RJM62
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Geek on the Hill
Grocery shopping can be fun when you make a sport out of it.
Rich
Another Fine Day at Price Chopper
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Grocery shopping can be fun when you make a sport out of it.
Rich
Matthew
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We have Price Choppers here, too. The cashiers always ask for my discount card first. I make them scan it at the end because I want to see the discounts pile up all at once.
RJM62
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RJM62
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I basically only buy stuff when it's on sale, and I try to buy enough to last me until the next time it goes on sale. You learn the cycles over time. Some items, like most nutritional supplements, are BOGO'd about one-third of the time. Once you know the sale cycles, it's silly to pay full price.
Some times they have per-customer limits, for example, on some BOG2 or BOG3 deals. That's no problem if you have friends or family members with separate loyalty cards registered. You just use theirs. I've even asked strangers standing behind me on line to let me run the "excess" products through the register using their cards if they were not buying those products. I get the discount, they get the gas credit, and no one cares. These deals are usually manufacturer-sponsored. Price Chopper couldn't care less.
As for the gas discount, they give you $0.05 for every $100.00 you spend through a deal they have with Sunoco. The amount on the receipt is the cumulative amount since the last fill-up (when it gets re-set to $0.00), not the amount saved during a particular visit.
Rich
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Matthew
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We get QuickTrip gas points.
Local prices are now $1.51 without that discount.
Local prices are now $1.51 without that discount.
BigBadLou
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And to think I send the wife to do our grocery shopping. She always comes back with a triple-digit receipt. 
I am sending YOU next time!!
I am sending YOU next time!!
AggieMike88
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The original "I don't know it all" of aviation.
And to think I send the wife to do our grocery shopping. She always comes back with a triple-digit receipt.
I am sending YOU next time!!
I've seen a few of those extreme couponing episodes where they queue up with 6-8 buggies worth of goods and wind up getting money handed to them once all the coupons are done.
I've wondered just how much effort they put into that (aka, is it equivalent to full time job?) and do they really need 6-8 buggies worth of goods to pull it off?
RJM62
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And to think I send the wife to do our grocery shopping. She always comes back with a triple-digit receipt.
I am sending YOU next time!!
I used to hate grocery shopping. Actually, I hate pretty much any kind of shopping. Making a sport of it helped a lot.
It actually started when I got tired of Jeannette shopping at a certain supermarket that she swore had better prices. I didn't know because I couldn't get past the stench of the place. While we were arguing, Gay Marc stopped by for coffee, and it was his idea to create the contest.
We drew up a list of meals for seven days. On week one, Jeannette would do the shopping. On week two, I would. Gay Marc would hold the receipts and check them for accuracy. And at the end of the contest -- Jeanette won.
Well, I wasn't going to take that lying down, so I demanded a rematch. I made a mission out of it, scouring every store in Queens for the lowest price on each item. And at the end of the second match-up, I won.
This became kind of an ongoing contest, and eventually Gay Marc also got involved as a participant. But rather than shopping for the same menus, we settled on the highest percentage off the pre-savings amount as the winning receipt. So saving $25.00 off a $100.00 bill (25 percent) would score lower than saving $20.00 off a $60.00 bill (33 percent), just as a simple example. Also, the contest was expanded to a month, with each participant submitting their best receipt.
Another rule involved reasonableness. Because we could all use our own menus, the food purchased had to form the basis of reasonable menus, for which we also had definitions bad on the five food groups. But now we needed a judge, and because Gay Mark was a participant, he couldn't serve as a judge, too.
Enter my goddaughter Kimberly, whom the three of us agreed could be impartial. She reviewed the receipts for both savings and reasonableness of menus. But after a few months, Norman the cop, Lenny the bricklayer, and Irwin the Goy got into the contest, and Jeanette dropped out saying it had become too much of a "man's game." Irwin the Jew also was interested in participating, but ultimately decided not to because Irwin the Jew's wife kept kosher, and she told him that kosher food doesn't go on sale very often.
