Yesterday was grocery shopping day for my family. And I got to be reminded of one of the cardinal rules to couponing: Pay attention during checkout!! Regardless of what store you're at, no matter what you're buying, or even whether or not you're using coupons: pay attention!! We drive all the way to the other side of town to shop at my most favorite Publix store (back on the side of town we used to live on). I really just prefer their layout, plus I have good relationships with the managers and a lot of the cashiers. Anybody who talks to me frequently enough knows how much I adore Publix. I have fantastic shopping experiences there, with the exception of a few questionable times (and one just down right bad store), I truly love it. But here's why I'm reminding you of this important rule....I have "Coupon Etiquette" that I like to follow. And part of that involves me pre-prepping my coupons prior to getting in line. I get out all the coupons I'm going to hand over, separate the manufacturer coupons, Publix coupons, and Competitor coupons, and most importantly I count how many I'm going to hand over. So for this particular trip, I counted really fast, handed the coupons over to Henry (the hubby), and left to go put something back. Upon my return I found Henry holding the $1 off milk coupon that should have been scanned. He told me "See, it says 'Do Not Double Or Triple' so we couldn't use two". Cashier: "We can't double the coupons" Me: "I know, Florida doesn't do doubles" Cashier: "No you only got 1 milk so you can't use 2 coupons" Me: "It was an accident that you were given 2". I then proceeded to explain what the wording meant, and why it was not applicable to the mistake of giving her 2 of those coupons. I'll leave out the further bickering the cashier tried with me. At the end of the transaction I see only 4 coupons scanned and a much higher final total than I have seen in almost a year, so I just asked if all the coupons had been scanned (remember, I wasn't there for all of that part, so I was just making sure). Of course I got a snarky reply and said don't worry, I'll just check the receipt before I go. Then I remembered, the manager was allowing us to substitute some cereal and were supposed to remind the cashier to ring them up BOGO free as they would not on their own. Henry said he forgot. The cashier, really testing my patience, had the nerve to tell me "If it was BOGO I would know." Me: "No, the manager was allowing us to sub these, and you would have had to enter it manually" Cashier: "If it's not BOGO it's not going to ring up that way" (Well thank you Captain Obvious!). Again I told her forget it, we'd take care of it.
I give my receipt a once over and find two things: 1) Henry gave the cashier the coupons before she was done scanning everything and she just did random scans here and there... therefore making it difficult to see if all the coupons were scanned properly and 2) Of course, the cereal did not ring up BOGO. So we head to Customer Service... The manager is super nice, and gives us the refund for the cereal ($13.00). I didn't say anything about the cashier, although I wanted to, but I decided to go to my car first and scrutinize the receipt. And it's a very good thing I did! She didn't take off my $5 off your order coupon, or $3.89 off for my free Oreos (yummmm), and a couple other misc. coupons. Back to Customer Service I go, where this time I lay it out about how we didn't appreciate the cashiers attitude or how she scanned the coupons. But here's why I love Publix so much: The manager agreed how she did the coupons was a nuisance, because it was making it hard for him to find her errors. He also apologized profusely for her behavior as well. I asked for him to get her coupon pouch so we could go over all my coupons, which he did. And I got back another $12.00!
Moral of the story: Had I just taken this ill informed cashiers word about all the coupons being scanned, or about the cereal, my grocery bill would have been $25.00 HIGHER! By paying attention (better late than never!) my bill went from being $72.00 to just $47.00! Don't EVER be afraid to check your receipts and ask for corrections when it's wrong. Now that's 25 extra dollars that I can put towards buying some fun craft supplies for my kids, or put towards a bill... So remember: PAY ATTENTION!!
