Entering the Discount Era

Now that I’ve turned 60, I’m finding senior life has many rewards.

What’s that?

Sixty is hardly a senior?

I hear you. But tell that to my bank.

I logged into my account last week and found this message:

I’ve never gotten a birthday wish from my bank, and I got a bit excited. What else will happen now that I’m old?

I logged into my other bank account, and I found this entry in my transaction ledger:

A $4 senior’s discount credit. For being old!

Well, I shouldn’t be surprised.

Several years ago, when I was a young 57, I learned our local pharmacies give anyone 55 or over a 20% discount on Senior’s Day, which happens to be on Tuesday at our local Pharmasave and on Thursday at Shopper’s Drug Mart.

I had already missed out on two years of discount shopping! On my first trip to Pharmasave after learning about this discount, I waited, with bated breath, to see if I’d be carded.

The young twenty-something cashier with a pale reddish complexion, a buzz cut and painted fingernails, rung me up and didn’t ask to see ID.

“Did you give me the senior discount?” I asked them.

“Yes,” they smiled. “I give it to everyone.”

What the fuck? I earned that discount by being born before a certain year, and now they’re just giving it to anyone?

Then the hub stopped by Pharmasave on a Tuesday to pick up something after work, and I asked if he’d gotten the senior’s discount. He’s barely 51.

He shook his head. “No, they didn’t ask me my age.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I explained. “Show me your receipt.”

He fished it out of his back pocket, and I yanked it out of his hand.

There it was. A 20% discount.

“They gave it to you!” I ripped the receipt into pieces and threw it at him. Something I’d waited all my life to receive was being doled out like candy at a parade.

One week, I didn’t make it to Pharmasave on discount Tuesday, so I waited until Thursday to drive across town to Shopper’s Drug Mart. At the checkout, I asked the woman for the senior’s discount.

“Do you have an Optimum card?” She asked. I narrowed my eyes at her in my best disapproving senior attitude, though she looked my age or older.

“No, I don’t.”

While I understand that joining each and every members club for each and every store I shop at can be lucrative as far as saving money, I also don’t want to give these stores data on my shopping habits. I’m not a fan of Big Data.

“You need an Optimum card,” the woman stated.

“Is it an Optimum card discount, or a senior’s discount?” I wasn’t leaving until I got it.

“It’s a senior’s discount, but you need an Optimum card.” She stared at me, unyielding.

“How can you call it a senior’s discount when it’s actually a card member’s discount?” The customers in line behind me began muttering. If the store wanted to drag this out, I was all-in.

We stared at each other until the cashier at the second register realized that line wasn’t moving. “I think there’s a work-around,” she said. “Call Camille.”

Camille, the store manager, arrived, eyes widening at the growing line. “We have self-serve kiosks, if anyone’s interested,” she called out.

I rolled my eyes. Of course no one was interested. They were seniors. The senior’s discount could not be applied at the self-serve kiosks. I’d already asked.

The first cashier pointed at me, clearly irritated. “She wants a senior’s discount, but she doesn’t have an Optimum card.”

Camille glanced at my resolute visage, peered at the growing line of disgruntled seniors, and started to tap on the register keyboard. “Go in here,” she murmured to the cashier and pointed, “and check this box.” She threw me another glance then asked for my ID.

Finally! I handed it over, she verified the info, and I got my discount. Then Camille took an Optimum card out from under the counter and handed it to me.

“I don’t want a membership,” I protested.

“You don’t have to sign up for anything, just carry this with you, and you’ll get the discount regardless of whether or not there’s an account assigned to it.” Her eyes begged me to understand.

I took pity and took the card.

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Months later I noticed a new sign in the curling rink advertising a local cannabis shop discount for those 55 and older. I tore down to the shop to get my discount, never mind that we grow our own cannabis and didn’t need any.

A discount is a discount. I’ll save money even if it costs me.

I waltzed into the store, selected some edibles, handed them my ID, and asked for a senior’s discount.

“You don’t look that old,” the cheery, tattooed thirty-something woman remarked, eyes moving between my ID photo and my face. She held the card with black, lacquered fingernails and tapped on the keyboard.

“It’s about time someone said that.” I replied, keeping my voice light. “Some establishments around town hand out discounts left and right. They don’t seem to care about anyone’s actual age. You guys do it right. How much do I get? Twenty percent off?”

“No, just ten percent, same as all our discounts.” She handed me back my card and rung up the edibles. “But you won’t have to show ID again. Just tell them to give you the ‘Beth O’ discount, and it’ll be applied automatically.”

“You mean, anyone can just waltz in here and tell you to give them the ‘Beth O’ discount and they’ll receive it?” I gave the forty-something woman behind me the stink eye, certain she’d be illegally tossing out my senior creds for future discounts.

“Yep, that’s right!” The cashier chirped happily.

One thing I’ve noticed about cannabis shops is that the staff are always happy. And most of the customers. What’s not to love about legal weed?

The woman in line behind me hummed as if feigning disinterest, but I could practically hear the gears turning in her head. Sure as shit she’d be asking for the Beth O discount in the future.

Oh well. Though disgruntled about sharing my well-earned discount (and a lifetime of waiting for it!), I guess happy times can be shared.

Now, some may think I’m a bit militant about my senior discounts. Some might call it excessive. But I’m not the only one seeking discounts.

I’ve got a friend who bank-hops online, moving from one to the other because she doesn’t want to pay any fees. I know someone else who retired wealthy at age 43 but got a part time job as an airline kiosk rep in order to get discounted flights.

I’ve got a bad case of senior entitlement, but I’m not cheap. I haven’t shopped at Amazon since the disturbed Oompa Loompa came into office down south, which means I pay more but support local, Canadian businesses. I bank at a local credit union because governance is community-based rather than corporate-driven. I pay fees, but they’re reinvested into our communities.

And I’m not alone in seeking the senior rate.

We had a near-riot at the curling club last year when the board raised the price of a cup of coffee from $0.75 to $1.00. No one complained about the fifty-cent increase in beer and wine, but the retirees sent a delegation to protest the coffee increase at the next Board meeting. The board lowered the price back to $0.75.

More discounts await as I head towards the universally recognized senior discount age of 65. I look forward to learning what other bonuses I can expect after reaching the age of seniority. In Canada, there are a lot of them.

Do you search for money-saving opportunities? Receive senior discounts? What’s your favorite? Let me know in the comments.