Stop it! I Can't Afford Any More Savings!

I decided that I would be doing my weekly shopping at Pick n Save this last weekend, because of the low advertised price on pork ribs.  Call me sentimental, but somehow, it just doesn't seem moral to be buying pork ribs at Piggly Wiggly.

My wife suggested "Before you go, why don't you look at those online coupons to see if there's anything?  Oh sure, you can do everything on the Internet. Our neighbor buys his groceries from Pea Pod.  Just click click click, and the next thing you know, a green truck is making ruts in the back alley and leaving soggy cardboard cartons outside the door in the rain... another story.

But I tried the on-line coupon section of Pick n Save.  It's called "E-Clips". Turned up about $6.00 worth of coupons for things I was going to buy anyway; things on the list.  Just click the little "E-Clips" box, and the virtual coupon is invisibly added to your Player's Card, and pops out at the checkout counter, right in the checkout lady's surprised face.  Great thing, this technology.

Arriving at the store at about 8:30 am, I went over to the Crest Toothpaste, knowing I would get my 75 cents off when the time came to pay for it.  To my dismay, I found that the price of the toothpaste had been marked up $1.25 more than it had been two weeks ago. This not only wiped out my 75 cents savings, and cost me more, but think of the poor starving children in Korea who don't have Pick'n'Save cards - they would be paying full price which has been artificially marked up to anticipate the coupon.   Same deal at the Old Spice shower soap - It was marked up a dollar, but the invisible coupon would protect me from that, leaving me paying the same high regular price.  Well, l had to have the soap, just trust me on that, so I bit the bullet. But, I found out when I got home and looked at my register tape that I had not even received the shower soap discount because the coupon offer was for two packages, and I had only bought one.  Why didn't my little invisible coupon speak up, in its squeely little coupon voice, that I had to buy two? But that would have been weird, come to think of it, a little voice in my pocket, people just wouldn't understand... So, I paid the artificially marked up FULL PRICE. (I expected to be paying $2.50 after coupon, and instead I paid $4.29.) About halfway through shopping, I gave up on seeking out the "e-clips" list, because the Markup Guy had already been to all the coupon items to mark them up.  So, when it comes to "E-Clips", turns out I was the only one getting e-clipped.

Thanks to Mouseprint.org for photo

And now the final indignity - Again with the Miracle Whip.  They're always manipulating the Miracle Whip. It should be listed on the commodities exchange. As we all know, Miracle Whip is packed in "short quarts", that is, two ounces short of a quart.  That's Kraft's fault, and I don't hold Pick n Save responsible for that.  But, how can Pick'n'Save justify a "regular price" of $4.99?  Who pays $4.99 for a (short) quart of Miracle Whip? Surely, not a Piggly Wiggly shopper! Luckily, this item was on sale, no coupon needed,  so I was able to get it for $2.98, what it's really worth. But, according to the register tape - a "Total Savings of $2.01"!  Spare me, please! Why not mark it up to ten bucks, before marking it down?  They could have taken credit for even more savings!

So, "blind, but now I see",  I had a higher than average grocery bill, although I was treated to total "savings" of $50.14.  As Miss Daisy said to Morgan Freeman:  "Take me to the Piggly Wiggly."