Locked: Wife hates price matching

trumprules wrote: ↑ My wife is always pissed off every time I price match something, saying it's embarrassing and a waste of time to save 50 cents here, 50 cents there. Her negative attitude actually eggs me on and last time we went to Superstore, I price matched 3/4 of the items in the cart. The cashiers couldn't figure out how to price match the meat, so they rang it in as "other". Then we had to go to customer service to get our PC points for personal offers on the meat. All in all it added maybe 10 minutes to our shopping trip. My wife is now refusing to go shopping with me for groceries. I added it all up and showed her that we saved $40 just on price matching, which didn't phase her.

What do you say to a person like this? It's not like we are rich and have money to waste. I am scared to let her go shopping alone, so now I have to go alone.

Did you save $40 on just that one bill? That's pretty good.
Anyhow, just shop on your own if you're better at it than her. No sense dragging her around if she doesn't want to.

50 cents here and there is not a whole lot when you consider the time it has taken you to first price match all these items and then also spend your time (and everyone else in line) waiting on a ton of price matching to ring through.

I'd be embarrassed too since it would make me feel like I'm dirt poor to need to penny pinch that much and also inconveniences the clerk and everyone in line.

If it was a several dollars (on a single item) then sure... But I wouldn't be scavenging flyers for price matching purposes on all my items like it sounds you're doing. That's taking it a step further than the average person.

If it works for you, ok... But I totally get where your wife is coming from.

Personally I'm not big on price matching. I try to give my business to the store that bothered to put it on sale in the first place.

If it's small things, then I can't be bothered to price match or drive around to get the items.

I guess that's not very RSD. I peruse RSD and buy bigger ticket items onsale from the vendors that put them on sale.

engineered wrote: ↑ Did you save $40 on just that one bill? That's pretty good.
Anyhow, just shop on your own if you're better at it than her. No sense dragging her around if she doesn't want to.

Yes, saved $40 in price matching and spent around $120. Also got around $15 in PC points, and we didn't buy anything that was a bad price. All in all we're paying less than half for our groceries than what someone who indiscriminately shoveled items into their cart (her) would pay.

Aside from being cheap, it also annoys me how Superstore has a sign saying "we price match so you don't have to". Obviously that's a lie, so I'm going to price match everything I can just out of spite.

My goal was for her to take over the grocery shopping since I am very busy, but we are a long way from that.

zod wrote: ↑ Personally I'm not big on price matching. I try to give my business to the store that bothered to put it on sale in the first place.

The store I price match most is No Frills, and they have spotty selection and often lower quality goods. I know if I'm price matching a cauliflower at Superstore, for example, that it's probably twice the size as the ones No Frills is selling. Anyways, if I can get everything at Superstore rather than run around to Walmart, No Frills, or elsewhere, then I'd prefer to do that.

Divorce her. She's obviously not RFD material lol

Jokes aside, I can see how she might feel embarrassed if you are price matching a lot of items in-store and holding up the grocery line. That's understandable but she doesn't have be there with you. Just tell her you're going grocery shopping alone or ask her to wait in the car when you get to the checkout. Some people might argue that "it's only 40 dollars" and "you just spent the time finding the deals". Sure, but $40 has different values to different classes of people. At the end of the day, you do you and don't care about what other people think.

trumprules wrote: ↑ The store I price match most is No Frills, and they have spotty selection and often lower quality goods. I know if I'm price matching a cauliflower at Superstore, for example, that it's probably twice the size as the ones No Frills is selling. Anyways, if I can get everything at Superstore rather than run around to Walmart, No Frills, or elsewhere, then I'd prefer to do that.

yah I'll price match bigger stuff, but I don't price match smaller stuff like groceries. I don't want to be the guy that holds up the lineup and everyone stares at. It would most definitely drive my wife nuts, and while I'm an RFD'er it would drive me nuts too. If I'm actually going to price match something, it's generally going to a bigger ticket item that maybe I couldn't get at the store it was on sale (or it saved a lot of driving). You could always do groceries solo if you're good with price matching but it drives her crazy.

Karala wrote: ↑ 50 cents here and there is not a whole lot when you consider the time it has taken you to first price match all these items and then also spend your time (and everyone else in line) waiting on a ton of price matching to ring through.

