Ask Away Tuesday

First let me apologize because I never got around to posting on Monday, which is supposed to be my budget Check-in day.  I will get to posting my budget check-in soon though.

Well, today is Ask Away Tuesday and I had a great question already prepared for today from Monica, but I think that Rachelle Yakubu Photography just gave us a more relevant question, she found this posted on another couponing website:

"Tonight, my WAGs had already activated tomorrow's new deals. This week the 80 count Splenda was on sale for $2.99 (w/ $3/1 Q = FREE plus RRs). Tomorrow, the 100 count Splenda goes on sale for $2.99 (w/ $3/1 Q = NO-GO!!!) Why? First the manager said that the Q didn't work because the amount of the Q exceeded the amount of the product. Thus, I pulled out the WAGs policy and informed her that it is WAGs policy to lower the amount of the Q to match the price of the product; thus, FREE. The manager proceeded to tell me that it's not their policy. She asked where I got the policy that I had sitting in front of her. I told her, as I pointed to the WAGs policy, from walgreens.com.

Upon further examination, with the help of the lady standing behind me in line, she noticed the Q said "on any one 80 ct./3.8 oz or larger SPLENDA Sweetener Product." Well, the Q worked just fine this past week on the 80 ct. So, what's the problem??? The 100 ct. has to be larger, right? WRONG!!! The 80 ct. has a net weight of 4.8 oz; thus, the Q worked fine!!! FREE!!! But, the 100 ct. has a net weight of 3.5 oz!!! Who would've thought??? Thus, Q DENIED!!!

So, the manager was wrong about WAGs policy and while trying to defend her nonexistent version of WAGs policy, she overlooked the real reason the computer didn' want to accept the Q. That's because the 100 ct. has a lower net weight than that required of the Q (3.8 oz). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!!! I didn't even think to check the weight of the box. Might work!!! Check the net weight!!!

Why do things like that happen?

Wow, where to start….

First, let me start by saying that there are so many different things you will encounter using coupons.  Some cashiers will tell you “you can only get what is in the picture for the coupon” others will say “oh this coupon is for the bigger size” when it clearly says no size,  and others will say that elusive “it says one coupon per purchase, so you can only use one”, and the not so smart “it says do not double so you can only use one coupon (I like to pull out a 3^rd coupon and then tell them fine, I will triple it then when I get this one…lol)”.  I will cover all these topics later, and how to handle them, but basically, there will always be different ways to interpret coupons and quite honestly if you plan to really use coupons to your advantage you will have to put on you armor and get ready to fight sometimes  and come prepared to know what is what. 

Personally, I feel this manager was wrong in the interpretation of this coupon, because I see this coupon to say it is for the “80 ct or larger or the 3.8 oz or larger”, the same way that when a form says “he/she” it doesn’t mean you have to be both a he and a she.  Now although I feel this is kind of common sense, you will find as you continue to coupon, that when something goes wrong, many times the managers/cashiers will say A LOT of things that do not make sense (remind me to tell you about the cashier who said she couldn’t accept the Spanish Proctor and Gamble coupon because #1. I was not Mexican and #2. The cash register did not speak Spanish). 

So why did the coupon beep then?  There could be numerous reasons and I don’t want to confuse any new couponers by going through all these reasons, plus I do not know many other things about this shopper’s experience to determine exactly why it would beep.

I Googled (well actually I swagbucked) this post that Rachelle found and saw that many others asked the same questions I would need to know in order to make a clear determination as to why it beeped, but the original poster never came back to give more information.  So let me tell you why the coupon should not have beeped under normal circumstances….

Each coupon is coded with a upc code that is scanned the same way that the upc codes on the products we buy are coded.  The upc on the products you purchase have to match the upc on the coupon in some way to make sure you are purchasing the right product.  If you look at the Splenda UPC on the box that is 3.8oz and included in the sale and the box that is 100 ct and included in the sale, you will see that they both have the same combination of numbers as the UPC in the coupon, this means the coupon would not beep under normal circumstances.  (Unfortunately there have been numerous people who have been using the decoding of coupons to use the coupons in a fraudulent manner lately so I will not go further into this topic, but just know that the coupon would not have beeped under normal circumstances)

Hope I answered Rachelle’s and your question, but feel free to let me know if I didn’t or maybe confused you more and we can continue to discuss this topic in the comments. 

HAVE A QUESTION TO ASK ABOUT COUPONING?

I will do my best to answer it, or seek out someone who can give us the answer, just send me a e-mail or post a question in any of the comments