Magic Cheques from El Corte Inglés.
So okay, a couple of weeks ago Nog & I went over the El Corte Inglés to do some Saturday morning shopping at the supermarket, and found people handing out these “cheques mágicos”. I’m used to having weird and useless promo stuff handed to me, but when I went to refuse the woman said “trust me, you want to know about this one”…
It turned out that for two days these 10€ coupons were being handed out matching each euro you spent at the supermarket, and were redeemable for future purchases until the end of January. The deal is that for every 30 euros you spend you can use a “magic cheque” that brings it down to 20 euros. Well hey, that sounded okay to me. And so I decided that we would do our first big home delivery food shop in months. We used to do this all the time, every six weeks or so, until funds started getting scarce and I never had the minimum amount required for free home delivery. But I’d just received my first SimonSeeks payment, and the cupboards at casa az were decidedly bare, so I decided I’d use the money for a big grocery stocking up purchase and would deal with the rent later.
I have to say it was such a treat to have three burly delivery guys lug all that heavy stuff up three flights of stairs and, although the cupboards are now well-stocked with the basics, weekly purchases are still required. And I am just loving going in and getting 33% off everything I have to buy now. I don’t know how they do this – probably mark everything in the store up by 4 cents or something – but it’s pretty cool. And I plan to do another big shop on January 31st…
casa azahar 
Sounds like a great deal to me. They must be getting pretty desperate for custom!
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Or maybe it was a cash flow thing, to get a whack in at the end of November that would tide them over until the Christmas rush. Plus it also makes sure most people will do their Christmas food shopping in their supermarket. Who knows how these things actually work.
It’s quite easy to spend 20 euros at the supermarket, and when you know the other 10 ends up being free, well, that’s a good feeling.
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I don’t know if anybody else uses this phrase for stuff like this ‘money that doesn’t exist’ – i.e. it’s extra, it’s outside the scope of a normal budget and penny pinching.
Like birthday money, which should never be spent on bills if at all possible. Unless that’s what would give you the most pleasure of course.
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You mean like “mad money”?
Am kind of looking at it as two months of free wine and other treats…
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Yes, yes, ‘mad money’ makes perfect sense, y’know, if you’re not translating from the original Icelandic..
I do think ‘money that doesn’t exist’ sounds more philosophical though. Less need for Prozac.
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I know what you mean – I was told the other day that I had been given an “award” at work – very nice I thought. When I checked the website where we get vouchers etc from, I found two others that I didn’t know about.
Certainly going to help chez BBJP where things are a bit tioght at the moment.
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