A Bad Scene

Apologies in advance for going on and on this week. Get a coffee.

As you know, we look at the competing flyers each week, and I would be the first to stand on a soapbox and say that Zehr's does not always have the best prices. I would contend they offer the best value for a full service grocery store, but sometimes, they don't have what I need or the timing is wrong. Last time, it was Shepherd Peppers at Food Basics for my Ajvar. The Food Basics cashier always asks if I have the MOI app, and the FreshCo cashier asks if I have a Scene Card. The answer to the 2nd question is "yes, I do". I haven't scene it in years (sorry?). I decided to fix that.

I find my original card and try to logon with that number. That gets me to a password reset. When I get in, it insists I need a new card, so I call them. A nice lady finds my old account and restores $24 in points to my account. These are from pre-COVID! She is sending me a new card. Three weeks later, SWMBO finds two brand new cards in the mail. Yes, different numbers. Let the games begin.

I call again, and after about an hour (holding and talking), we determine one account has been rolled into another, and we can go ahead and cut up one of the brand new cards they just sent me. Maddie is no good with scissors, so I do the deed. I logon to see how to load offers ... it doesn't like my new card number. Mmmm. I call again, another half an hour and they fix that and tell me it might take 24 hours to take.

The next morning, I tell my password manager to log me on. They fixed it all right. My password doesn't work now. I reset it, get in and there are my points. Awesome! I go to view and load my offers, but they are not within the Scene App? You need to go to another App called My Grocery Offers. I go there, and it wants my Scene Card, so I enter it. Get this:

Maybe you need to tell it where you want to shop? I selected the FreshCo tab. It took us straight to the FreshCo site. Cool! Now we are getting somewhere! I select My Grocery Offers on the FreshCo site, and it brings me back to the original page ... with the same error message. When you are retired, you need to find your entertainment where you can? Conclusion:Costco has its vibe. Optimum is outstanding. All the other chains are playing catch-up with loyalty programs. They are not very good at it ... yet. We are done ... f0r now.

An Old Dog

One thing that is time consuming when we create this list each week is searching for the normal full price on items. It's more complicated that you might think. If you wait until the new prices go into effect (usually just after midnight on Thursday morning, you can't see the old price online. So you have 24 hours between when the flyer comes out with the sale prices and when those prices change online? With me so far?

The other issue is that sometimes, grocery marketers inflate the full price of the item to make their discount look better. ("No, Mitch, say it ain't so. ") Lactancia butter is supposedly 40% off at $6.49 but nobody is paying eleven dollars for a pound of butter. Not yet anyway. If I don't like the full price that Zehr's is inferring, I go across to Wally Mart or Food Basics for a reality check. If something is 3.79 on sale and they say it's a 22% discount, what is the full price? Does anyone know how to calculate that? I have been using a spreadsheet cheat sheet with a sliding scale, and I plug in the full price range, then search for the correct result. If we learned a shortcut for this in school, I must have been smoking behind the football stands that day. Google AI seems determined to be blatantly moronic. Rabbit hole time.

Eureka! I found this on YouTube. You subtract the discount rate from 100, then divide that into the sale price! I never knew this. Did you? So this week, they are calling Aylmer Accents canned tomatoes a 33% discount at $1.99. 100-33 is .77 Two dollars divided by .77 is $2.59. Is that a reasonable full price for a large can of tomatoes? Yup. Old dog, new trick.

My Optimum Week

So, new budget month, new monthly and weekly continuity offers. It was fun putting our list together. Maddie and I were standing at Zehrs when the doors opened on Saturday. Most everything on our list was on sale and big continuity points. I do the lap in forty minutes, but when I go to checkout, only one till is open? The store's internet is down. Fear not, they have a single handheld machine. It scans my card for points, then takes my money. Oh, the humanity (Hindenburg reference) when I get home! I got bupkis. No points, no offers, no continuity, nada. Mmmm. Take it all back? They can void the entire receipt in one go, then just scan it all again, two minutes .... once their Internet is fixed. As I am pondering this, I am eating one of the Mandarin oranges and have sausages slow cooking in the crockpot. SWMBO is eating cereal with the milk I bought. What are we talking about here? Is this even worth my time? Well, I am retired, and I am an Excel guru, so ...

