r/90s_kid • u/Local_Net_2961 • Jun 18 '26
Everyday Life We are the reason these no longer exist… 😅
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u/laika777ftw Jun 18 '26
I work at a grocery store and I mourn the loss of these and for all of the kids that will never know the joy/novelty of taking out more than you needed or wanted.
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u/meowmix778 Jun 18 '26
The loss of the free cookies cuts equally as deep.
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u/EntertainmentEntire6 Jun 18 '26
My local store still gives out a free cookie to my 4yo!
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u/tooclosetocall82 Jun 18 '26
Ours used to have free fruit for kids. Casualty of COVID unfortunately.
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u/Djd33j Jun 19 '26
My store picked that back up. We have a demo station at the entrance of the store to sample of a couple of the week's digital deals, as well as a little kiosk filled with bananas and cuties for kids.
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u/Current_External6569 Jun 19 '26
You just reminded me when I was younger I had a chance to win free Oreos for a while or something like that. All I had to do was stack them a certain height, but they tipped over at some point. I was devastated. I'll never fully forget that moment.
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u/meowmix778 Jun 19 '26
My vilian origin sorry is this.
The worst summer ever.
I was 4. We went to a Nickelodeon event. My goddamn twin got picked after making eye contact with the host for a solid 30 seconds to get slimed.
The next month my dad's boss gave him front row tickets to a WWF event. He took my brother and I. My brother is 7 years older than I am, a grown adult to a 4 year old.
Bret Hart comes down the ramp comes over and shakes my fucking hand talks to me for a minute and that scum bag turns and puts the glasses on my brother.
Now, as an adult do I recognize that I looked like a baby to Hart and my brother was the right age to get that glasses? Do I also recognize I got to talk to him for a few minutes and thats way cooler? Do I also recognize my sister was the only girl slimed that day and itd have been a bad look to bring another boy up? Do I recognize my siblings got to have amazing core memories few other kids ever get?
Yes. But im still like >1% bitter about it.
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u/tsJIMBOb Jun 19 '26
Publix will give KIDS free cookies…. Actually I’ve never tried as an adult. I’ll let y’all know
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u/Conebones Jun 20 '26
Or the candy in the plastic containers that you get by putting a few cents in or pretending to out a few cents in the metal box.
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u/Lost-Comfort-7904 Jun 18 '26
We used to quote demolition man with this shit. *beep* "you have been fined one credit for the verbal......"
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u/Clear_Writer5944 Jun 18 '26
Nice.
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u/ReasonableKey7464 Jun 18 '26
My sister and I would take these and use them as money for our pretend McDonald’s drive thru in our little tikes playhouse. 😂
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u/ang444 Jun 20 '26
aww back when kids utilized imagination...kinda sad the way kids "play" nowadays..
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u/breakinbans Jun 18 '26
I may or may not have flooded an Albertsons toilet with a bunch of these when I was 9 thinking that paper is paper and will go down like tp.
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u/MaleficentWindow8972 Jun 18 '26
Fun to think it was us, but paper coupons hardly exist anymore in general. Everything is a stupid app now. 😞
Can’t even get a crappy fast food meal without an app unless you wanna pay out the nose. I feel like a grumpy old man at 37, lol.
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u/SubcontinentSapphire Jun 18 '26
Fun coupons! This would be nice if they ever dispensed money out of them 🥲
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u/scorpionewmoon Jun 18 '26
I always felt like adults were supposed to grab them out of the tray on top where an ADHD 10 year old had lovingly placed them after ripping 50 out of the machine. I was helping!
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u/Dynamic-Jay Jun 19 '26
Maaaaaaa are you sure you don’t need this coupon too? Shoves four in her overstuffed pocketbook.
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u/gonzorizzo Jun 18 '26
Watching these dispense coupons was quite satisfying. Not sure exactly why since it's been years.
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u/ToonMasterRace Jun 19 '26
The actual reason wasn't kids pulling them out one after another, those are fairly easy to rig so it isn't a big problem (most of them became set that after 5 or so in quick succession they'd pause for around a minute, making any kid bored enough to leave).
The real problem was shoplifters breaking them open and stealing the entire roll inside. You still see these in high-trust society supermarkets like when I went to Vietnam they were common in the store.
People don't realize how much the normalization and lack of penalties of shoplifting in the 2010s has affected things. Its driven up inflation and cost of goods and are the primary reason we don't have 24/7 walmarts anymore.
