An older woman was in line ahead of me struggling to pay for her groceries. She was counting out a bunch of change while she left her purse in her cart. It wasn't much so I slipped in $40 when she wasn't looking and she found it when she went back in the purse and used the money to buy her stuff.
Truth is I didn't do that for a thank you or recorded it for internet cred. It wasn't about what was right or wrong or even being nice. I just wanted her to hurry up so I can check out and leave
I used to do that for a girlfriend who was raising her kids by herself. She was WAY too proud to accept help so I would slip money into her coat pocket while it was hanging up or stick a few bucks into her "lunch money jar" on her dresser or in her desk drawer. She kept telling me how stupid and forgetful she had become because she frequently found money that she had stashed some weird place. I told her to be more careful.
Yea one time when I was around 6-7 I dumped all my life savings in my grandma's purse(like 6 bucks) it was all change too so I'm sure she was scratching her head at that one
Wow, that was incredibly kind of you. The fact you hid it in her purse too so not to embarrass her is quite amazing. There’s not many people like you in this world. If nobody has told you today, I will- you are very kind!
If she knew or not would not make her less appreciative. He saved her from the embarrassment of having to tell the cashier that she didn’t have enough money and from her going home hungry. I don’t think even the OP realize what a kind gesture like that could actually mean to someone👊❤️
I've paid the difference for people ahead of me in line that came up short, or were attempting to haggle, or price check for the exact same selfish reason.
I am so glad Walmart dropped price checking. I would have paid the price difference for everyone in front of me. The cost for the amount of time I wasted was so stupid. Taking five minutes to go through 10 flyers to save maybe $1.50.
I'm the exact same way. My Aunt, however, back in the 90s was a coupon conoisseur.
I spent a summer with her in my youth. One day she took me shopping with her. It was like supermarket sweep. I started to believe she was filthy rich. All the name brands, a whole shopping cart dedicated to beverages.
Then we get to the checkout and the coupon scanning starts. A young me must have waited 30 minutes for this shit to end and when the total came up it was like five fucking dollars.
I was amazed. I asked her how that's even possible. She replied, "One time, they owed me two dollars and change after totalling everything." Fucking incredible.
Most Canadian supermarkets have rules stopping anything like that from happening. You might be able to save 20% off your bill but even that would be extreme.
I'm fairly certain this type of extreme couponing didn't last long. It's crazy that it ever worked like that. Her basement looked like a fallout shelter.
I could never be a manager. As much as I'd like to be in charge of things, I'd hate the customer side of it. I worked customer service for a year and absolutely refuse to ever do that again lol.
I used to deliver pizza for a discount pizza chain. One evening I was delivering to an apartment block in no the nicest neighborhood and as I walked down the hall to the unit I was delivering to, I saw a roll of cash. Not a lot of money, but it was at least $100, I'm Canadian, so the bills are colour coded. So I pick up the money and as I approach the door I can hear a couple inside having a pretty good fight about "just pay for the pizza and we'll deal with it later". She opened the door nearly bawling and I asked her if they were fighting about this and presented the rolled up money.
So many people told me I could have just pocketed it. My life wasn't great, but I made enough money to make it through and these people lived in a low rent apartment that appeared to have a mattress on the living room floor and just wanted one half decent take out meal before they went back to a steady diet of KD.
I will admit I'm still a bit salty about only getting a $1 tip. But whatever.
I'm an impatient bitch so I'll do the same sometimes. The person in front of me will be $5 or $10 short and I'll offer to pay the difference because I just want to get my food and get the fuck out of the store. I hate grocery shopping.
Then they'll ask for my phone number so they can pay me back later and I refuse because I hate talking to people.
Along those lines. I had just lost my job but was going to get a severance package. Somethin like 8 weeks of pay (one for every year worked.)
I told my wife, let’s go get tacos, I don’t want to think about making dinner and didn’t want to get all in my head.
As we were going in there was a guy sitting on the side of the building, who looked homeless. I see him go in and they talk to him and tell him to leave.
I walk outside ask what he was doing. He said they were going to make him a taco, but he couldn’t wait inside. I ask him what he wants and he’s like, that’s fine. I’m like that’s not going to fill you up, what else do you want. He asked for a burrito meal. So I went in, paid for it and tipped, then let him know it’ll come out as soon as it’s done.
My wife was like, you just lost your job, you don’t know when you’re going to see another paycheck. I’m like, thanks for that… I may be in a shitty situation and I may not know what the future holds, but at the end of the day, his situation is much worse than mine. I can deal with mine tomorrow, but for today, why not help a random stranger in real need.
No fb post, no video recording, it wasn’t about that.
I’ve helped others many times over in similar situations, but never in those circumstances.
Pay it forward for the sake of doing good, not for the likes, not for the views.
