When I first saw the title of TLC’s new show, Extreme Couponing, I scoffed at the sheer boredom it would surely provide. What’s next? Extreme Scrapbooking? Extreme Quilting?

But when I passed it while flipping stations three weeks ago, I got sucked in — not because these shrewd shoppers know how to save hundreds of dollars at a time, but because calling them Extreme is putting it mildly.

We’ll give you a few examples:

1. While these folks are excellent at saving money, the majority of them hoard (or as they call it, “stockpile”) food and household products. One week, a guy had an entire bedroom dedicated to his thousands of tubes of toothpaste. A set of single, childless twins had already accumulated 4,000 diapers because someday, they might need them. Another woman had 408 razors among her tens of thousands of items.

2. Last week, a 24-year-old North Carolina woman admitted spending 60 HOURS PER WEEK couponing, and has an executive planner where she meticulously carves out how she’ll spend her 10-11 hour days. Part of her time is spent dumpster diving for other people’s discarded coupon inserts. The show’s narrator said that because of the time she spends couponing, “she rarely has time to socialize.” She did bring a $1044 grocery bill down to $21, but what fun is saving money if you don’t have time to enjoy it?

3. Another smart shopper kept track of vacant homes in her neighborhood, so that she could go take their coupons from their driveways each week. “I think about coupons from sun up to sun down,” she said. God help her husband. In addition, she had such a huge stockpile of items that all the teenage boys in the neighborhood came to her house to eat … and to take stuff home. Said one neighbor kid: “I’ve never seen anyone with this much food. If there’s some sort of nuclear accident, I’m coming here.”

4. Last night, a couple finally put their mad couponing skills to good use. Instead of proudly and selfishly hoarding things they could not possibly use before they expired, they donated some 21,000 food, clothing and household items — all of which they’d gotten absolutely free using coupons — to various charities. And that’s what they plan to keep doing.

We’re hoping some of these other coupon crazies got a bright idea from the above couple, but they were probably too busy making room in the pantry for their 48 new bags of croutons and 12 bottles of Vitamin Water to pay attention to the television.

Extreme Couponing airs at 9:30 Wednesdays on TLC.