The Secret to My Grocery Success!

Now that I am a "woman of a certain age" I have discovered the secret.
Which secret you ask?
Why the secret to getting all your grocery needs for almost free!!
It's the best secret out there, right?

And just how do I do this?

1-Pick a cashier at the store when you are ready to check-out who is young.
2-Sound like you know what you are talking about at ALL TIMES(even when you don't). Do NOT let cashiers intimidate you.
3-Throw your cashier off kilter by doing something totally unexpected while checking out(them being young will not have had much experience with staying in control when things go awry in their world).

That's it!
Easy as pie.

At least this is what worked Wednesday at Weis(PMITA)Markets when I tried to buy 6 bags of frozen ravioli and 2 bags of frozen green beans.
I went into the store fully meaning to pay the correct price for these items after sales/coupons.

But that isn't what happened in any way, shape or form!

So grab a drink, have a seat and get comfy and try to follow along.  ;-)

Mama Rosie's ravioli was supposedly on sale again for BOGO and it was the last day of the sale so I hiked up to Weis to get me some.
I also wanted 2 bags of Hanover veggies on sale 2/$4(had a $1/2 Q so those would cost me $3 for 2 bags).
This transaction wasn't rocket science.......or WAS it?!?

I got the raviolis out of the freezer case and noted that the BOGO shelf tag was affixed to the shelf, Good.  The plan was going swimmingly.

I go up to the Express register(as I only had 8 items)and proceed to check-out with a young(high school age or close)cashier.
I noticed as she scanned the ravioli that it was ringing up 2/$5 or $2.50 each.
HUH???
I believe the reg. retail price at this store was $3.29 a bag thus this was all kinds of wrong no matter how you spun it.

So I panicked(internally only-outer shell was calm and collected)and thought maybe I hallucinated seeing the BOGO sale shelf sign?, so I reached into my coupon case for a rain check I had for this item(from the last time it was BOGO and they were out of them) and said, "Oh, I forgot to give you this rain check before you started ringing up those ravioli...I should get them for a Buy One, Get One Free price."

This spun the cashier's grocery world on it's ear and she just stopped and stared at me like a deer in the headlights.

After the wheels in her head began to turn again, she said, "So I'll just only ring up 3 bags and not scan the other 3 you are buying and that works out the same.".
"Um....NO!", I said to myself. lolz

So I tried explaining to her that the bags should be 1 reg. retail price and 1 free, but these were ringing up a sale price of $2.50 bag and not their regular price.

So she asked me what the regular price was and I said I don't remember exactly(I "thought" it was $3.29 but I didn't want to say in case I was wrong and mislead her.) and that she'd have to find out and price modify or whatever they needed to do to get this rung up correctly.

Having her ring only half the bags up at $2.50 instead of $3.29(or whatever the reg. price actually is) would have meant I paid less than I should have so that's why I didn't just shut UP and let her do it HER way?  (3 bags at $3.29 would have been $9.87 while 3 bags at $2.50 would have been only $7.50...costing the store $2.37.)

Everyone still with me here?

The poor cashier looked even more confused now so she called over another cashier/front end-floater person and tried to explain the problem to her and get her take on what to do.

My logical mind's thought was to cancel the transaction and start over without giving my loyalty card first(so the ravioli wouldn't ring up at this sale price but the regular retail price), then price modify the bags using the rain check and thus giving me the correct total of $13.87-$4 in coupons I had to also use=$9.87 OOP for all 8 items.

So I started to talk as well to explain the situation to the new cashier/floater but then a little voice inside my head(or maybe it was a devil on my shoulder?)screamed inside my cranium, "SHUT THE FRICK UP YOU IDIOT! and just let them figure this out themselves!!!  If they do it the way young cashier wants to, it won't be right anyway but you'll end up saving $2.37 so SHUT UP ALREADY!!!?

So for once I listened to my great big, pushy, little voice and clammed up mid-sentence.
Oh heck, they weren't paying attention to me anyway so why bother fighting to make this right? ;-)

So young cashier and floater cashier decided between them the proper way to proceed was to ring up all 6 bags(at the $2.50 each price) and then void out 3 of them and THIS was the CORRECT SOLUTION to this problem.
So I just nodded, "Ok, sounds good.", and let the cashier proceed.

By this time a rather long line had compiled behind me at this Express register and between being flumoxed by my whipping out a rain check mid-transaction, items ringing up incorrectly and my protestations and then the huddle with the other employee, young cashier was a mite flustered and just wanted me GONE from her check-out I think.

Before I knew it she was done ringing up/voiding out various items, all done while I was trying to put on my reading glasses so I wasn't paying full attention to her actions.  She announced my total as I handed her 4 coupons and said, "And just to complicate matters more, I have these 4 coupons."

Again, I got the deer in the headlights stare from the cashier.  She reached over expecting money from me and I gave her coupons. lolz

Three seconds later she sprang into action, scanning the coupons..........
$1/2 Hanover green beans.....check!
$1/2 Mam Rosie's ravioli.....check!
Then the second of the three ravioli coupons beeped.
And I knew it would since she "supposedly" voided 3 of the 6 bags so according to the register's computer I hadn't bought but 3 bags and the 3 coupons meant I needed to buy 6 bags.

A second later young cashier sighed and must have said, "Screw it!", internally and manually "forced those 2 coupons through.
She then announced my total....."$5 please".

Just wanting out of this Register Hell myself now, I handed her a $20 and she handed me $15 back and my receipt and I slipped out to my car before she changed her mind.

When I got home I finally looked at the receipt to see what voodoo had happened back in that store.

I was expecting to pay $7.50 with the pricing solution young cashier and associate had decided upon at the register so I KNEW a $5 total was way off!

But that little voice in my head just kept shouting me down with SHUT UP!! in the last moments of that ill fated transaction.

I just had to find what cashier had actually done to get my total OOP to only $5.

You probably can't make it out from the photo but the Hanover veggies rang correctly(as I expected)and those cost me after sale and coupon $3 total.
But the bags of ravioli?
Oh those bags of ravioli........

Cashier rang up 2 bags and voided out 1.
Then she rang 1 more bag....that was it, thus I only "bought" 2 bags of ravioli at $2.50=$5.00.
Then she scanned or pushed through $3 in ravioli coupons....$5.00-$3.00=$2.00

$2.00 for all that ravioli + $3 for 2 bags of green beans=$5.00

The savings rate shows at 58%......that would be 58% if I had in fact only bought 2 bags of ravioli and 2 bags of veggies.
I actually saved over 79% on this botched up transaction when all is said and done.

I walked out of Weis paying $2 for 6 bags of ravioli and they watched me do it.

So there is The Secret of My Success.

Act like a confident doddering old fool and people just want you to get as far away from them as fast as they can make you.  8-)

Sluggy