What are your frugal and sustainable tips and tricks?

[gtaus]

Here is an easy frugal tip for eveyone.... Check out the price scanned of the items you buy at the store. If it scans at a higher price, let them know.

My story. I was in WalMart the other day. I bought some ceral off that shelf that was marked $1.43. When I went to the self-checkout scanner, it scanned at $1.98. That's a 40% hidden mark-up people!

I called the young female attendant over to my station and showed her the box of cereal, what it scanned in at, and told her the price on the shelf. Now, I don't want to put anyone down, and she tried to be helpful, so she said "let me scan it for the price." I smiled as she scanned the box and quietly told her, you will not get a different scan price. Of course, it scanned at $1.98 so she tells me, the price is $1.98.

I replied, yes, I know the scan price is $1.98, but the display price on the shelf was $1.43. That's the price I want to buy it at.

She looks at me and says she is sorry but they cannot change the scan price. I immediately correct her saying,"yes you can." She replies, "well, I'm not allowed to change the price." Again, I respond, "yes, you can." Then she finally admits, "I don't know how to do it." To which I said, "That's the issue. Call over a manager to do the override."

It took a few minutes, but the manager came over and I explained to her that I wanted to buy the cereal at the shelf displayed price of $1.43 and not the scanner price of $1.98. So, she went back into the store, verified the price, and came back and told the young attendant to markdown the item. I quickly jumped in and asked the manager to show the girl how to do it, because she had not yet been trained on it. Which she did, and then I went on my way having made my point, saving some coin on purchase, and thinking that young girl watching the self-checkouts was just a little bit better off than before we had our interaction.

Now, you might be thinking, was it worth my 15 minutes of time waiting for them to verify the price and mark it down to save 55 cents? In this case, I had my car back in the auto shop waiting for a tire repair. So, I had a good hour, or longer, to waste in the store until my car tire was fixed. I was willing to wait them out, hold up the line, and make them run around to fix their problem.

But, I know that they probably sold out all that cereal on the shelf that day, with it scanning at a hidden 40% markup, and I was probably the only one to complain about it. They just leave the old, lower, price on the shelf and most people don't bother to check the price of items that they buy when they scan them in.

I still believe that a person should be confident that the display price and the scanned price will be the same. It's just not so anymore, at WalMart and other stores. Those hidden 40% markups add up fast. I especially pay attention to high dollar value items that are on "Sale" but somehow seem to scan at the regular retail price. Anyone else notice this happening to them?

 

[Sally PB]

We put fishing line around our orchard and garden. One 3 feet, the other around 5. They never get in. It feels weird on them at night and scares them.

WOW! I need to remember that!

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

Nope, I bet her hair would be about as comfortable as a Brillo pad.

OMG I laughed! I can't stop laughing.... Yea, she would be an awesome pot-scrubber! She already does a pre-wash on anything my spouse uses to cook (she washes the pans when he cooks, there is ALWAYS something cheesy/creamy/saucy stuck to the bottom of the pans when he cooks. )

I think I will be calling her my Brillo-girl from now on. (She'll answer to it... She comes when I call anyone -in case there is a snack involved)

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

DH's boss asked him if he did, and I told him, YES, he most certainly did want

Yeah, I can't imagine not saying yes to those!

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

Anyone else notice this happening to them?

Here there is a consumer protection act that if you find an error you get the item for FREE (up to a value of $10) if the item costs more than $10 then you get a $10 discount on the item. $10 off the correct price, of course.

And YES, not only do I have to be patient until the "untrained" clerk figures it out, but I often have to remind them not only to correct the scanner but also give me my finder's fee.

It sounds great, but I have two decades as a book keeper, so I have a knack for finding these errors and I find it exhausting to have to train other people's staff. Not so darn hard to check the inventory with a hand held scanner walking down the aisles, but they never bother.

I commend you for taking the time. Most people say nothing, think they must be wrong/misremembering, don't want to seem petty (or cheap), don't want to hold up the line... So stores get away with it and make millions off people's not wanting to bother anyone.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

Picture this type of setup in your backyard....

