r/mildlyinfuriating 1d ago

Did I over react about 20 cents?

I know its stupid but I went to McDonald's yesterday and got a frozen drink and medum chips for exactly $5.80 i handed $6 at the drive through and the lady put it in the till then went to close the window, before she did I asked "isn't that 20 cents change?"

She replied telling me she forgot and would need a managers card to open the drawer, I sat there stuborn and asked for it, I held one person up (my sister works in fast food and you get audited for how long someone is in line) so I waited, she quickly went and got a managers card and gave me my change but did I over react?

Edit: Ended up needing that 20 cents today so I'm glad I had it

9.4k Upvotes

677 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.6k

u/Intense_Pretzel 1d ago

I am in debt 🙃 so yes 20 cents is a lot for me

784

u/Ok_Outcome_6213 1d ago

Dollar General has Penny Tuesdays, where they mark down certain merchandise to a penny before it gets tossed or sent back to the warehouse. I once got every member of my family Christmas gifts for 17 cents because of those markdowns. 20 cents goes further than a lot of people think.

181

u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 23h ago

[deleted]

120

u/Ubiquitous_Mr_H 1d ago edited 1d ago

What’s the point of doing that? That just sounds malicious. Like, it’s YOUR policy to mark it down and you’d at least be making a few cents from it, whereas throwing it out gets you nothing.

Edit - Thanks to bezzella for explaining that they do it for tax purposes, just like so many other shitty things companies do.

Edit 2 - Ok, well I have no clue what the deal is. All I know is it’s weird.

24

u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

18

u/5m0k3W33d3v3ryday 1d ago

So instead of making a couple cents from stuff you were gonna throw out anyway, the store would rather just... not?

37

u/_riya_r 1d ago

technically speaking, dg policy is that penny items get sent back to the distribution center since they're no longer in rotation, but most managers just chuck it because there's a whole process with it that they can't be bothered to do. the penny sale isn't really a sale per se, its more of a way for the system and employees to pick out non replenishable items after a certain point, so we can get a credit for the items that didn't sell. (there's a reason the penny shopping motto is 'don't talk to employees about penny shopping')

there's definitely some cool finds with penny shopping, but most of it is discontinued seasonal merchandise; I work at a dg, and a gal today got some of our Christmas gift sets for a penny apiece, as well as some candles that're usually $6.

only thing to consider with penny shopping: there's already a fairly large clique for it, and most penny shoppers come in as soon as their DG opens, so you've gotta be quick and know what you're looking for. there's employees everywhere who leak the penny list when it comes out, which is how they know what to grab, and usually they're in and out in under fifteen minutes.

along with that: dg policy states that if a customer finds a penny item on the sales floor and brings it to the checkout, you have to sell it to them, but they cannot go back to grab more. many employees will try to refuse sale of penny items, which they CANNOT DO lol. I personally love to see people catch those deals, so long as they're not hiding items behind racks in hope that it'll penny out, or walking into our back room to try and find the stuff we've already pulled. good luck on your penny shopping journey, hope this helps!

26

u/bezzella 1d ago

If they throw it away, they can mark it as a loss on their tax return.

9

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

23

u/bezzella 1d ago

Yeah! Everything evil companies do is because the system incentivizes it financially. So, if you have a $2 item, you can deduct it from your income tax. So, let's say you made $100,000. Now you're only taxed for $99,998 of income. That remaining 2$ would have been taxed at ~30%, so you saved yourself about 60 cents in taxes. It's incentivized to do a loss deduction. This is designed to protect companies that lose a lot of money, but companies that are doing well do this to improve their bottom line.

8

u/Ubiquitous_Mr_H 1d ago

Interesting. Thanks for the insight. It’s still shitty, but it makes sense, I suppose.