In addition, when Norman, Lenny, and Irwin the Goy got involved, they objected to Kimberly's being the judge because she was my goddaughter. After much bickering, we called Irwin the Jew and asked if he could at least serve as the judge, which he graciously agreed to do. Irwin the Jew also suggested that the winner be determined by the average savings for the month rather than the single winning receipt, reasoning that it would be harder to manipulate the contest that way.
So after every shopping trip, Norman the cop, Lenny the bricklayer, Irwin the Goy, Gay Marc, and I would text our receipts to Irwin the Jew, who would announce the winner at the end of each month. The prize was a bottle of Bolla Bardolino, an inexpensive red wine. We decided on that prize after Gay Marc's boyfriend acquired a case of it somehow (I forget the details offhand) and we all got drunk on it.
The contest fizzled out after Norman and Lenny retired, Irwin the Goy got married, and I moved to Sparrow Fart; but Gay Marc and I still swap receipts back and forth, just for old time's sake.
Rich
RJM62
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Today wasn't bad, either.
Rich
Rich
Zeldman
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If my wife had her way, she would go grocery shopping every day. I guess because that is what she did in the PI.
I was used to going shopping once a month. I finally got her to go shopping once a week, and just about got her to going once every two weeks.
Of course I go combat shopping, that is I try to get in and get out in 15 minutes or less, compared to her having to read every freaking label on every box and can in the store....
I was used to going shopping once a month. I finally got her to go shopping once a week, and just about got her to going once every two weeks.
Of course I go combat shopping, that is I try to get in and get out in 15 minutes or less, compared to her having to read every freaking label on every box and can in the store....
EppyGA
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Kroger gives fuel points here and Publix will run a coupon about once a month to buy a $50 gas card for $40 with a $50 dollar grocery purchase. In our area it used to run Thursday through Sunday and senior discount day is on Wednesday. They recently change it to Wednesday to Sunday
RJM62
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It's all based on primal, gender-based, hunter-gather economics. Seriously. Gender-linked differences in shopping habits are so universally accepted by the retail industry that they're the basis of the display layout in retail stores. I have a cousin who worked his way up from a stock boy to corporate management at a major retail chain, and he explained it all to me over beers at a family barbecue one fine afternoon.
Men are treated as hunters. We approach shopping with a mission mentality. We take a sharply-focused approach, seeking out only the items we need, and ignoring the rest of the store. Retailers know this and place items like tools, weapons and other sporting goods, auto parts, and so forth that traditionally are of more interest to men as far as possible from the main entrances to force us to walk through the rest of the store. Even the signage is designed to guide men to the "guy stuff" by walking us past other stuff that the store's research suggests we're more likely to buy on impulse (usually items that our misogynistic inner men think would make nice gifts for our women, such as pots and pans).
Women, on the other hand, are treated as gatherers. Once they're in the aisles, they're going to walk through the whole store. But it's important to attract them into the aisles by simulating a bountiful field. To that end, retailers display a wide variety of colorful stuff that women like as close as possible to the main entrance to the store. They are trying to elicit the kind of primal reaction that women in pre-industrial societies would experience upon finding a field overflowing with nuts, berries, and other colorful food items and household materials (such as plants from which fabric and dyes could be made).
That's why colorful, feminine things like women's and girls' swimsuits are usually displayed in aisles that are transverse to and immediately facing the registers where they are visible a short distance from the entrance. The store wants to simulate a field overflowing with colorful nuts and berries to attract the women to the aisles. The men's stuff is far away, deep in the jungle, to force the men to walk past the girly stuff in which we have little interest, but which we might buy on impulse to please our women if we happen to notice it.
Wholesale clubs don't follow this logic. In a wholesale club, the items closest to the register tend to be the heaviest and bulkiest items that customers may need assistance with, along with high-value items that have to be retrieved from locked storage by the store's staff. This layout is designed to maximize the efficiency of the store's staff because wholesale clubs make almost no money on the actual sale of goods. They make their money on the memberships. They price the stuff they sell as close to cost-plus-overhead as possible to encourage people to keep renewing those memberships. The profits on actual sales are very low, so there's no need for gender-linked manipulation. They really don't care very much whether you actually buy anything as long as you keep renewing your membership, so they keep prices low and focus on convenience and efficiency.
