Grocery Shopping Pet Peeves

I do my grocery shopping regularly, about once every two weeks. Usually I would go on a weekday (to avoid weekend shoppers): Id compose a list the night before, finalize my budget, clip coupons from the Sunday paper, print online coupons and promo codes and bring them with me as I make my way the next day to the grocery store. (Store locations usually match online offers anyway.)

But its not as wee and happy and effortless as it sounds. I have been doing this for several years now, and from my experiences at the shops I have come up with a list of grocery shopping pet peeves.

Long queues: Nobody wants to wait hours just falling in line at the cashier! Especially if you arent carrying that many items in the first place, and had wanted to just come and go. Some insensitive customers, however, take too long on transactions: putting an item back in the shelf, forgetting an onion, using coupons for every item, harassing the lady at the cash register, or counting change at an unbelievably leisurely pace. Thats why if a store has an express checkout counter for those with baskets only, and not carts then thats where I would fall in line.

Pricing mistakes: I always check the price of a grocery item before hauling them into my cart or basket. Of course, whenever possible, I always go for discounted ones, for stuff thats on sale. There have been times, however, when a grocery store would have put up the wrong price. Maybe the promo has expired; maybe the inventory staff is to be blamed. Nonetheless, like when sale items dont ring up as they should, these pricing mistakes annoy me because they ruin my budget. And its very confusing to someone who is as bad enough a mathematician as I am. Luckily, this doesnt happen often.

Kids: Oh, of course I adore my own children. But I have never and will never bring them with me to the grocery. Its annoying when youre trying to shop and there are these little boys and girls playing with the wheeled carts, or throwing tantrums because they werent bought Skittles. Sometimes, small as they are, they are the ones who block the aisles and prevent you from reaching that can of mushroom soup.

Couponing limits: I try to be as frugal as possible when grocery shopping. Thus, I collect coupons from the papers and from the Internet before scheduling a trip to the grocery store. More than once, however, I had been told that I can only use one coupon per purchase. If I was buying four cartons of orange juice and had four one dollar off coupons for those, would I be able to redeem it for each carton? Apparently not. Well, not always. Sometimes ones interpretation of a promo would differ from the interpretation of the store cashier.

Because of these pet peeves, I am now considering shopping online for my groceries. Who knows? With coupons and promo codes available all over the Internet, I just may lessen my twice-a-month trips to Wal-Mart. And I wont have to worry about my grocery gripes.