17 Kids and Counting: "Cheaper by the Duggars"

Last week I speculated that this week's episode, "Cheaper by the Duggars," would feature such money saving tips as shopping at Aldi's and thrift stores, and getting TLC to build your house. Well, two out of three right isn't bad! After hearing how all the kids' shoes have fallen apart (one girl had covered the heels of her boots with duct tap!), we saw Michelle take the younger boys shoe shopping at a thrift store. There are ten boys in this family. They left with thirty pairs of shoes. Is that three new pairs per person? Whatever, they were $1/pair. We saw the older girls making laundry soap, which they've been doing for a year now, after getting the recipe from another family. We saw Jim Bob collecting rent from one of their commercial properties, and he showed off their biggest money maker, the cell phone tower on their property. And he proudly proclaimed he had a full signal while standing nearby. Of course we saw the shopping trip to Aldi's, where they ignored the urine/bleach smell (at least if it's anything like the Aldi's by me) and bought $3000 worth of groceries in 11 shopping carts. Oh and also they were being followed by a Korean film crew, which the TLC crew was filming. They're being featured in Korea to inspire people to have kids, I guess, since they have a low birth rate. When Jim Bob met them, he said, he told them his was a "typical American family." Har har, Jim Bob. If that were true, why would they have chosen you out of the entire country? No, they realize you're abnormal, that's why your wife's on TV in Korea. A neighbor from town, Mr. Charlie (?), set up one long row of a vegetable garden for the Duggar kids to help tend and get some veggies from. They kept saying how they loved cucumbers, but I think we know from past Duggar specials that what they really love is pickles! Finally, the most shocking revelation in the entire show: the older Duggar girls perm their hair! Hello, what about your countenances, ladies? Anyway, pretty much everything they showed seems to be in response to various comments made on TWoP and elsewhere on the internet (especially Jim Bob interviewing on what he thinks their environmental impact is, but also "how do they get their income?" and "why don't they grown their own vegetables?"). If this trend holds, based on current TWoP discussion, we should see them doing some volunteer work in a future season of their show.