It wasn't really the $8.54; it was that all of our continuity counts were still sitting at zero. No way could we get the weekly ones done, and the veggies I bought were all on sale. Remember the "double in baseball" rule? I want to purchase sale priced items that also generate extra points. I bided my time until Monday morning. You take this problem to a weekend teenager on the service desk, and blood will run out of their ears. The store staff could void, refund, and re-enter these items. They could give me a ten-dollar gift card. They could send me away fuming. One of my favourite (and brightest) senior staffers was on the service desk. She took one look and chose Option 1. No eye roll, just put her head down. Typed in eleven, eleven digit numbers. Gave me a $58 dollar refund. Typed in eleven, eleven digit numbers and charged me $58. I bought SWMBO a little pizza on the way home from golf with the nine dollars she saved us. I went back on Wednesday and closed the loop on the other 5500 points listed. Thanks C!

Your Optimum Week

Trump stood in front of 700 of his top generals early this week and discussed Canada becoming the 51st state. If you were looking for a reason to boycott U.S. goods, and that doesn't do it for you ... I just don't know what to say.

It was a pretty great flyer considering they "have" you this week ... if company is coming over on the weekend. I will not do the whole stuffed turkey rant, but between that and pies for cheap, you could give yourself a break this year? The best deal is all those Knorr packages for everything with 50% back in points. Check the package for country of origin? SWMBO loves Eggs Benedict.

Here is our list to add to your fridge list:

I rarely go for decorative front porch crap, but points for pumpkins? Nine bucks gets you two big ones. Just sit them there. They look pretty cool. If you are so inclined, carve them in a couple of weeks for All Hallows Eve. Then chop em up and bury them in your garden. They will do magical things for you by next spring! Maybe CG can get her onions to grow? Those Bridor croissants look good, and it's a French company, but I'm pretty sure they are U.S. made. Same with Pilsbury so I gave you NN dinner rolls to sop up that Knorr turkey gravy. My onions were once again a complete disaster. Zehr's is just rubbing it in with that price on a big bag of them. I love red onions in salad, but don't forget, preserving them into one of the best condiments is easy. A couple of mason jars, some vinegar and slice them longitudinally. A few peppercorns? Here is a Jean-Pierre link I shared before (SWMBO loves this guy):

IBAT

So, I inferred a couple of weeks ago that I bought a thing. Time to fess up, so ITAP. What had happened was I had developed what Dr. Google called osteoarthritis in my left wrist. It was funny in that it didn't hurt moving it up and down but moving it laterally or trying to squeeze with my fingers .... OMFG. I'd had a scary ride home on my motorcycle where I could only rest my left wrist on the bars, then pulled the clutch by pulling back on the throttle side and leaving my left thumb out of it. I got home fine, but I parked the bike and started some YouTube inspired rehab. Riding one handed on a motorcycle with what is basically a six-cylinder car engine in it ... is not for the faint of heart. Then, my insurance renewal came in. The price had gone from $1300 to $2100! Time to trade down. I put it up on Marketplace and Kajiji and began looking for something smaller, lighter and less expensive to insure. This would be my third "last motorcycle" in a row. Turns out, buying a motorcycle in the fall is much easier than selling one. Who knew? So now I have two. SWMBO was very understanding. She said nothing, went straight out and bought $600 of wool. I suspect she was waiting for me to say something. Anything. I remember going golfing with an RBC director (NM) years ago, and he was sporting a brand new set of very shiny Ping golf clubs. Knowing they could be pretty high end, I asked what they were worth? "Oh, about eight grand" What? He explained the clubs were two, but she caught him getting them out of the car. "Next thing I knew, there was six thousand bucks' worth of all new leather furniture in our living room. Considering that, I think I got off easy.

Bonus Redemption at Shoppers! Next week: 3 strike laws in Canada?

Mitch & Maddie