I ravaged the Co-Op reduced items for tea yesterday. Tomatoes, two varieties - piccolo cherry on the vine (85p down from £1.65) and amoroso also on the vine (£1 down from £2 – a full 50% saving), blueberries (also £1 from £2) and two salmon fillets (I think it was £2 down from £3.69, but I’ve cooked them and thrown away the packaging, so can’t guarantee 100% accuracy on that one).
There is a reduced item section, but you can also pick up cheap goods left in the main sections, so be vigilant it can pay dividends. Well not technically, it can save dividends, but you still have to pay. However, at the self-service checkout things fell apart. Normally I don’t use them, because weird things happen – usually ‘unknown item in the bagging area’ related - and also they’re nice at the Co-Op and it’s good to have a bit of friendly human interaction. I had an altercation at the Spar recently involving their forced double-bagging of a bottle of wine (I could have cradled it underneath, it would have been fine). It lead to a heated discussion and I’m a bit embarrassed to go back in there.
I scanned the salmon fillets and it came up with the full price. I followed it with the tomatoes and that worked out okay. What I’d done was scan the original barcode on the salmon and not the replacement reduced price barcode. Idiot. And I just didn’t have the energy to get into a discussion on my scanning incompetence, so just paid up and left. I’d had a bumper saving anyhow. Was this the right thing to do? Well, it’s the Co-Op and they’re nice, so I felt like it was okay. But what if I don’t eat all the tomatoes – I’ve not finished the piccolos and not even opened the amorosos? The blueberries are still going too. The salmon fillets are gone – roasted with some of the piccolos – but they weren’t actually reduced, so they don’t count anymore.
On the upside I have had two tasty fishy tomatoey (and roasted peppery and garlicy – not reduced in price) meals. So who won? Me and the Co-Op - it was a win-win situation. You’ll be dismayed to learn that some utter tw*t smashed their glass door recently, so I hope my scanning error has gone some way to help cover the cost of the replacement.