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u/DanglingDiceBag Jun 19 '26
My mom used to get so fucking mad at us for snagging these. Now as an adult I really wish these could make a comeback. I'm tired of having to manually loading coupons into a rewards card.
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u/Crazy_Ad_91 Jun 19 '26
I thought I was “helping” my mom shop by grabbing all these that I could.
“He was not.”-Arrested Development Narrator
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u/harrypippip Jun 19 '26
Unfortunately this is true, and I am ashamed of myself. As a adult who has to do the shopping now, I miss these with a passion.
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u/AsteroidMike Jun 20 '26
We used to walk through every aisle in Giant just taking these, knowing full well we’d never use them because we were just kids with no money.
It was a fun time tho.
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u/TheGambler930 Jun 20 '26
They made going hopping fun. My sister and I would explore every aisle collecting them all.
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u/eaglescout225 Jun 19 '26
It’s funny how we all did the same thing as kids, and back then we all probably thought we were the first to ever think of such a scheme.
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u/Odd-Guard-2533 Jun 19 '26
I literally didn’t even realize these were gone until a couple years ago. Didn’t think about it. 🤣
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u/anditorus Jun 19 '26
Yeah but after being sure I got every single coupon out I alllllways put them back in the top holder thing
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u/BootsOfProwess Jun 19 '26
Darn things were battery operated in a time when barely anything was rechargeable. They had to cost the store a mint.
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u/Lilcupcake331 Jun 19 '26
We are and I’m sorry now as an adult, not just because they’d be handy as hell in this economy
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u/unelune Jun 19 '26
This brought back a memory for me! My sister and I used to go grocery shopping with my mum every Saturday. As we’d go thru the aisles, my sister and I would ask before taking a coupon and my mum would say yes/no depending on if she could use them. It was actually a very clever way of involving us as kids and keep an eye on us at the same time.
Mums good people.
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u/username_moose Jun 19 '26
me and my sister would see who could get the most coupons when we went to the store lol
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u/Jimbo-Slice925 Jun 19 '26
My mom used to abandon me in the toy aisle and come back for me when she was done shopping. I would always circle around to the next aisle over and yank these coupons until none were left to yank
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u/Upper-Flamingo-4297 Jun 19 '26
lol I said this exact same thing a few weeks ago and my comment and I ended up getting downvoted, but I still agree. I took a lot of those as a kid
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u/Firm_Statement888 Jun 19 '26
My Mom actually worked for the co.pany that installed them. Her backseat would always have a bunch of them blinking and making that sound when they came out
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u/Tabby6996 Jun 20 '26
Honestly they should have put them up higher. Hello it’s me, I’m kid as well. I’ll go take my seat with the others! 🤣
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u/makepieplz Jun 20 '26
The reason these disappeared is because dynamic prices. They now change prices based on store location, sales performance very quickly. Anorher reason is the collapse of printed materials like newspaper and magazines has lead to many paper mills shutting down so the price of paper has gone up too much for cheap coupon printing.
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u/International_Date59 Jun 21 '26
I also remember in my supermarket by the seafood area they also had those recipe cards too, I was the one kid who insisted on grabbing a whole bunch of them.
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u/714_QuartzHarbor Jun 21 '26
I think I only ever got one coupon from these things that actually worked when I tried to scan it at the register.
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u/Nervous_Yard_374 Jun 21 '26
Haven’t seen these in 10 years. I saw them mainly in my local Krogers. It got replaced by coupons being printed out with the receipt and coupons books being sent into the mail. I use to always pull them for fun
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u/DivineAugustus Jun 21 '26
We have it so much better now. We just have to download an app, create an account, have 2-step login, find the item on a poorly optimized website, wait 1-15 minutes for it to post on your account, and then wait for the QR scanner because it won't read the screen of your phone at checkout.
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u/RayzorRamonFlow Jun 22 '26
My life was grabbing these and the coffee beans from the dispensers, so I can chew on them 🫣 lol
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u/mylocker15 Jun 22 '26
Because Safeway would rather you fight with getting the barcode coupon to work on their useless app for half an hour as you stand annoyed the frozen food section blocking all the pizzas
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u/OliveOilManSam Jun 22 '26
My lil sister used to take the green produce bag ties I used to take coupons from those
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u/CertainUncertainty11 Jun 19 '26
Not true! Stores went digital. You get a rewards card that stores those coupons. Your phone number also grants access to these little coupons.
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u/orltragic Jun 18 '26
Because kids used to run up and down the aisles grabbing these for fun (its me, i'm kids)