ask the checker how much it is. DON'T BUY IT, but write your check for that amount over and ask for cash back. put it in savings. it may only seem like a couple of bucks, so why not waste it on cookies; but, if you do this faithfully, it becomes a substantial amount.

it worked for me!

cream

BUT, you are causing a lot of unnecessary complications at the check out line. The item that you decide that you don't want *has to be put back on the shelf*. If it is a perishable item (ice cream?) the cashier has to page someone to stop whatever they are doing, and come to retrieve it and walk it back to it's place on the shelf. If it is a deli item or bakery item the health department requires that it be tossed out. They cannot put it back, unlike a canned item. There is the likelyhood that the item has been tampered with by the customer, (Customers have been known to eat out of deli containers in the store.) or the item has been out of refrigeration too long and is not considered safe to scoop out and mix back in with the other deli items.

If everybody did this method they'd have to hire an extra employee just to run all over the store putting things back. This sort of thing drives prices up.

Even with non-perishables, there would be a glut of items stacking up at the checkout getting in the cashier's way. Who want to be tripping over and constantly pushing aside, cans of coffee and bags of cheese doodles, in that tiny space?

How about, before you get to the check-out line, that YOU pull an item from your cart and WALK IT BACK to the shelf? Then look at the price on the shelf and remember it. Sounds like a lot of extra work for you right?

If you do it *that way*, maybe you can get into the habit of not putting unnecessary items in the cart in the first place, if you know you will have to spend your time whirling back to the far end of the store to replace the item on the shelf. Eventually you will get to the point that when you look in your cart before checkout, you won't have anything to choose to put back - just real food and necessary items will be there. Then you can pat yourself on the back and feel good knowing that you have made some positive changes in your spending and eating habits.

Glad you found something that helps you save, though....

However, I've been doing the change thing for years. That change adds up very quickly, and my bank counts if for free. I generally set it aside, and have several hundred $$$ for spending money when we go on vacation.

Personally, I think the simplest way to save is to limit the cash you carry, and ONLY buy things using cash. That way, you've decided before you walk out the door to take control of your finances and savings, and you have the satisfaction of knowing who's in charge.

I think it would just be easier to read the shelf label than to wait in line at the front of the store, go back, replace the item and stand in line again....

And after a time, don't you start to set yourself up? Putting something in the cart that you really didn't want in the first place? just so you could return it to the shelf? Seems one's subconscious would catch on to that pretty quickly.

for those of you that don't get it...if you have $5 to waste on chips and soda, you have $5 to put in savings.

it's the same principal as the latte factor, only i didn't drink lattes. if you don't know what the latte factor is, google it. good grief.

Unnecessary trouble, if I may say so.

Sounds also like somewhat inverted priorities, it seems to me.

How about getting your ducks in line, with the most important one(s) first/early on?

Saving shouldn't be an add-on - it's far more important than just more or less an after-thought at the supermarket.

Plan ahead - you remember that sign, that has all the letters "P-L-A-N A-H-E-A" in place ... except the last "D", and there's not enough room for it, so it's sort of stuck in at the end, mostly below the line and sometimes a bit smaller?

First - decide how much you should be saving, to add to emergency fund and other major items that come all at once, e.g. annual premium on auto insurance, plus investing toward making a larger downpayment on your home (if you haven't bought one). Some believe that their largest expendiuture in their lives is their home, but for many it isn't - it's their mortgage. Add together the price of the home, plus closing and other incidental costs at the time.

Consider the amount that you're to pay on your mortgage monthly, and if taxes are included, deduct that amount, for if you'd paid cash, you'd still have to pay the taxes. Multiply that by the number of months until the mortgage would be fully discharged, then deduct the price of the home plus incidentals - you may well find that you'll be paying more interest that the price of the home! Many have.

Thus it makes sense to make as large a down payment as possible, to avoid paying interest on that extra money for - what - 25 years?

Plus a fund toward helping educate your kids (or upgrading your own/spouse's).

Plus some invested to fund your retirement - if you invest a certain amount for half a dozen years in your early 20s and let it run, it'll be worth more at age 65 than if you start at age 30 and invest the same amount annually for the next 35 years.

When each paycheque is deposited, first thing to do is deduct the amount that you need to fund those systems, put it into a separate savings account (1) ...

... and learn to live on the rest.

Sounds a bit complicated - but the main task is to change your way of thinking and do the major calculations in the beginning, amending them a bit from time to time as indicated, rather than chasing your tail by pulling groceries off of a shelf, adding them to the bill, then replacing them.

Every time you go in to shop.

For how many years?

You'll be cutting some years off of your life, doing that ... well, maybe not quite - but wasting a lot of time, energy and emotional turmoil.