I do most of my food shopping at Sam's Club on an as-needed basis because the prices are always pretty much the same. They do have sales and promotions, but they're usually no big deal percentage-wise. But I visit Price Chopper almost every week because their sales start on Sunday. I look at their sales insert in the weekly Sparrow Fart newspaper, and if there is anything that I use on sale at a price low enough to justify the 54 miles of driving, I go shopping.
The emphasis on saving as much money as possible is just a game my male friends and I came up with years ago to make a sport out of grocery shopping to make it a less-odious chore. We call it "guerrilla grocery shopping." And yes, we have thought about creating a league and making a "real" sport out of it.
Rich
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Chip Sylverne
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
We have a Weis Supermarket chain that gives points redeemable for gas or a free 12lb ham or turkey. They'll always tell you if they are about to expire, and to use them or lose them. Nice little bonus, and unit prices with the "Club" card discount are competitive with Costco, except for real bulk like TP and such. Nice to walk out occasionally with a net profit.
labbadabba
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RJM62
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The Price Chopper "standard" fuel discount is $0.05 for every $100.00 spent. They also have some items every week that will yield extra bonus discounts, such as gift cards this week (4x the face value, so a single $100.00 gift card would yield a $0.20 discount). I just didn't happen to need any of the bonus items featured this week.
It's not that horrible a discount considering that Price Chopper's usual prices aren't bad and their sale prices are outstanding. The fuel discount is just free money on top of the price discounts.
Probably the best loyalty program I belong to is Speedway's. I earn a $25.00 gift certificate of my choice every six to eight weeks, on average, just from gas and beverage purchases.
The other one that's a great value is my Sam's Club "plus" membership, which rebates five percent of my purchases and comes with some other advantages. The rebate more than covers my annual renewal, so I'm essentially getting the membership for free plus earning some cash on top of it. Woo-hoo!
Rich
labbadabba
Pattern Altitude
From what I recall from my time back East, there are two Price Chopper Supermarket chains. One based in the Midwest (around Kansas City) and the other is based in Schenectady. How there are two separate businesses in the same industry operating under the same name shocks me honestly. After googling, I don't see any connection between the Northeast Price Chopper and the Midwest Price Chopper.
labbadabba
Pattern Altitude
KC Price Chopper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Chopper_(supermarket)
Northeast Price Chopper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Chopper_Supermarkets
Northeast Price Chopper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_Chopper_Supermarkets
RJM62
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The Golub family (Schenectady) owns the trademark on "Price Chopper" and many derivations thereof, so I guess they figure the KC operation is no threat to them. That being said, the Golubs are phasing in the new name "Market 32" to replace "Price Chopper." Some of the stores have already changed names and been renovated.
Personally, I think Danny Wegman is going to buy Price Chopper at some point. It's kind of an open secret that the ancestors of the Golubs and Wegmans presently running the two chains had a gentleman's agreement not to compete in the same territories, and to this day they don't. There is zero overlap. It seems impossible that that's a coincidence. Neither family will confirm not deny the alleged agreement, however.
I wouldn't mind if the chains merged or if one bought the other. Wegman's is also an excellent supermarket. A lot of people consider it better than Price Chopper. I think it's a coin toss. As supermarkets go, I like them both.
Rich
labbadabba
Pattern Altitude
Being a NYC guy, I lean more towards Wegmans. But none can stand up to the awesomness that is Stew Leonard's.
Zeldman
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I miss the Piggly Wiggly and double S&H green stamp Wednesdays......
Timbeck2
Final Approach
What the hell is a Goy?
NoHeat
Final Approach
For your reminiscing pleasure, here's a 1975 S&H catalog:
http://flashbak.com/livin-the-dream-with-green-stamps-a-1975-catalog-26187/
A few years ago I found myself in Rural Wisconsin, driving from Kohler to Fond du Lac. Big sign with "Shop the Pig!" on it!
