Five ETFs For Fans Of Extreme Couponing

As he has previously stated, the ETF Professor is not the biggest fan of reality television. He doesn't care about what Khloe and Lamar are up to and he doesn't care about what city Kourtney and Kim are currently "taking." However, the Professor does enjoy some reality TV as mentioned earlier this year. And now he has a new reality TV vice to add to the list: TLC's hit show "Extreme Couponing." Arguably, if you've seen one episode of "Extreme Couponing," you've seen them all. Basically, ordinary folks try to get hundreds of dollars, sometimes more than $1,000, worth of groceries for pennies using massive amounts of coupons. Sometimes they walk away only paying the sales tax while others get the stores to pay them. Either way, some of the folks that have appeared in episodes of "Extreme Couponing" have stockpiles of goods that last years, not weeks or months. Some do their extreme couponing in the name of charity, to which we say that's an excellent thing to do. And then there was the episode where a teenage boy bitten by the extreme couponing bug had amassed a massive stockpile of feminine protection and that's just weird. The good thing is we can build a list of some decent ETFs relevant to the show. Here they are: Five ETFs for "Extreme Couponing." Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR XLP: Let's just start with a bang. The Consumer Staples Select Sector SPDR is THE extreme couponing ETF. Dow components Procter & Gamble PG, Wal-Mart WMT and Kraft KO account for about 28% of XLP's weight. Figure it this way: Nearly all of XLP's lineup features companies who make products you might just want coupons and the owners of some of the stores where you can go to use those coupons. On the year, XLP is up roughly 15% year-to-date and is curently trading just pennies off its 52-week high. SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average DIA: Yeah, this would seem to be an obvious choice, but consider the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average a coupon play with some diversity. In addition to P&G, Wal-Mart and Kraft, the Dow is home to other coupon-applicable stocks such as 3M MMM, Coca-Cola KO and Johnson & Johnson JNJ. Excluding 3M, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway BRK BRK-B) owns stakes in all of the stocks we mentioned thus far. PowerShares Dynamic Food & Beverage Portfolio PBJ: In addition to being home to Coca-Cola, PBJ is home to coupon-worthy names such as General Mills GIS, Heinz HNZ and Hershey HSY. Not only that, but Kroger KR and Safeway SWY account for almost 8% of the ETF's weight and those are places to use your coupons. PowerShares S&P SmallCap Consumer Staples ETF PSCC: We already touted PSCC as as a worthy idea for a bounce in small-caps next year. It's a coupon play, too. The ETF's constituents aren't as widely known as XLP's, but chances are if you coupon, you've clipped a few coupons for good made by Hain Celestial HAIN and Diamond Foods DMND. Both are PSCC's holdings. The ETF is up 7% year-to-date. FocusShares Morningstar Consumer Defensive ETF FCD: The FocusShares Morningstar Consumer Defensive ETF doesn't get a lot of press and its top-10 holdings look a lot like what you'll find with XLP. There is a difference though and it fits perfectly with the saving money theme. XLP has an expense ratio of 0.2% while FCD's is 0.19%.