Always Ask for a Raincheck

A few weeks ago Walgreen's had my favorite snack, Blue Diamond Almonds, on sale for $4.99 a bag. Since the almonds are usually $7.99 a bag, we regularly stock up when there's a sale (which Walgreen's has regularly, BTW). We had noticed the sale in the Sunday paper before church and decided to stop by Walgreen's after church and nab several bags.

After our service we stopped at the Walgreen's near the church (which was EXACTLY on our way home -- we would have driven by it anyway, so the stop was convenient.) We went in to buy several bags of the "roasted salted" flavor and several of the "smokehouse" flavor (I like the smokehouse taste, but eating only those is overpowering, so I buy these two and then blend them.) Well, they had plenty of the roasted salted version but were out of the smokehouse. We picked up four of the former and headed to the counter.

My wife asked if they had any of the smokehouse flavor in the back. They checked and they did not. So my wife asked for a raincheck. The lady asked how many we wanted a raincheck for. We said "five." She filled out the form, noting that the rainchecks NEVER expire. So now we can go in and buy our almonds at $3 off anytime we want (up to five packages.)

We piled back into the car, then hit another Walgreen's near our house on the way home (again, we used the path we would have driven anyway to get home, so we didn't spend any extra gas/effort to do this.) We went in, bought four bags of the smokehouse flavor so I could blend them with the others later, and went home. The next day I took all the packages to work where I store them in a cabinet until needed. The almonds have a "best when used by" date of May 2012, so there will be no problem in me finishing them off by then.

Just wanted to share with you that it's good to always ask for a raincheck. We could have easily said we'd simply check another store when the first store was out of what we wanted. But by taking 15 seconds to ask, we now have a sale we can use any time we like. Saving $15 (five bags at $3 each bag) in 15 seconds is a pretty good deal, IMO. ;-)

Comments

[Paula1849]

I think this is a fantastic way to save money. Just recently I noticed that the store I shopped at had a nice brand of lunch meats on sale. Normally I would not purchase them during the summer, but because they were out I was able to get a raincheck which doesn't expire for three months. That is when my son is back in school and he packs his lunch. So now I have a raincheck for high quality lunch meats that I can use when I need it.

[Linda]

Yes, if you are lucky enough to have competent clerks. There are A LOT of places where getting a raincheck is a real hassle - Target comes to mind, as does one of the (Kroger related) grocery chains here. And the younger the clerk, the more likely they are to look at you like they've never heard of such a thing.