In many stores, they will swipe “a store card” for you at the register if you ask them. I believe I’ve even seen the option on some self-checkout stations. I’ve only had trouble with this once or twice. But it may be worth risking for the privacy (and monetary) savings.

the secret is, like Netflix, you’re not supposed to use your own card / number / account – someone in your family / apartment / friends has not only already signed up but also doesn’t care how many take advantage of the savings

Reward programs can link purchases to you through 2 different means:

• if you give your name and phone number to the smartphone application
• if the supermarket links the purchase to the actual bill sent to the bank account

You cannot technically avoid the second one but I know that most stores don’t do that because their systems are separated: one system for the inventory, one system for sending transactions to the banks. I’m telling this because, while they can link your debit/credit card to your purchase, it never happens because it’s a major PITA for them and it’s a manual process. But it can happen…

Same here. Trouble is, those aren’t “savings”, the price with the card is now just the price. If you don’t have a card, you have to pay an inflated price. A privacy tax, if you will.

I need to take a closer look at this. We don’t do it but in these troubled times, young family et cetera… is it worth it?

They can just link purchases to the card I use to pay anyway right?

Having a quick look at my nearest grocery store, it looks like they give me 10% off one shop each month, amongst a plethora of other bullshit perks like points towards fancy cookware or something.

If I shop once a week and spend $200 then that’s $20 a month or $240 a year. Essentially one free shop a year.

Not much of a saving really. There’s other simpler things I can do to save more money I think.

I just make up phone numbers.

If you buy groceries with a credit card instead of cash they will track that too, I’ve received coupons in the mail for specific items I’ve purchased in the past without any rewards program.