Money for Nothing, Groceries for Free

Ever look at the receipts you get from stores and fast food places? Notice those "take our survey and be entered to win" links? I do them every time. Never mind that I like making sure that corporate knows when good service is happening, I have all the free time in the world. So I fill out questionnaire after questionnaire; submitting my opinions on cleanliness and friendliness of staff into the maw of the data-cruncher.

Then, about a week ago, I got a call. Smart&Final had selected my survey for a $500 shopping card. It showed up Thursday. Today, kshandra and I went shopping. We had to keep telling ourselves that this was all free. We loaded up with what, for us, is a month's worth of groceries. We didn't go crazy, didn't buy things because they looked good (OK, we did buy brownies, but I had been craving them), and still looked for deals.

At the end, with the cart loaded to the brim and having traversed every aisle, we went to check out. After seeing that impressive load come across the scanner, the total was... $193.94. We didn't pay a dime of it. We could do this again and still have about $100 left on the card.

So the lesson here is fill out those surveys! You can't win if you don't enter!