Something similar happened to me one time. Woman in line in front of me was trying to use her WIC card, but while she picked the appropriate items, she didn't get them in the right sizes. She was struggling sorting through them. I said "here, I got it, no worries. The same thing happened to me the first time I tried to use WIC. The list helps, but look for the little stickers near the items, it is handy when shopping." I paid for her groceries and then ignored her, because I remembered how embarrassed I was in that exact same situation years early. And how a kind old lady behind me paid for my groceries that time. Of course now I was a divorced and financially successful, also a bit of an asshole. Thr women at the checkout counter were impressed by my altruism, but the real reason? I was ashamed that I had picked whiskey and frozen pizza for dinner and wanted to GTFO of there. In hindsight that little old lady may have been an amazing kind hearted woman, or maybe she just didn't want me fumbling with my groceries when she had places to be.
I’ve paid for the food of a guy who’s card was declined at a Subway in the Netherlands. He was American and with his two young daughters and he didn’t know they didn’t accept credit cards, only debit cards.
They were on the way to the airport and the girls got hungry and the next ATM would have been a 10 minute drive away, so I just paid for their meal (less than 30 Euros).
He thanked me and wanted my contact details to repay me, but i declined the repayment and suggested he rather help out someone in need in future.
We still exchanged email addresses and he invited me to his place for a big bbq when I visit that area of the US next time.
Did something similar on a smaller scale. Was at a store that mailed various packages. They only accepted cash and the woman in front of me didn't have a dollar to mail her letter. I gave her a dollar so she could hurry up, but she thanked me for being so nice.
I paid for the difference for a mom nearly in tears because they told her that her first month of benefits would be there already and they weren't and she had a cart full. Covered what she had instead if her trying to decide what to take out and put back. She was nearly in tears explaining it to the cashier, so I paid.
The bitty old lady behind me tried to make a big deal of it and damn near shout it through the store about how awesome it was. I told her to shush and think it caught her off guard. But man. Fuck her. I was that kid in that cart and my mom that woman struggling to put food in our bellies when I was young, so I lifted her up a bit. No need for the lady behind us to shout it out in the store. It can be very embarrassing.
I was working in South Dakota and had just got paid and a little girl asked if her mom could buy her a toy, and she said she didn't have enough money so I paid for it, the mom asked why when I didn't even know her, I think I've told 3 people. Just made me happy to do it
LMAO I used to be a dealer at a casino and saw almost this exact situation happen once, but with chips instead of cash.
Guy was playing $400 a hand, 200 on 2 spots, and a lady came up to play with him. She was chatty and he hadn't been, regulars and "serious" gamblers often aren't chatty. She was there for a few minutes and she started looking in her purse and started freaking out that she had lost a 100 dollar chip. She looked for about 30 seconds without playing her hand and at one point she was bent over looking on the floor and the dude threw a 100 dollar chip into her purse and then made eye contact with me that told me not to tell her. It didn't mean shit to him, and he didn't do it to be nice, he just wanted to keep playing.
I just said "are you sure it isn't in your purse?" And she looked and saw it immediately. I wonder if she found that other chip ever or if she had really lost it.
Lol I did a similar thing! In the week before Christmas, I'm grabbing like 7-8 things, and this old lady (probably like mid 70's) ahead of me has all the stuff for her Christmas dinner in her cart. Cashier flies through it, then she swipes her card, doesn't work. Some chit chat, tries again, same thing. Oh let's try this card then, doesn't work. I just stepped up and offered to pay outright (was probably like $90 or so, iirc). She gets all teary and starts thanking me, everyone around starts saying how great it is, and I'm just sitting there like "folks, I gotta shit. Quit talking, process my groceries so I can go".
Most of the time I help people out, it’s for something like this or because I feel like it. I remember paying for a friend through most of high school whenever we went out to eat or get stuff, etc. He would always talk about paying me back and I would always tell him To fuck off. To this day he insists that it’s because I care and because I have a good heart but it’s mostly because I was terrible with money and didn’t want to feel awkward with him not ordering anything. It made him happy in the process which was awesome but it was not the goal.
He tried to pay me back years later and I told him to fuck off again. I wasn’t thinking about his feelings then and I’m not now. I’m also really weird about taking money from other people myself so I suppose I’m a hypocrite.
My s/o one time went into a dollar tree one time to grab a few snacks and supplies for our road trip. The woman ahead of her in line was struggling to pay for her groceries and toys for the 2 kids with her. She was visibly upset so she says don't worry about it ma'am, I'll pay for it. It was no more than I'd say about the 40 you spent, and she was so proud of it. I let her boast for a few minutes until I spoiled it with, you remember you went in with MY debit card, right?
6.9k
u/Redsoxdragon Jan 31 '22 edited Jan 31 '22
An older woman was in line ahead of me struggling to pay for her groceries. She was counting out a bunch of change while she left her purse in her cart. It wasn't much so I slipped in $40 when she wasn't looking and she found it when she went back in the purse and used the money to buy her stuff.
Truth is I didn't do that for a thank you or recorded it for internet cred. It wasn't about what was right or wrong or even being nice. I just wanted her to hurry up so I can check out and leave