Advertising at its best!
-Skip
RJM62
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Geek on the Hill
A somewhat derogatory term for a Gentile, although we used it in fun. We had two Irwins, one of whom was Jewish; so we referred to one as Irwin the Jew and the other as Irwin the Goy.
Rich
Timbeck2
Final Approach
Thanks...you New Yawkuhs......
RJM62
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"Gay Marc" also had its roots in non-confusion. Jeanette and I knew a straight guy named Mark and a gay guy named Marc. One of the grandkids referred to Marc as "Gay Marc" one night when asked which Mar(c/k) had stopped by, and it stuck.
Rich
Rich
Chip Sylverne
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Quit with the negative waves, man.
Stewie's. Used to buy stuff there when I lived in Westport, CT, about the time he went to the joint for skimming likre $17 mil. One of the first grocers to use technology to his, er, advantage.
Zeldman
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Wow, I wish Piggly Wiggly was in business in the southwest, I would love to shop the pig....
ircphoenix
En-Route
And you are Rich the....?
denverpilot
Tied Down
Kroger gives fuel points here and Publix will run a coupon about once a month to buy a $50 gas card for $40 with a $50 dollar grocery purchase. In our area it used to run Thursday through Sunday and senior discount day is on Wednesday. They recently change it to Wednesday to Sunday
The receipt you posted shows one of the limitations on most "gas points" systems. 20 gallon limit.
I play the gas point games with Kroger here (here they go by King Soopers, same company) but the actual hard dollar value is quite limited when you dig into it. I think Kings tops out at $0.50/gal discount, 20 gallon limit, so $10 max.
Most vehicles aren't empty enough to take the 20 gallons and I've never seen someone so intense on getting the full discount that they bring the Jerry cans. Ha.
As for those of us with pickup trucks, it'll fill them a little over halfway.
I never take the little Subaru to the grocery store pump. That'd be a waste of a discount.
Mostly it's just convenient that they have a massive fuel island in front of the massive "Marketplace" store they built to compete with the mega-chains. The grocery store has clothes, furniture, and jewelry amongst other things, on top of having groceries.
We also found that if you took identical name brands of things from Costco and a regular grocery store and compared them side by side in the kitchen, Costco was having special versions of some things made that were obviously cut rate. Especially bakery items. They do not look, smell, or taste the same.
That along with them ending their quite good Amex card and relationship with Amex meant we kissed Costco goodbye.
A more recent thing we see now is mega-WalMarts are getting mega gas stations installed near them under the name "Murphy Express" which appears to be owned by Bentonville ... and they stuck one a mile from KAPA. And it has ethanol free fuel! First new ethanol free station I've seen anywhere in the State in at least seven years.
There's going to be one happy airplane this summer...
The one I know Rich uses and I *should* be using it the Amazon Card. I hate cards and debt but missing out on 5% on all Prime purchases is kinda dumb. Depends on what their annual fee is. I hate those, too.
RJM62
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Rich the Geek.
RJM62
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The receipt you posted shows one of the limitations on most "gas points" systems. 20 gallon limit.
I play the gas point games with Kroger here (here they go by King Soopers, same company) but the actual hard dollar value is quite limited when you dig into it. I think Kings tops out at $0.50/gal discount, 20 gallon limit, so $10 max.
Most vehicles aren't empty enough to take the 20 gallons and I've never seen someone so intense on getting the full discount that they bring the Jerry cans. Ha.
As for those of us with pickup trucks, it'll fill them a little over halfway.
I never take the little Subaru to the grocery store pump. That'd be a waste of a discount.
Mostly it's just convenient that they have a massive fuel island in front of the massive "Marketplace" store they built to compete with the mega-chains. The grocery store has clothes, furniture, and jewelry amongst other things, on top of having groceries.
We also found that if you took identical name brands of things from Costco and a regular grocery store and compared them side by side in the kitchen, Costco was having special versions of some things made that were obviously cut rate. Especially bakery items. They do not look, smell, or taste the same.
