On Sunday night, Mr. MT walked in the bedroom door and said, “I have to go to the store. We’re out of laundry detergent.” So then I tried to think of the last time I went to the store…and I couldn’t. And the cupboards were bare, stripped naked, and cold. So at 10:30 at night, I hopped in the car with hubbin, and we went to Vons (aka Safeway). Not only were we out of detergent, we had no milk, no cheese, no bread, no lunch meat, and only a day’s worth of food for FrugalPup.
Luckily, FrugalPup is currently on an Iams brand dog food that Vons carries, and I happened to have a coupon for $5 off. The universe of coupons intrigues me. Not too long ago I had to fight for a coupon that the cashier didn’t want to give me, whe I could prove I was entitled. On the other hand, I’ve been stuck in line behind someone insisting that it shouldn’t matter if they got the right size orange juice, they should get the coupon anyway.
So on Sunday night I handed the cashier my Iams coupon. He tore out the dog food one and handed the cat food one back to me. I looked at him and said, “I don’t have a cat.” (If I’d been thinking straight I would’ve placed it with the Iams cat food for good karma.) The cashier said, “Keep it. Maybe someone won’t notice next time.”
I was shocked!
In my mind, part of this man’s job is making sure that the appropriate coupons are applied to the appropriate items; otherwise the store can lose money. Instead, he was basically encouraging me to “get mine” if I could.
I like using coupons, hunting for good deals, and the like. I also hate being held up in line by someone who wants to “get theirs” at cost to others. I’ll probably take the coupon back and place it next to the cat food because I think it would be a nice thing, but I don’t think that a $5 coupon is worth a clean conscience. Even if the cashier didn’t catch it, I’d still know I’d been dishonest, and I don’t take pride in pulling one over on people who are tired and run down with complaining shoppers.
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I thought coupons were coded so that you had to buy the item to get the discount? I don’t think you can just scan any old coupon of the brand you are purchasing and have it discounted by $.50, $1, $2.00 etc. Heck, if I can start saving even more with coupons and not follow the requirements I am all for it.
Maybe the clerk didn’t understand how coupons worked?
@Mr. Plasectomy: Coupons are coded, but all grocery stores have overrides. Actually, the scanner at the Vons didn’t actually accept my dog food coupon initially. Oftentimes, if you scream at the clerk enough they’ll override it just to get you out of their hair, but I find that distasteful. However, like I said in the post, I will fight for a coupon I know SHOULD work. I just found it odd that a store employee would encourage me to “fudge.” Thanks for reading!