Petco Haul (and a rant)

Petco was offering a deal on canned food. Buy 12 of the same brand, get a $5 pals reward coupon. Lat weekend, I went in and they had 3 ounce cans  of Wellness cubed and sliced turkey and turkey and salmon on clearance for .98 cents. I also had a coupon for Wellness for buy 8 get 2 free. I bought 20 cans and a few other canned foods. They emailed me a few days later to let me know that my pals rewards were available. I went to the store today and used my phone to access the email and load the pals rewards onto my card. There were ELEVEN $5 coupons on my account all added on the same day- 3/15. I figured this CAN'T be right but all 11 coupons were added. I went shopping. This is what I got:

Six 3 ounce cans of Soulistic Good Karma

Three 3 ounce cans of Soulistic Aromatic Chicken

Three 2.75 ounce cups of Nature's Recipe grain free chicken & turkey

Three 2.8 ounce cups of Wellness Divine Duos chicken and salmon

Three 3 ounce cans of Wellness sliced turkey

Three 3 ounce cans of Merrick thanksgiving day dinner

Three 3 ounce cans of Merrick turducken

Three 3 ounce cans of Under the Sun grain free duck pate

Three 3 ounce cans of Whole Earth Farms duck pate

Three 3 ounce cans of Merrick grammy's pot pie

Three 3 ounce cans of Natural Balance Wild pursuit turkey, chicken and guinea fowl

Three 3 ounce cans of Under the Sun turkey pate

Three 6 ounce cans of Natural Balance venison, turkey and lamb pate

Four 5.5 ounce cans of Friskies cat concoctions

Totalling 46 cans of food. I had 2 coupons for the Friskies for buy one get one. The cashier ended up giving them back to me. Why? They couldn't take any more off. You can't use coupons to pay tax. My original total? $59.92

Pals Savings $1.20

Promotional savings (clearance items) $8.82

Coupons $45.00

Total Savings $55.02

My cost? $4.90

My cost per can? .11 cents 

Why the rant you ask?? As I was shopping, I went by the Nature's Variety display and they had 3 ounce cans of lamb on clearance for .98 cents!! I was about to clear the shelf when I remembered that the last time they had NVI on clearance, the food was outdated. I looked at the cans and sure enough, they were ALL dated 12/2015. They had Wellness cans on clearance too so I figured I'd check those. All but the three I ended up buying were outdated. Some from May 2014!!  I WAS NOT HAPPY. I left the outdated ones in the top of the cart and gave them to the cashier. He looked at them and saw how old they were. I let him know that there were more outdated foods on the shelf. He said he'd let management know. I am SO glad I checked. WHY was there food that's outdated by almost TWO YEARS on the shelf?  

This is something I would do [emoji]128514[/emoji], both a shopping spree and a pet store and the rant.

Nice score I did something similar years ago. I had all these coupons for FREE food of various brands, even dog food. I think I bought like $30 worth of food and it was all free None of the cat brands were ones that I could feed to my diabetic cat so it all got donated to the shelter where it was much appreciated

The cans from Dec. 2015 are likely still ok to eat. I don't think canned food can go bad a few months after the "best by date" if it's sealed properly. I've fed canned and pouch food a month or so past the best by date and neither cat got ill. But the 2014 ones are something I would be more wary of and wouldn't feed.

We'll see you on that show on tv getting carts of groceries for free, do your cats like wellness and under the sun? I tried wellness a few years ago and they did not care for it. The only new one I have successfully added is halo impulse quail and greens.

Jeepers, there's always a catch right?  When you see a bargain, it's probably not.  

Anyway, congratulations on the bargains you did find!

My cats do like Wellness. SOME Wellness. They like the cubed, sliced and minced turkey and chicken.  Under the Sun?  They wouldn't touch it. All 3 rejected the turkey. I haven't tried the duck on them yet.

Earlier this week, I grabbed some cans of the Wellness sliced turkey out of the pantry and flipped them over. BOTH outdated from 2014. HOW did I miss those?

I went back to Petco today with the cans and my receipt. I showed the cans to the cashier and I told him I was going to get 2 cans to replace them. I went and got them. Then I went over to the Merrick foods. These usually go over pretty well especially the LID pates. I grab a 5.5 ounce can each of the chicken, duck and turkey. Then I look at the Purrfect Bistro line.The kids have been SO picky lately. I'm trying to find something that they will eat on a somewhat of a regular basis. I grab a can each of beef wellington, cowboy cookout, chicken divan and chicken casserole. I check the dates and they are all good UNTIL I get to the chicken casserole. With the exception of about 5 cans, EVERY one of them was outdated from May 2015. The 5 that weren't have an expiration date of 3/28/16. I took ALL the expired cans (I found more expired Wellness also) and put them in the cart upside down so I could easily tell them from the good stuff.

I go up to the register and now there's  different cashier. Of course. I tell her about the cans I brought in and she did a return before ringing up the stuff I wanted. THEN I gave her all of the expired cans. She was very nice and apologetic. However, this was not HER fault. It is the MANAGER'S fault.

Last week when I found the expired cans from 2014, I gave them to the cashier and told him that there were more expired cans on the shelf. He said that he would have the manager pull them. Who knows how many other cans of expired food are on their shelves being sold at FULL PRICE? The cans of Merrick were $1.69 each.

Check the dates on the cans if you shop at Petco. I have never had this happen at Petsmart.

I hate petco

I'm starting to also but they sell foods that Petsmart doesn't like the Merrick and Soulistic. I don't buy the Merrick by the case because they run got and cold towards the flavors so I usually just get a few of each.

The duck pate and chicken pate have been their favorites for 5 years with lids a close second

I'm beginning to wonder if all these higher priced ones like NVI are really any better than plain ole Friskies.  (IIRC Dr. Lisa Pierson wondered the same thing on her site as well.)  I guess that's not really fair to say since diet is only one factor (albeit a large one) of overall health.  My kitties will eat it but only because there's nothing else left to eat.  It's the last thing they touch on their plates so I wonder if I'm doing them any good.  I pick out the peas because it makes Honey's tummy gurgle.