Kroger....GRRRRR

I have a love/hate relationship with Kroger. When things are good, they're really good. When they're bad, they're really bad- like wait in line at Customer Service to get your order corrected bad. And things were bad today...I went in with high hopes for good freebies, several paper coupons and my Cellfire and Shortcuts e-coupons loaded.

If you're a Kroger shopper, be sure to get an account with www.cellfire.com and www.shortcuts.com - these are programs where you can load electronic coupons onto your Kroger rewards card. You can then use these along with paper coupons to create outstanding savings. When it works, it is fabulous! Unfortunately, I've encountered several bumps along the way using these coupons and today was no exception. The same goes for Kroger's Mega sales events where you get $5 off your order when you buy 10 qualifying items- it seems that more often than not, the $5 is not automatically deducted and I then have to go to Customer Service to determine the problem.

Today, I went in for the following:

2 boxes of Fiber One bars
2 bags of Nature Valley Nut Clusters
2 boxes of Chex Mix bars
2 boxes of Betty Crocker brownie mix
2 Betty Crocker Warm Delights
A pack of Tyson Boneless Chicken

According to my pre-shopping calculations, every item other than the chicken would have been free with e-coupons and paper coupons- the Warm Delights should have even been a small moneymaker. The chicken itself was only $1.49 after my $1 off Tyson chicken coupon. When checking out, the total was $12.30 - sure enough the $5 mega event hadn't come off, nor had my e-coupon for the Brownie mixes. When at the Customer Service desk, I discovered that the Betty Crocker Dark Chocolate brownie mix was not a qualifying item for the Mega Event. I exchanged these 2 for 2 qualifying brownie boxes and received a $5.75 credit.

Upon further scrutiny of the receipt, I learned I had made a boo-boo by using 2 -60 cent internet coupons for the Chex Mix bars rather than the 2- 50 cent insert coupons I should have used. Another con to Kroger shopping is that they only double coupons with a face value of up to 50 cents- so this coupon hadn't doubled. I also learned that one of my Nature Valley Nut Cluster e-coupons had rung up as 40 cents rather than $1.00. I'm not sure if all that even accounts for the total difference between what I thought I should have paid & what I actually paid and I'm just too tuckered out to figure it out for sure. Kroger shopping turns out to be a lot of work when all is said and done.

I'm still not sure whether it's worth all the trouble...