Thursday, June 22, 2017

HOW THE SUPERMARKET GAVE ME MY LIFE BACK

A couple of weeks ago I received a special offer in my inbox from one of the big supermarket chains: 

Spend $140 each week, for two weeks, and receive 6000 bonus points. Essentially, a $30 reward for spending $280.

Now, before we go anywhere with this I want to say from the get go, that I was already planning to spend this amount, probably more, on groceries within that time period. This didn't require me to spend more money than I was planning to, nor to buy things I wouldn't use. THOSE offers are never worth it.

The challenge of this offer for me was to make two big trips, instead of 13 small trips. I usually try to do one BIG SHOP per fortnight, but always end up ducking to the supermarket for something I've forgotten every second day, if not every day! And I consider myself pretty organised, I meal plan, I write extensive shopping lists, but for some reason I still have to make multiple trips each week. Confession: Sometimes each day. Eek!

Which would be fine... Except when I was forced to make two trips I realised how much TIME (as well as money) I had been SPENDING at the supermarket. And it wasn't just time spent IN the supermarket, when you have to take three small children with you it's time spent getting ready, buckling everyone into the car, and out, and in, and out, organising what order to buckle everyone in and out so no one gets run over, but no one has a meltdown, manoeuvring a trolley that's carrying an extra 35kg, fielding comments about your lifestyle choices, sigh.

Just picking up a few things, even just milk, could really equate to an hour's work all things considered, and we only live around the corner from the supermarket! (see the problem??) Making time for that hour around sleeps, feeds, changes and meals, wondering how every member of the party is going to cope with leaving the home environment, and getting home to find you're still missing a key ingredient for tonight's dinner, is actually ridiculously stressful. Well, it is for ME anyway.

Being incentivised to reduce my trips forced me to get organised in a way that the pain and inconvenience of making multiple trips never had. And when I saw the difference to my peace of mind, it helped motivate me to try to achieve the same in the following week. 

And it didn't hurt that about three weeks later they sent me the same offer asking me to spend $145 for each transaction, forcing me to rise to the challenge again!

So thanks ye supermarket gods for giving me my life back!! What a blessed relief!



PS. If you too receive these offers in your inbox on the regular and always think "hmm, I dunno if I will remember to do that..." ALWAYS ACTIVATE THE OFFER!!! It's annoying to get to the supermarket and realise your phone is at home on the charger and it's too late to turn back and accept the offer, especially if it's one where you're probably going to spend the amount required anyway. Activate the offer as soon as you get it, there's no penalty if you forget to spend the money.

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