That along with them ending their quite good Amex card and relationship with Amex meant we kissed Costco goodbye.
A more recent thing we see now is mega-WalMarts are getting mega gas stations installed near them under the name "Murphy Express" which appears to be owned by Bentonville ... and they stuck one a mile from KAPA. And it has ethanol free fuel! First new ethanol free station I've seen anywhere in the State in at least seven years.
There's going to be one happy airplane this summer...
The one I know Rich uses and I *should* be using it the Amazon Card. I hate cards and debt but missing out on 5% on all Prime purchases is kinda dumb. Depends on what their annual fee is. I hate those, too.
There's no annual fee for the Amazon Store Card.
If you have Prime, getting 5 percent back is kind of a no-brainer as long as you pay off the bill. It's a Synchrony card, so it comes with their typical Shylock interest rates (although they do offer interest deferral on larger purchases).
I should mention that the card's reviews on Credit Karma are horrid, alleging all manner of shady operations, surprise credit line reductions, and abysmal customer service. I haven't had any problems and I've never had occasion to contact their customer service. I pay the bill, and all goes well for another month. Synchrony tends to reach for the low-hanging fruit in terms of creditworthiness, so I suspect that at least some of the reviewers created their own problems.
Rich
EppyGA
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I'm currently in a love/hate relationship with Amazon. Couple of weeks ago now they sent me an email stating my account had been hacked and that they caught it. They locked the account and removed all credit cards from it and I needed to do a password reset.
All well and good, so I did just that and was back in business. I soon noticed that my browsing history at Amazon showed two Apple watches had not only been browsed, but purchased. I went to orders and there was no sign of such an order on my account. Must have been what the hacker wanted. I figured since it didn't show as an order they stopped it and all was well.
While logged in to my Costco Visa account I notice a pending charge for some $613 from Amazon and lo and behold a FedEx package shows up with two Apple watches. Houston we have a problem.
Simple solution would be to start the return process, but wait, I can't do that because according to Amazon I have no order for Apple watches. I call Citibank and we decide to kill my card and they FedEx a new one the next morning. Citibank guy gives me a phone number for Amazon so I call them, explain the whole deal and the nice young lady, from somewhere other than here, seems to say she will take care of it.
Some days go by and now the charge on my account is no longer pending, it has been processed through so I have to dispute it. Once again I call Amazon and once again no real progress is made, all I want to do is give them back the freaking watches.
Citibank finally processes the dispute, which by the time they did it was two charges for the same amount and now two credits for that amount. Now I get a nasty email from Amazon telling me they've been back charged for the watches and I need to provide them with a credit card so they can charge me.
They are not going to enjoy the next phone conversation we're going to have.
ifly4fun
Line Up and Wait
Like going into Belk/Kohls and paying $30 for some khaki's that are marked $80. "You saved $50 with us today!" No, I didn't.. because nobody in their right mind would pay $80 for some dockers.
ifly4fun
Line Up and Wait
My Amazon card is Chase.. 5/3/1 cash back, and 12% APR.
gkainz
Final Approach
%<snip>%
As for those of us with pickup trucks, it'll fill them a little over halfway.
I never take the little Subaru to the grocery store pump. That'd be a waste of a discount.
%<snip>%
I had a 20% discount queued up for filling up the Dodge on Friday, and when I got there, all I got was the standard 3% ... when I checked my phone app, I see my son did exactly what you never do above ... he took his little Subaru to the grocery store pump and appropriated my discount the night before!
gkainz
Final Approach
My wife is the queen of Kohls. She turns up her nose at the $30 khakis originially $80. The next week those $30 khakis are $21. The following week they are $12.99. She then pounces on them, and at the register produces a Kohls coupon for 50% off, a Kohls Cash discount of an additional 20% and a Kohls reward of a flat $20. Somehow she walks out of that store with a bag of clothes and they paid her $10 to shop there.
I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it for myself ... as I look down at the boat shoes they paid us $6.95 to take home.