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Dear Reader,
"Save 75 cents, save 25 cents, save a $1.50 when you buy two." Who wouldn't want to save money on products they're going to buy anyway? Who wouldn't want to clip coupons?
Me.
Yes I want to save money, and it feels good thinking about being a thrifty shopper, but it's agony when I'm in the store and I realize I've left my coupons at home. Or truth-be-told, what really happens: Suzanne, the thrifty shopper, cuts out coupons, but then can't remember where the heck she put them. And the final humiliation, I watch the person checking out in front of me hand the clerk a fist-full of coupons--some of the same ones that are hiding somewhere in my home.
Then there's a new kind of coupon that doesn't require me to cut coupons, instead, they offer a Reward program. "Use our Reward card, or you don't get the sale price on any items, and if you forget to bring your Reward card with you, you're gonna have to work to get your Reward. Now get those fingers moving." Of course I never have my card with me, so I have to enter my phone number on the keypad, push a green button, then push another button to indicate whether or not I want to donate to the charity on the next screen, then hit another button to indicate whether I am using a debit, credit, or stolen card, and yet another question "Do you want cash back?" and finally I push a button acknowledging that I'm agreeing to the amount of purchase that's showing up on the screen. I could choose not to patronize this store, but the competition has a Rewards program, too.
So I've given up on coupons, don't care if I save 25 cents or not, at least I'm saving my sanity.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
* This month's Penguin Classics book is THE PURPLE CLOUD by M. P. Shiel. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/May2013Classics
AUTHORBUZZ: SLEEPING IN EDEN (Fiction) by Nicole Baart
The lives of a middle-aged doctor and a love-struck young woman intersect across time in Nicole Baart's haunting novel about love, jealousy, and the boundaries between loyalty and truth.
Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on SLEEPING IN EDEN to read more and to email author Nicole Baart, you'll get a reply.
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