It’s about to get weird. I’m going to say something nice about Walmart.

This Yankee would seriously rejoice if Target ever came to our sleepy little town, but alas, we are just fortunate to have a tiny JC Penney and one giant Walmart. Thus, much of my everyday and weekly shopping takes place at the latter, whether I like it or not.

The only other game in town for a grocery store is a regional chain that I absolutely adore. There’s only one problem–they have the world’s smallest aisles and the longest checkout lines in the history of man. Despite several efforts on the part of the town and the local management to coax them into giving us one of their “Whole Foods” type stores, we are stuck with this seriously overused and tiny store. H-E-B? Are you listening over here???

Thus, I find myself shopping at Walmart because I just can’t take the claustrophobic nature and lack of selection at H-E-B anymore. But, Walmart does give me one thing that I probably won’t ever be able to get at their competitor–their Savings Catcher app.

This free app does a lot of stuff, but honestly, I don’t use the other features. I don’t even explore them. I just tap the Savings Catcher menu choice and “rock and roll.” When I get a register receipt from Walmart, I click my app, click Savings Catcher and scan the QR code (those square do-hickies that look like ancient video game pixels gone wrong) at the bottom of my receipt with my phone. Almost instantly, Savings Catcher tells me it’s got the entire contents of my receipt in my phone. And, if I want, it will show me the entire receipt in a much easier-to-read display on my phone. Why is this a good idea?

Because Savings Catcher instantly looks for the closest stores to me and compares the prices of all items on my receipt for lower prices at the close stores. Even though I live in a small town, Savings Catcher manages to compare 15 different stores in my area, including dollar stores and a pile of other places that I probably didn’t even know carried the items I bought.

It then sends an email to me telling me that it has my receipt and it’s comparing prices. They warn you that it may take 72 hours to do that. Then, I get another email that the comparison process is complete. If they found cheaper prices at another store, they offer to put the difference(s) on an e-gift card for me. With another click, it’s on an e-gift card!

I started using this app in August and I now have $ 15.47 saved on an e-gift card from 14 receipts. I will grant you that this is not going to buy me the BMW convertible I’ve been eyeing for forever, but it might buy a few stocking stuffers this Christmas. And they did the work for me–I didn’t clip coupons; didn’t have to remind myself how to get coupons on my phone, didn’t have to wait eons for a rebate and didn’t have to type in some promo code in some box. I generally stick the receipts in one of my bags and then when I unload the bags at home, get out my phone and scan the receipt then, so it’s pretty easy to remember to do.

Occasionally, Savings Catcher tells me it couldn’t find a cheaper price, but as you can see, I’m saving about a dollar per receipt with this new little habit of mine. In the beginning the QR reader often didn’t work, but I have noticed this less and less, so they must be working out the bugs rapidly. Even if the QR reader doesn’t work, you just type in the TC# on the receipt which is pretty close to the QR code block. For those of us getting older, you will need your reading glasses to read that, though! And finding my reading glasses sometimes is an effort! But, I’m enough of a Scot to go looking for them for this purpose.

I confess that I haven’t tried redeeming the e-gift card yet, but as I said, $ 15 can get used for stocking stuffers, so I plan on checking out this part of the “equation” soon. Have you tried Savings Catcher? If so, I’d love to hear what you think of it and how much you have saved. I’d particularly love to know if you’ve tried redeeming your e-gift card and how that went for you. Comment below to share your thoughts.

Yes, I suppose I could participate in Black Friday and save even more money, but if I think clipping coupons is too much work, do you really think I participate in Black Friday?

Monday’s Post: Can you pronounce adscititious?

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In my tiny town we have no Target. We barely have department stores–the ones we have are “economy-sized”. And trendy clothes stores are few and far between. There is no Container Store, to my dismay. And we live in a college town, where the college grows by leaps and bounds each year. To add to my annual shopping misery, we happen to be the county seat for our rural county. Thus, back-to-school shoppers abound at pretty much one store–Walmart. To go to Walmart at this time of year is to invite oneself to a demolition derby of human beings. I learned a loooooooooooooong time ago that one should not get between a mother and the last wide-ruled 3-subject spiral notebook in the joint.

While I can largely avoid the school supply aisle now that my kids are all past adolescence, one college student remains. And if you think it’s painful to shop for 3 elementary or junior high school students at this time of year, wait until you see what a college student now requires!

I first put this on FB a few years ago, but having spent some time at Wal-Mart last weekend, I can assure you that our little town’s Wal-Mart will be almost identical to this today:

Some folks think that Wally World is, quite frankly, “The Devil”. (Adam Sandler would be so proud.) This would be particularly true of the folks who used to work there, like two of my children. 

But the store comes in mighty handy for a variety of reasons in “my domain,” (Jerry Seinfeld would be so proud.) since I don’t have the option of a Target nearby. It’s close to my house; it’s open 24 hours a day for those nights when you’ve run out of cough syrup and your kid can’t stop hacking; it’s cheap; it has wide aisles (Anyone from JC Penney listening to this??? Hint, hint.) and it’s one-stop shopping.

I spend so much time at Wally World that the LSH once said he was simply going to deposit his paycheck there and let them debit our account because that’s where all our money went anyway. So, on my 89th trip to Wally World this week (and I have another trip already planned for tomorrow, because I forgot one more item I need for this weekend) I noticed something very interesting….

There are nearly as many people at Wally World on February 13th as there are when the school supply lists first come out! And that time of the year is plain nuts…the only diff between that time of the year and this time of the year would be that the very same aisle is awash with red, pink, white and black as opposed to psychedelic colors on a sea of pocket folders.

I first encountered a sea of humanity by a giant display of every rose bouquet imaginable…let’s get the crud out of here! I then tried to get down the stuffed toy aisle…too many baseball caps, sweatshirts and jeans and honestly…testosterone.

I then tried to go down the Valentine candy aisle and it was full of shopping carts and purses and women on cell phones with frustrated looks on their faces (My bet is that Junior forgot to give his mom the note that said she needed to provide 24 treats for the class tomorrow and they couldn’t be red in color.).

I gave up and decided to just cruise through the sock aisle to pick up some better “walking sox” and of course, in my rush to get back to the checkout before Kyle deadened my car battery from rocking out to tunes in the car, had to go through the ladies lingerie section…..not a soul anywhere around those lacy, frilly, red numbers. Actually, very little pedestrian traffic at all in that section.

Nooooo comment.

Tomorrow’s Post: Love Letter to My Readers