No currency for your cart? No problem with this trick MyGuide

With a piece of 50 cents or €1 or €2 you can free your shopping cart from the queue. No money in your pocket? The most convenient alternative to a real currency remains a plastic token. This is usually a circular token that the retail chain makes for shopping carts. You can put this consumption currency in your wallet or put it in your car, and you will never spend it all of a sudden. There are also keychains on which you click such a token. If you don’t have a plastic coin yourself, walk up to the cash register and ask for one. If you really don’t feel like making that detour, this alternative might be something for you.

What you need for this trick is your set of keys. Several round keys about the size of a euro piece. Unscrew the key and you will find it fits in your cart slot.

Is this without risk? Not real. If your key gets stuck or breaks, you’ll have an awkward conversation with the store manager on your leg, and waste far more time than it would have cost you to detour to the checkout – to ask for a coin. While shopping, you can also prick yourself hard on the end of the key. However, with a little extra force, you can pull the switch back once the cart has been removed from the chain. This may be the smartest approach. This way you can’t forget to get your key back afterwards.

Are there any things that might work? Netizens have noticed that a corkscrew that sticks to the bottom or side of an old-fashioned tin box (such as sardines, spam, or boiled pork) is also suitable. But is this in your pocket?

When we talk about the price of a cart, it usually has to do with how expensive the groceries are. But how much does the cart itself cost? A department store quickly pays 150 to 400 euros for one shopping cart. You can see the coin you put in it as a deposit that motivates you to return the cart properly.

This also reduces the number of vehicles wandering into the parking lot, where they can get in the way of people trying to park or board a parked car or someone’s leg in a gust of wind. Besides, no one wants to live in a neighborhood where abandoned shopping carts are everywhere. Whether you open your cart with a coin, plastic token, house key, or the key to a can of sardines, always put your cart back in the ballpark.

During Corona everyone can take karts without getting stuck. Then we knew the other misery: trying to distinguish between used and sanitized shopping baskets, or cleaning your cart handle with paper and disinfectant. Meanwhile, most Belgian supermarkets have linked their shopping trolleys together. Only in Colruyt and Albert Heijn, or in some supermarkets where you change shopping carts at the checkout, do you no longer need a coin. Albert Heine noticed during the epidemic that no one stole shopping carts. More and more retail chains will follow this example, in order to avoid frustration. Hence the plastic tokens are no longer needed.

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