can one person or family use before it's expired? Same goes for the pallets and pallets of cereal?! Toilet paper and paper towels makes much more sense.
I did like the lady with a teenage son who hosted his friends after school everyday to help themselves to the freezer crap she was able to store for them for pennies. They will eat that garbage anyway so might as well gift it to them and take strain off of their parents!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2015 07:29PM by ShopSouthTexas.

The couponing show irritated me too. I do quite a bit of it myself, but follow "ethical couponing" practices. Many times the show depicted using a coupon issued for a particular item, but then (through someone decoding the bar code on the coupon) actually used for a different item. I think once it was a high-value laundry detergent coupon used on a tube of toothpaste- depending how it's programmed some coupons do actually work on an unintended product. As already stated, some stores changed their coupon policy just for that show's transaction, so it would never be a shopping trip that anyone else could do anyway. The ethical way to do it is is to get about 3 months' worth of an item (for us, really only 3-6 usually), and remember that there will always be another sale! When that comes, we donate whatever was leftover from the last deal. And our house does not become a warehouse of expired items!

And I saw the cheapskates show once or twice, but YUCK!

There was only one show that did not irk me as much. The lady did get pallets and cases of things, but she took them to the homeless shelter and her church for the needy.

I though that was the Extreme Couponing show?

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

This is not the 1800's... where they likely "did" have to do that (not sure when toilet paper was invented..) "but" some of this stuff they do is just sick!

[\quote]

In the 1800's they did use heavy cloths for women when they had their "monthly" that was then washed and reused. Sort of like an adult cloth diaper. But for toilet paper they used corn cobs. At least in the earlier half of the century.

Where I draw the line is when it gets to the level that your hygiene is being compromised and you are literally living in filth, it's an illness of some sort. Only sick people and animals voluntarily live in unclean spaces or neglect to care for themselves.

Animals rarely volunteer to live in unclean spaces. They have more sense.

I think people are getting confused between the coupon shows, hoarding shows, and cheapskate shows...

@JASFLALMT wrote:

I think people are getting confused between the coupon shows, hoarding shows, and cheapskate shows...

Yes. It is easy to get these shows confused, as they all involve some level of mental illness.

Hmm, I am not sure that all of the couponers are really mentally ill, though some maybe a little OCD. Weirdly enough, hoarders are considered obsessive compulsive from a psychological standpoint. I did a term paper on it when I took psychology in college. I would have never guessed that before I did the research for my paper.

I can see some taking it to extremes while others have it under control. That's probably the difference between mental illness and just someone stocking up/ saving money/ being quirky.

I love the people who get hundreds of dollars worth of groceries for under $10 and donate the whole lot to a church or food bank. That's awesome.

Some of the couponers are definitely what I would classify as mentally ill. I saw one where a lady had like 100 boxes of cat food and didn't even have a cat. She didn't donate them either. What is the point? I guess they feel like they are somehow winning and that it's a game. Very strange.

I always just assumed that the crazy coupon and crazy cheapskates shows were faked (or, at least highly exaggerated). I assume that most reality shows I see are not actual reality. I read somewhere that the show I used to watch all the time (and still do sometimes), House Hunters on HGTV, is fake. They find someone who just closed escrow on a house, and have them "tour" their house again talking about all the things they like and dislike. Then they do the same with 2 other houses (which may or may not even be on the market), then they "pick" the house they actually already bought.

That sort of crushed my world for awhile. I mean, how much harder would it be to follow someone around who wants to buy a house? But then I realized... I spent a long time looking at houses. Months. And what if the crew wasn't around when they saw the house they wanted to buy for the first time? It makes way more sense from a filming standpoint to do it the way they do it.

So now I just assume everything on TV is fake and made easier to film, and more interesting. You are a crazy cheapskate who wears an old pair of shorts that are too big? You also don't flush the toilet every time you pee? Great! What if instead you saved money by using a jar for your urine? You are so cheap that you sometimes pull recently expired food out of the supermarket dumpster? Fantastic, but it would make way better TV if you had a dinner party and served your dumpster cuisine to some friends. We'll set up the dumpster so that it looks really gross, too. You refuse to buy anything that you can't get a good discount on with coupons? Great! Let's work with a local store to get them to accept a bunch of coupons outside of their normal policy so you can have a huge score for the camera.

Hoarders is the one show that I always assume is pretty close to the truth. Even so, I'm sure they sometimes exaggerate the deadlines the hoarders have to clean up by or exaggerate the severity of the stakes to make more drama.

Wow! Sorry for the manifesto on Reality TV

Just like those Storage War shows. They ALWAYS buy unseen junk and then they find a golden treasure buried inside a dusty box. Would you bid $600 on a shed when you could not see what was inside those boxes?

I don't think Hoarders is truthful either. Why does every house have 7 foot high piles of junk and furniture turned over with maggots and rats running around? I don't think "all" hoarders are disorganized to that degree. I remember the show where the lady let her dogs poo in the bathtub.

I knew a lady who was a garage sale junkie. She had to build on her house to store it all. "But" everything was on racks, boxes, shelves, closets.

I just don't feel all the hoarder shows are being that honest. My stomach turns when I see the condition of those houses. WHY do none of these people have someone who keeps them in "check" BEFORE their house looks like the city dump?

I've been watching Hoarders lately. It makes me feel like my house is sparkling
I do wonder how many of the hoarders are actually rehabilitated. It seems like most of them would go back to their old ways within a year.

I too heard about House Hunters being staged. My coworker was on Property Virgins once. She told me some stories about it and how staged it was. Pretty interesting.