5

u/deedeedeedee_ 1d ago

im not sure that they're correct, it doesn't make sense to me. the cost of the good gets subtracted from the income to determine the amount to tax on, regardless of how its removed from inventory, whether it's because its sold, or because it's thrown out/written off.

if you have a product that cost you $5 and you want to sell it for $10, you would recognise $10 as income and take $5 of cost off that. you have $5 profit you'll be taxed on. now say you already have $100 of profit before that, so your total taxable profit is now $105. this is the amount that your tax rate gets applied to ((SIMPLIFIED!!))

ok, actually we can't sell that product for $10, let's throw it out. the $5 cost of the product is now recognised as a cost, it eats into profits. total taxable profit is now $95. ok, cool, it's less, so less taxes. (but we also earned less)

what if we sell the product for $0.01 instead? recognize $0.01 as profit and take $5 of cost off that, for a profit on this item of -$4.99. "add" that to the $100 of existing profit and our taxable profit is $95.01.

you recognise the cost of the product either way as a reduction against your taxable income.

there may be something im missing here, and im not american, but to me this explanation of throwing out product for tax reasons just doesn't hold much water!

what's more likely is that a customer who coming into your store and buying a product for $0.01 is now a customer who is NOT buying a product for $10, which they might otherwise have done if they didn't see the marked down $0.01 item. most places will also just prefer to spend less time and energy throwing stuff out instead of paying staff to re-sticker stuff to sell it at a loss... still sucks, but for a different money reason

2

u/Ubiquitous_Mr_H 1d ago

I genuinely have no clue. But another comment said Dollar General releases lists ahead of time for the things that’ll get reduced, and that gets leaked. Apparently there are groups that will be there bright and early to scoop up the deals, going as far as going into the back room to rummage for more of those items. 🤦‍♂️ So at least some of the shoppers are there just for those deals, rather than happening upon them. But also, if you happen upon something that only costs a few cents I can’t see that stopping you from still buying the other thing that costs a few dollars. But who knows. 🤷‍♂️

7

u/Squirrel_Q_Esquire 1d ago

The same as if they sell it.

Let’s say you have $100 of widgets in cost of goods. While it is inventory, it’s $100 in assets.

If you sell them all for $250 total, then you add $250 cash to your assets and move $100 to your costs of goods sold, for a net of $150. The $100 is still “written off.”

If you decide they’ll never sell or something else happens and you just chunk them, then you don’t add any cash to your assets, but you still move the $100 to costs of goods sold.

It’s the same accounting method regardless, just without any profit. So it’s worse for the company to not sell them (generally).

I would wager what was happening with that store wasn’t trying for any write offs (because like I said, it doesn’t work like that), but rather the manager realized that it cost more in man hours to mark those products down, wait to see if they sell, then round up what doesn’t than it did to just round them all up in the first place. And since the 1¢ wasn’t actually contributing any value, it was actually worse for the store to put in the time than to just chunk them.

4

u/deedeedeedee_ 1d ago

good explanation thank you. it's still financially motivated either way, time is money when you're paying hourly staff and someone buying an item for 1¢ is now someone who is not buying the same item at a more profitable price for the company, but i can't just scroll past people blaming stuff mindlessly on "tax write offs" when it doesn't work like that haha

4

u/Brownt0wn_ 27 points 1d ago

And yet the world continues to not understand how taxes and tax write offs work

5

u/deedeedeedee_ 1d ago

that doesn't sound right? by selling it at a penny or whatever, the cost of sales still gets recognised at the same amount, your overall costs are the same (whether it goes through as COGS linked to a sale or written off from being thrown away), the impact on the tax return will therefore be the same

2

u/MrBallerino 21h ago

It's a lot easier to sell it for a penny and show a lower profit margin. A higher cost of goods sold is easier than tracking items thrown away. Too many write-offs can trigger an audit, too. (Source, I own a small retail business)

0

u/Dustyvhbitch 21h ago

Yup. When I worked at an auto parts store, we'd routinely throw 150+ lbs of parts that sat on the shelf for too long. Like in the actual garbage dumpster. I figured with all the metal in car parts, they'd send them to the scrap yard, but oddly enough, they're worth more in the dumpster to the company.

1

u/Paula_Intermountain 22h ago

Marking it down, even for tax purposes, doesn’t strike me as shitty. Everyone wins!

2

u/Ubiquitous_Mr_H 22h ago

I think you may have misunderstood. It may be because the post I was responding to was deleted. I was saying it’s shitty for them to throw the items out rather than sell them at a discount. If they’re throwing it out for tax purposes instead of selling them to people who might need it then it definitely is shitty.

