Shopping Tips

I have always enjoyed going grocery shopping with my wife. That usually entails going to at least two stores, in our case Wal-Mart and Kroger. But Judy also has shopping cards for Albertsons, Price Chopper, Hy-Vee, Tops and Weis—none of which has a store in Augusta.

We do a lot of traveling, so we do get to use the other cards in different areas of the country. The discounts available when you have the store card can be pretty darned good, so it pays to sign up for them.

One of the benefits of holding the Kroger card is that we get discounts at the gas pump. Kroger gas prices are always competitive with all other gas stations in the area, and often lower. The everyday discount from the posted price is three cents per gallon, but there is also a discount of ten cents a gallon for every $100 worth of groceries we buy during any calendar month.

Gift cards receive double points—each dollar of value purchased is doubled toward the gas discount. Prescription purchases give even better points, since generics cost only $4.00, but register as $50 toward the gas discount.

The reason I relate all of this to you is that twice in the past two weeks, we have gotten home and reviewed our register tape, only to discover that we did not get the advertised discount on certain products. Of course, we took the tapes with us on our next trip and received the discount from Customer Services. But the fact remains that there is a lot of error possible, and you have to be vigilant to detect one when it occurs.

I don't know about your store, but at ours the full price of the item is posted on a visible screen, followed by a quick (-) with the discount amount for that item. It occurs very rapidly and the clerks scan items quickly, so the prices flash by continuously. It is almost impossible to follow the progression and keep track of whether or not we get the right prices.

Standing at the register reading your receipt is not a great idea, since it holds up the line, so review is generally done when we get home. Most of us probably do not bother to do that. Big mistake.

When we were first married and were dirt poor, my wife used to take a hand-held calculator with her on shopping trips. As she selected each item to place in the cart, she would enter the amount in the calculator. At the end of the rounds and before she went through the checkout line, she would estimate the tax and add that to the subtotal. It wouldn't be completely accurate, but she would know within a few cents how much the bill should be. If it didn't tally at the register, she would review the cash register tape prior to leaving the store.

Sometimes she would discover that she had miscalculated, but often it would be the clerk who had put in the wrong item, or the price was not correctly programmed into the register. Then she could present her tape and get a "refund" prior to leaving the store.

I'm thinking of going back to the old method. Even on principle alone, it makes good sense to check the accuracy, because if the store consistently makes the same errors with all their customers, they are getting a huge windfall from overcharging, whether intentional or not.

You might say that it's only a few pennies here and there, but even if it were trivial, consider the effects of a fifty cents average per customer overcharge. Then multiply that by the number of customers who shop each day at the typical grocery store. Two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand?

There have been articles written proclaiming that registers are programmed to overcharge on certain items, but I tend to doubt that. I think there are mistakes in programming and in how the clerks scan items that cause the problems. Customers are mostly given a fair price and charged the correct amount. It is still a good practice to double check. As Ronald Reagan used to often say, “Trust, but verify.”

You might want to consider taking some action on your own to check for errors in pricing at the grocery store. Take a calculator if necessary. Do the math, and keep from being ripped off. Prices are high enough as it is, so there is no reason to give away your hard earned money. And if I'm addressing the wrong member of the family and you "don't do shopping" then show this to the one who does. You might be appreciated for it.