Discounts and Rebates and Coupons (oh my!)

I am ready to admit that I am not that good with discounts, rebates, and coupons. It frustrates me, though, because I can be duped into seeing the lower price only. However, I try to train myself to look for the actual costs. I was looking to buy another leaf blower. BTW, my dad is right on this, why would you buy a gas-powered blower for $120-200 when a decent electric one costs less than $40 and you can just buy one every other year at that cost and almost stay ahead. But, I was interested in a $90 gas-powered model, I didn't know they had come down that much. The price actually said $87.95 "with F/S discount" (or something). I don't want this discount, it probably means we have to get a credit card, or carry a club card. I searched and searched to find out that the actual price was $91. I would rather spend the $3 and not deal with some stupid membership card (or worse, their store credit). As it turned out, I bought a $39 electric model by the weedeater company.

Grocery stores like to have "membership" as well. We used to have a grocery store in town called Easters, and it almost got to the point where I didn't want to go because 1/3 of the items had a "membership" price as well as the regular price. So, you see 3 two-liter bottles of pop for $1.50 and get excited, only to realize that this is only for the suckers who carry a piece of laminated paper in their wallets that say they are special. Still, when I am at the register, the attendant would usually ask "do you have your Easters card?" I would reply "no" almost acting as if I had no clue what they were talking about. (I was mean to one guy, because I asked him "no, do I need one to shop here?" and almost pretended to leave. People pay to shop at Costco and Sam's Club. I do not get that.) The weird thing is that 90% of the time they reached under the register and grabbed a store copy of the discount card and let me have it anyway. I often wondered if this is because the workers were hassled about how many customers went through the line and were not enticed into carrying such a card. Ultimately, this is what drove me to shop at HyVee exclusively, a full year before Easters closed.

I am not concerned that someone is compiling a list of what I am buying, but I have heard that some people are suspicious of that. I guess you wouldn't want your future insurance company to know that you buy three bottles of Tylenol a week or something. I am not a paranoid person, though. (An aside, I bought some STP fuel system cleaner at Wal-Mart and the note on the cash register said "Is Customer Over 18?" I guess that is either a meth-lab problem, or kids are cracking the alcohol out of the cleaner.)

So, for the most part I am not interested in discounts. I am even more idiotic about coupons. Even if you tried to put one in my hand, I would probably not use a coupon. When someone tries to offer me one, my usual reply is "no, I hate saving money." I am not being totally flippant here, I despise the concept of "saving" money on retail purchases. I also buy name brand items at the grocery store. I know this has something to do with my childhood. Are store-brand canned peaches any worse than DelMonte? I have no idea because I don't buy store-brand.

Okay, now for rebates. I will admit that I don't mind rebates, I just hate the process. If you buy something from Best Buy, Dell, or on the Internet, you have to read those rebate instructions *very closely* because they will send you a post card saying "no rebate for you." Oh, and when they do that, you don't get the original receipt and proof of purchase back to try again. It seems to be a one-shot deal. Of course, the other part of rebates is actually filling out the paperwork and sending it in! I imagine that they hope a majority forget to do this, so it makes me more diligent at it. I was almost scammed by Microsoft this week with their rebate offer for Microsoft Money 2006. You buy it online and have to print out the rebate form, which is fine. Then they want you to go to Microsoft Billing MSN web page and print that confirmation, okay. Also, they want you to print your email confirmation and send that in as well... I had the form filled out, printed out the confirmation and the order page and then I noticed this "email confirmation" statement. I already knew better than to think I could go with out it. If it is listed as a term, then they will deny your rebate request. Okay, so when should I expect this email confirmation? Everything else that I buy online is able to send one within an hour (and most do this within minutes). I became frustrated with the prospect that Microsoft was deliberately delaying the email confirmation in the hope that I would lose interest in my $30 rebate. (Microsoft wouldn't do that on purpose, would they?) For $67 of software, however, I was not about to give up on such a high rebate. Well, the email came the next day. I am positive that the company had wished I lost the paperwork, etc.

My tactic for this is to put the unfinished paperwork in my laptop case. I *hate* unfinished items like that and it would bug me until I took care of it. Well, I did, and it is in the mail.

I need to blog about this unfinished items business. Knowing me, I probably can't wait too long because it will gnaw on me.

--gh