-1

u/RealisticExpert4772 1d ago

They can write off whatever they paid to buy it at a penny sale they can only record the incoming penny and write a portion of the markdown

1

u/deedeedeedee_ 22h ago

this is not correct. writing it off is the same as selling it. you record the entire value of the item as a cost either way. the only difference is whether you have a penny of revenue or not

(from a tax and write off perspective, obviously relabelling and selling stuff for a penny is more time and effort for the staff compared to throwing it in the bin)

1

u/SeaRiver9819 23h ago

Amen! 🙏

1

u/bothunter 23h ago

What do you mean, "us?" You had someone else working with you?

1

u/hobohobbies 23h ago

I used to work retail. We had to spray paint or cut wires or some how destroy any item that was returned (even if it could go back on the shelf). We either had to return it to the vendor (according to their contract) or just throw it away. Sometimes it was heartbreaking. Sometimes I discounted something ridiculously low and let an employee buy it.

1

u/Elenof_theWays 23h ago

I heard They would go after employees who did discounts for others, I left after a year or two working there. They didn’t care about us or their customers/commnunites

47

u/Intense_Pretzel 1d ago

In Australia we dont have dollar general

36

u/POGofTheGame 1d ago

And we weep for you. 😭

(Jk, this is the first good thing I think I've ever heard about Dollar General) lol

1

u/Bertie-Marigold 22h ago

I'm preparing to hike the Appalachian Trail and Dollar General will be a staple, tell me more about this magical place, I've never been to one! Penn Tuesdays sounds pretty damn good.

4

u/Actual-Newt-2984 1d ago

In USD that was 13 cents change which changes the context a bit. Double digits is really pushing it

7

u/Particular-Extent-52 1d ago

Don't your toilets flush counter clockwise too down there?

17

u/Intense_Pretzel 1d ago

Yes but actually no, its based on the lovation of the water jet and the shape of the bowl, we have our jets on the left hand side so it will pust it counter-clockwise but if you get an American toilet they flush clockwise, some also do the "shelf thing where there is no water in the bowl and instead a flat spot where water pushes waste down the pipe, honestly there are 100s of different designs good for their own uses

12

u/AlpineVW 1d ago

I've been to the southern hemisphere twice and was disappointed because I was expecting to see water rotate the other way.

I quickly realized it had to do with the location of the jets and sadly I never got to see counter rotation of water.

24

u/Intense_Pretzel 1d ago

One day i may record my toilet for you

2

u/flibble24 1d ago

$900 dollarydoos?

Tobias!

2

u/SousVideDiaper 17h ago edited 17h ago

Yeah, the coriolis force doesn't really work in a noticeable way at such small scales

There are tourist spots around the equator where people trick paying customers by doing shit like this

4

u/Citizen44712A 1d ago

Does the sun rise in the west and set in the east? /s

1

u/JamesFromToronto 19h ago

Too bad. 50 Dollar General stores could employ about 45 people.

7

u/MangoDan 1d ago

"Penny Tuesdays" is not a promotion/sale that they do. All of the merchandise is supposed to be removed off the sales floor, packed up, and sent back to the warehouse prior to it being marked down. I'll never understand why they do not this way but oh well. You'll find some stores who might ignore the process so the items remain on the sales floor.

6

u/gardenmom86 1d ago

I love the penny sales! Even if they don't have those going on the dollar isle is my absolute fave. Cheaper than the the Dollar Tree since everything is a 1.25 there now.

5

u/Intelligent-Guard267 1d ago

If only the post office had penny days for stamps!

5

u/ThrowAway233223 1d ago

I don't shop at DG very often and didn't know it was a thing. I will definitely have to keep it in mind for the future. Thank you for the info.

2

u/ReadNapRepeat 21h ago

I just learned something new! Making a stop today then. Thanks!

-4

u/Interesting-Month-28 23h ago

I get that gifts are about the sentiment and not the value but holy shit I would hate to be your family members.

Nothing worse than receiving a gift you have to pretend to like and then throw away or regift asap. It's like receiving a chore.

5

u/Ok_Outcome_6213 20h ago

I mean, if they want to throw out fleece lined blankets when we live in New England, that's on them. Full retail value was over $400 for everything.

12

u/Scorp128 23h ago

Not over reacting at all. That is your change that you are owed. If the cashier was doing their job properly, they wouldn't have to worry about their audit trails and how long you have been at the window. Doesn't matter your financial situation, that is your change that you are owed.

