OK...never thought of stealing these until I watched Extreme Couponing

I have to say we have taken the coupon inserts from a for sale house two doors down. Yes, they aren’t used...but lady, come on, this is ridiculus. And I’ve seen Extreme Couponing before and they have never stolen people’s coupons.

Frugality’s spread leads to coupon thievery

BOISE, Idaho — Value-conscious shoppers are snapping up newspaper inserts and heading to local retailers to get hot deals and cut spending for their households.

But last month, after staffers noticed all the ads from an Idaho Statesman newspaper rack had been taken from a stack of Sunday papers — without being paid for — Don Waters, sales manager for single- copy sales, set up a stakeout at a Boise restaurant.

The stakeout revealed a woman systematically taking all of the pre-printed advertisements and coupons from the box. She had paid for a single paper.

“She said people just throw them away,” Waters said.

He told her that her actions amounted to theft, and the St atesman filed a police report. The value of coupons in a Sunday edition ranges from $300 to $1,000, Statesman circulation director Frank Peak said.

Peak ties the rise in coupon interest and newspaper theft to the show Extreme Couponing, which started airing this year on the cable channel TLC.

Two well-known national couponing bloggers hail from the Boise area: A Thrifty Mom and Fabulessly Frugal.

Fabulessly Frugal co-owner Cathy Yoder, whose blog is favored by thrift-minded shoppers in the Northwest, Texas, California and New York, said couponers shouldn’t learn their ethics from the TLC program.

Yoder said she has heard stories from people who drive around taking newspapers from driveways. She decries extreme couponers who clear store shelves.

“I think there were people who did it beforehand, but it’s been heightened,” Yoder said. “People think they have to keep up with the Extreme Couponing thing. It’s not normal, it is not reality. They just did it for the show, for the hype. It is obnoxious.”