Unnecessarily.

Prioritize.

Then go to work on the system that you choose.

Good wishes for getting your money management skills in good order.

Learning how money works - a great hobby ...

... ***that pays well***!!!

Good training for your kids, as well.

ole joyful

1. Deposit the savings into a savings account temporarily, meanwhile learn about skillful investing and when you have a substantial amount in the savings account (including enough to manage in an emergency - or two), invest some into an investment vehicle (or several types, eventually, to spread the risk), which will produce a good average rate of return over a number of years, without incurring too much risk.

To make your money work efficiently for you. And yours.

Either you boss your money - or it'll boss you! And there are lots of folks out there who want to separate you from it, putting a good chunk of it into their pocket.

o j

I pay with cash and have a $50 budget for groceries and $50 for everything else for the week. I don't spend the $1 bills from my change and save them in a separate savings account to be used as an emergency account, Christmas account, or special purchases. Perhaps this method would work for you and make the clerks happy. We've saved as much as $1,000 a year using this method when hubby adds his dollar bills to the mix.

-Grainlady

Just think - when your country does like ours and puts out coins (which last wa-a-a-y-y longer) to replace the One Dollar bills ...

... you'll be able to save really **heavy** money!

Won't that gladden the cockles of your heart(s)??!!

We all call ours a "Loonie" - 'cause there's an etching of a loon on the back.

Really!!

(Would I lead any of you dear people on this site astray??).

ole joyful

I know of your 'Loonies' and your 'Twonies'... and the USA DOES have a dollar coin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacagawea_dollar

It has been around for 6 years, but no one wants to use them!

If you were into collecting the quarters, now's the time to get ready for the dollars--there are folders out already for collecting them. Looks like the new dollars will be just a 'smidge' larger than a quarter.

The Liberty dollar coins from the 19th and early 20th century were successful due to the fact that the average days wages back then where about a dollar. A dollar had a lot of purchasing power in 1903. Nobody would have to carry around a bucketful of them in order to shop with them.

Imagine the clerk's ire when you go to pay for your gas with a fistfull of dollar coins, or worse yet, a combination of dollar coins and paper dollars.

The reason the gov thought dollar coins would be needed, is the fact that prices were going up and up and a lot of things we purchase nowdays are from vending machines. They never thought that vending machine manufacturers could come up with a machine that could take paper money! Duh.

I remember when cigarette machines took only quarters and it got so that you needed to get three, then four, then five dollars worth of quarters to slooooowly drop in, waiting to hear each one rebound and clink when it hit the bottom before dropping in the next quarter. The dollar coin would have made this easier, but voila, enter the paper money reader onto the scene and there was no need for a new coin.

In Mexico, where I have vacationed a number of times over the last few decades, I remember when they were phasing out the paper one Peso bills, in favor of the one Paso coin, due to inflation. That made sense waaay back then, as technology was not up to what it is now and there could be no such thing as a laser paper money reader that could be made cheaply for soda machines. If they still had paper Peso bills it would be like having paper money for nickels and dimes. Inflation has done away with the lower denomination Peso bills.

I hope everybody collects these soon to be released dollar coins, so that I never get them as change when I shop.

For those who toss all of their change into a jar everyday as a savings plan, dollar coins are really going to add up your savings FAST.

As inflation increases, a dollar isn't worth what it used to be. So it is now considered 'pocket change' instead of 'real' money.

Personally, I think they should phase out the penny and round all of the prices to the closest nickel.

As the one that started this discussion here, and who, after someone complained, pleaded guilty to highjacking someone else's thread, and then started a thread to discuss this topic ...

... can I ask you please to carry on this discussion there?

(red in the face) ole joyful

Doing a quick run of the store, for nonperishable items and/or being friendly when someone says they decide they don't want something after all, shouldn't be so hard to do for paid employees. When I'm carting 3 little kids around in a car cart the size of two aisles, the last thing I want to do if figure out where the baby got some canned frog legs from.

Now planning to do it purposely everytime you shop, or ever doing it with cold food is just wrong. But, other than that, I would say employess having to put back items is just a part of the business.

On a side note, I did see some ground beef laying out the other day and thought of returning it, but then my brain kicked it and reminded me that I had no idea how long it was sitting there! So good tip; don't try to do your good deed for the day by return other people's cold items to their right places...they could have been out for hours and need too be tossed; let the employees decide.

When shopping for clothes, I think a person should try to rehang those items they're not buying after trying on the clothes. But I always take the hangers with me to the checkout of clothes I am buying. If they are plastic, most stores will give them to me. I prefer these hangers to the ones that are sold in a 10-pack bundle and besides, they're free.

Or, if I don't see one, give it to the cashier.

ole joyful