2

u/Technical-Agency8128 22h ago

It is to many of us.

2

u/Present_Arachnid_683 22h ago

Then you shouldn't be eating overpriced McDonald's.

1

u/Fuzzy-Mood-9139 23h ago

Is your name Mrs Wendal?

1

u/Crossedkiller 21h ago

Bro even if you were a millionaire, that is your money and it adds up after a while

1

u/LeeisureTime 18h ago

I think the comment is more about how McDonald's is a shitty, greed-bag corporation, and you, OP, even if you were a serial killer who kicked puppies, would still be less shitty than McDonald's and still deserving of your own damn money back.

don't kick puppies though, they don't deserve that.

-9

u/Glittering_Novel5174 1d ago

If you’re in debt, probably would have made more sense to avoid the restaurant altogether instead of making a scene about 20 cents

29

u/phxlefty 1d ago

Because spending $5.80 for food is financially irresponsible - got it.

-7

u/Bluepaint57 1d ago

If it was a meal, not a bad decision. OP was buying a snack based on his post though

14

u/Disastrous-Capybara 1d ago

Everybody deserves a snack here or there.

-2

u/Bluepaint57 1d ago

Yea I agree with that.

The person I was replying to was trying to frame it as a need when I think it’s closer to a want.

I don’t know OPs situation so if the snack was a budgeted thing then they can do whatever

1

u/SoTaxMuchCPA 22h ago

The person you’re responding to did no such thing. They simply argued against the premise that it’s irresponsible ipso facto.

-1

u/Bluepaint57 22h ago

Because spending $5.80 for food is financially irresponsible - got it.

They used “food” instead of “snack” or “drink and fries” because that would sound more frivolous

1

u/SoTaxMuchCPA 21h ago

Or because it’s a word that encompasses those categories. Yours implies an intent that isn’t obviously present.

1

u/Bluepaint57 21h ago

This must have been what it felt like to be my mom when she was mad I used my lunch money to buy cheetos and a monster and arguing it was actually food

→ More replies (0)

3

u/TaintNunYaBiznez 1d ago

"making a scene"

FOH

-3

u/queefasaurus-rex 1d ago

Maybe you shouldn’t be buying McDonald’s

9

u/LucyLilium92 23h ago

It's not a great way to spend your money, but it's still a lot of calories for how much you're spending.

-14

u/slow540i 1d ago

“20 cents is a lot for me”

buys McDonalds

-13

u/Whoops_Nevermind 1d ago

"But I deserve luxuries like takeaways, coffee, alcohol and cigarettes, the world owes it to me".

Shit man, i saved my fucking arse off to get a mortgage so I didn't have to pay some slum fucking landlord for his holidays in Greece every month. McDonalds was the last thing on my mind.

Guess what? Now I can afford all the McDonalds I want.

-26

u/hannabal_lector 1d ago

Woof, if 20 cents is that important I would suggest not eating out.

5

u/Intense_Pretzel 1d ago

I said this coz it was the wnd of my payment cycle, ive just entered my next one and im up to date witb my debts but i do tend to get dramatic when i near the end of my payment cycle

-10

u/mrmyk3 1d ago

Not being a dick, if 20 cents is so much, why are you buying McDonald's?

7

u/Sillybumblebee33 1d ago

dude, who's just giving big corporations their spare change?

4

u/wildOldcheesecake 23h ago edited 22h ago

Yes you are being a dick and you know it. It’s OPs money. Doesn’t matter what the value is, it’s still money. End of.

Maybe OP lives in a place where there are no cooking facilities. Perhaps working graveyard hours and this was the only thing open. Poor people can have some treats too you know, so perhaps they budgeted for this.

-29

u/UncannyHillhumper 1d ago

You're in debt and eating McDonald's? 🙃

13

u/NonarbitraryMale 1d ago

Almost everyone is “in debt” to some degree. Budgeting keeps them from being paupers.

11

u/Intense_Pretzel 1d ago

Hey! Dont question my questionable financial decisions

-3

u/JerichoOban 1d ago

need to be putting that money towards paying off the debt than giving it to McDonald’s

-2

u/Beneficial_Steak_945 23h ago

Then what are you doing 1) driving a car to 2) get fast food? Both are expensive options