It is ideal, except some municipalities won't allow those kinds of fences. (The aren't pretty for people driving by)

They are also expensive...

On the funny side... I have seen them installed backwards (recall they are super expensive) I laughed once the person who paid for it was out of earshot. I would have brought popcorn to watch them figure out how to deal with whatever critter came into the garden over that fence and then found themselves unable to get OUT.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

, I have to pay big bucks to get it fixed up by an expert

That's ok... You are trying to improve... Use the "expert" as a tutor, watch what they do differently to what you tried.

 

[gtaus]

Here there is a consumer protection act that if you find an error you get the item for FREE (up to a value of $10) if the item costs more than $10 then you get a $10 discount on the item. $10 off the correct price, of course.

Many, many years ago, KMart had a similar price guarantee policy but only up to $3.00. That was back in the late 1990's. At one time, I bought a 6 outlet adapter that was on sale for $2.99. There was a huge bin full of the adapters with a great big sale sign. At the checkout, it scanned for $6.00. So, I told them that was incorrect and the sale price was $2.99, but they could just go ahead and give it to me for free since it was less than $3.00 and they did not have it priced correctly. Long story short, I went back to that KMart every day, sometimes 2X per day, and did the same thing. Each and every time I told them I already been in the store the day before and told them about their incorrect pricing. Well, I ended up with about 8 adapters (7 of which I did not need), but they never changed the scan price at the registers. They did, however, sell all those adapters out of the bin. I bet you any amount of money that maybe only a few people would have noticed that they paid the full price of $6.00 and not the $2.99 sale price.

I commend you for taking the time. Most people say nothing, think they must be wrong/misremembering, don't want to seem petty (or cheap), don't want to hold up the line... So stores get away with it and make millions off people's not wanting to bother anyone.

I know. Sometimes you just say it's not worth my time to complain about 50 cents on an item. But that hidden 40% markup for the store amounts to real money in no time at all when you sell pallets full of that item every week.

Personally, I don't mind holding up the line when it's their mistake. It just puts more pressure on them to make it right. Unfortunately, they eventually will just do a local markdown at the register and NEVER correct the computer system scanner price if it scans higher.

I don't know about Canada, but here I seldom see the same checkout people from one week to the next. I think they go through a very high turnover and many employees are gone before being properly trained.

 

[MotherofOrpies]

I did, but ….

the inside of my furnace

 

[gtaus]

...the inside of my furnace

Let me tell you something. The people who installed my furnace had no idea how it operated. I have a dual source electric/propane furnace. I had problems with the electric coils burning out after only a year or two. Fortunately, my electric company has a program where we get credit every year and that basically covered the cost of new heating elements that burned out. Every year I had a repair replacement issue. Anyways, the company that installed my furnace went out of business.

Next time the furnace needed a repair, I had to call a different company. The new repairman came out, looked at the furnace, and immediately told me that I had an extra filter in the system which was not only not needed, but it would cause premature failure of the heating elements due to restricted air flow! He took out that filter for me, and I have had no more problems for about 4 years now.

I don't mess around with furnace repairs, because, where I live, it gets down to -40F in the winter and you can't survive that cold without heat. It's worth it to me to call in the professionals and get it fixed right - right away. The cost of frozen and broken water pipes in the house would be thousands of dollars of damage.

I guess it's frugal to pay someone $100's in furnace repair costs and avoid paying the plumbers $1000's in broken pipe repairs.

And yes, I had a rental house that I had winterized by a "professional" plumber one winter. He went out of business later that winter. Anyway, next spring, when I turned on the water in the house, I had leaks all over the place. I had to call in a new company and they told me that the winterization had not been done correctly and that I should go after the plumber's insurance. Well, too late. He was out of business and gone. Cost me almost $3000.00 (In 1990's money) to repair and replace all the damaged pipes, etc...

Had to eat the entire cost of that fiasco. Decided to take the advice of the new plumber and had all the old pipes replaced with new and have not had a plumbing problem with the pipes in the last 25 years at that house. So, money well spent in the end.