Hi all,Good Morning! I see that a lot of you haven't received your books yet, is no problem to wait, lets give it the rest of the week for everyones books to arrive. After all the first lesson involves the book LOL. So everyone who signed up, once you all get your books, pop in on this post and let me know when you get your book then hopefully we will start on Friday or Saturday of this coming week. Woodpat, glad to have you join us. This will be a casual and very easy exercise, I am hoping to have lots of thoughts going back and forth between everyone participating in this.

Ha! Was at the market picking up a few things today and they did it Again. The girl didn't check the cart and I wasn't paying attention. Remembered that heavy item when I was loading my bags into the cart. That makes it about $120 worth of misses now that I've caught for them. I should be on commission ; ) I'll have to let management know, as I'm sure I'm not the only one this happens to. They could be losing a small fortune. You'd think they'd notice a stock problem, though, and work on training. Not exactly the type of thing someone could shoplift. I guess I should pay attention to the shelf pricing more carefully for overcharges. But I'd kind of expect that there might be price changes that weren't in sync from time to time. I just pay attention to whether the bill is about right at the end.

I do have to say, if someone in front of me told the cashier to wait while they unloaded, I'd tell them to let me go in front of them then! Or I'd blow a cork and let out with some choice phrases. There's no right to hold people up while you put your stuff up there, the cashier is SUPPOSED to move people through quickly! Can you imagine how much longer it would be if the cashier had to wait for everyone to say "OK" before they started doing their job? If you want to watch it ring in, bring someone with you to unload the cart for you. That's your expense, not the store's nor the other customers'. As for the first items you didn't see, it's a simple thing. Look at the first few items on the receipt! Granted, some receipts sort items but still it'd be the first items in the category on those. Couple things I do when going on a "larger" shopping trip. First I organize my list into groups. For instance, produce/deli, canned goods, meat, refrigerated, frozen, bakery, etc and then I can go through with minimal backtracking. Then, if I have a price I want to remember, I write it on the list next to the item. This way if I need a certain dollar amount for a special purchase or coupon or something I have it on there to total up too. I also prefer to bag my own groceries. I double bag, sort by refrigerated, frozen, canned and fragile items. This time of year there's a lot of fundraising where high school kids offer to bag your groceries. Usually I politely decline otherwise I have to do far more sorting when I get home. I don't really mind putting my own groceries in my vehicle. But I DO object to this business of checking out twice at a store. I can't stand Scam's Club and Crustco just because of that. I don't go to Walmart much but if they're doing it now too, I would turn around, return EVERYTHING and never return. I should give praise though where it's due. I was at a Target picking up a few things and they had cat litter on sale. I put two buckets in the cart and one of the clerks came up and asked if he could bring them up front so I would have more room in the cart and less weight to deal with! That was kind. I happened into another Target later that week and the sale was so good I thought I'd pick up two more. While I was checking out, the cashier asked if I would like some help loading it into my car! I thanked her and said no, I'd be fine, and she got a real sincere, concerned look and said "Are you SURE, it'd be no problem!". Wow. Either I really look like death warmed over or they are some nice people. Granted, not all are that way, but these episodes deserve recognition. And in fairness, I do have to say, even though we all hate it when something is mispriced, the number of times is actually quite rare. Consider the number of trips you make when you check them and things are right. And also, there's a number of times that I've been over-credited, or something wasn't rung in or whatever. Even though I watch pretty close, use the self scanners in the stores and actually I like to use the self-checkouts too. Then I can watch the prices more closely, bag things the way I like and feel more confident about the entire thing. I still would like to see the smaller grocery store come back. But I know it can't. People want Walmart. People love Walmart. People want supercenters. For some reason people want to go to a Megabucks to get their morning coffee, then to a Boozers Bagels for breakfast, but they want to be able to buy their paint and car batteries at the same time they buy their green beans and hamburger. Argue all you want but it's true. Walmart is the way they are because people want it that way. If they didn't, Walmart wouldn't be the size they are. People are cheap. Not frugal people, but people as a whole are cheap and don't want a mom & pop store to make a dollar. And that's sad. Remember the mom & pop stores? They'd pack your groceries carefully and carry them out. No need to ask for double bagging, if it needed it, it was done. They'd extend you some credit and put a candy bar or two in for the kids. If the apples were bruised they'd mark them down or replace them. Even the "super markets" would bag and carry out and you didn't have to stop for lunch going from one side of the store to the other. C'mon now, do we REALLY need 67 different kinds of peanut butter? 140 kinds of laundry detergent? 8 different brands of canned corn? I guess today we they do.

A friend who was a nurse told me that a question she missed on a test had to do with hand-washing. Something like, which is more effective: paper towels or water? And the answer was that, if you have to choose, wiping your hands with paper towels removes more germs than washing your hands with water (not soap). So I consider drying with paper towels to be the final step in really clean hands. On the other hand, bathrooms littered with paper towels that didn't make it into the bin, or the little fibers that fall off, gross me out. On the third hand, I don't know why we aren't all walking around at death's door, with all these germs. I figure, we are made of pretty strong stuff (hey, we survived this long). So I do my part, but I don't worry about it too much.