I'd be embarrassed too since it would make me feel like I'm dirt poor to need to penny pinch that much and also inconveniences the clerk and everyone in line.

If it was a several dollars (on a single item) then sure... But I wouldn't be scavenging flyers for price matching purposes on all my items like it sounds you're doing. That's taking it a step further than the average person.

If it works for you, ok... But I totally get where your wife is coming from.

The way I look at it is that groceries are our #1 expense. We spent $7,500 on groceries this year, which was 25% of our total expenses. If we are saving 50% by knowing our prices, price matching, and playing PC points, then we saved $7,500 this year (all else equal). That's a lot of money and worth 15 minutes a week (13 hours in the year) of effort. Especially since we are kind of poor / middle class (wife doesn't work).

As for the people behind me in line, I always figure they look positively at me for price matching and wonder why they aren't price matching more themselves. If they are inconvenienced, it's the store's fault for having too high of prices.

trumprules wrote: ↑ As for the people behind me in line, I always figure they look positively at me for price matching and wonder why they aren't price matching more themselves. If they are inconvenienced, it's the store's fault for having too high of prices.

Why would people look positively when you are taking up their time? I get it though, you are trying to safe money like everyone on RFD so I try to be patience but the last time someone price matched in front of me, the guy had four different flyers and it was taking forever. I use to use cashiers as I don't want them to all lose jobs due to self check out, but not I pretty much only do self check out for this reason now.

To me its more the stores fault for allowing price matching in the first place.

I use self check out to PM.
people in line are not standing right next to me so they don't know what I'm are doing.
when I call over attendant to PM, people just think there is something wrong with check out machine, which happens all the time.

Get a new wife that likes price matching. Problem solved.

trumprules wrote: ↑ As for the people behind me in line, I always figure they look positively at me for price matching and wonder why they aren't price matching more themselves. If they are inconvenienced, it's the store's fault for having too high of prices.

I have literally never looked at the person holding up the line in a positive and inspirational way. Daggers, yes. Eye rolls, you betcha. But googley eyes, hell no. You may have time to burn chasing pennies but most of us don't.

I've never done this myself, but can you online price match Walmart for groceries and just pick-up for free? That way you don't hold up the grocery line and save money through price-matching?

Happy Wife, Happy Life.

Buy her a new car. When she asks you where you got the money, tell her it's the money you saved through price matching.

Everyone is saying pennies but OP is saying $40+. Y'all really going to turn $40 down? You're on the wrong site.

Anyways, leave the wife at home.

ReadAllTheDeals wrote: ↑ Everyone is saying pennies but OP is saying $40+. Y'all really going to turn $40 down?

It depends... without concrete examples of how and what the 40 dollars was saved on (one or two items, or 50 small items in groceries) I cannot say if the effort was worthwhile. RFD is about savings sure, but there are limits for most people on effort required to gain said savings.

The OP has stated they save 50 cents here and there -- if that accumulates to 40 dollars so be it, but the average person doesn't have time for that. OP has given inconsistency in the time it takes for all this effort, from saying 10 minutes a week total to also saying it was 10 minutes in one line alone just for collecting PC points or something.

I personally would go to the store with the sale if I want the item that badly at a discount unless there's some reason preventing it. If the store with the sale doesn't have as high a quality produce product then I'd support the store that sells the item at a higher price for a better quality product. So be it if I've lost 50 cents on some cauliflower...

Yes yearly savings add up for OP, but you can do this other ways; stock up when items are on sale, do weekly or even monthly grocery shopping, keep a list of items you require and stick to the list, buy in bulk, have leftovers instead of them going in the landfill, cut back on Starbucks trips, or whatever. It all adds up even if most people don't caculate like the OP on savings.

It seems like a small thing to disagree on price matching groceries but I think it represents a disagreement in the core value of money. Being good at saving money is a great way to live, a dollar saved is a dollar made, but using money to enjoy life is also a great way of life. There’s a problem when 2 people with these conflicting views on money come together. Especially when you say things like it eggs me on to see the wife is pissed, that’s just not how you build a successful marriage. I’d say make more compromises for each other, don’t exaggerate your differences.

50 cents “here and there” would require you to ring through on average 80 items to get that $40 in savings. I don’t think I’ve ever had that many things in my cart before.