Is ketchup worth stealing for?

[starving_student]

There is this thread in frugal question and answers about the most oustlandish frugal thing people did. Quite a few people mentionned taking extra ketchup pack from fast food place and filling an empty bottle at home with these...

Is it just me or this sound wrong...
1) It is stealing
2) If you can't affor ketchup don't go to fastfood places!
3)You can get ketchup on sale for a 1$ (there was Atkin ketshup for 1$ at our grocery store this week) a bottle and also from the dollar store
4) It sounds like an awfull lot of work for 1$ (first collecting the ketchup then emptying them into the bottle)
5) All of the above and more...


What do you think?

[tinapbeana]

personally, i don't like ketchup.

with regards to condiments in general, i don't think most folks here are going in and taking handfuls of the stuff when they only need a few. it's usually more a case of getting a meal in a bag or on a tray with umpteen ketchup packs already placed there for you. at this point, if you don't use them all and you leave them they will get thrown away, which is wasteful.

i know severel people who aren't frugal who still have a junk drawer with little packets of ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, and duck sauce from all the times they've eaten take-out and gotten to many packets to use. if someone else chooses to take the time to empty the packets into a bottle rather than use the condiments straight from the packets themselves, that's their choice.

at work i have a giant stack of napkins from the takeout places i eat lunch. invariably i get 4-5 in a bag with my one burger when i drivethrough, which is more than i need. why throw them away, they're perfectly good napkins? so i keep them, and i use them, and i wind up not using the napkins at work as a result? is this stealing? no, the fast food joint gave me the napkins to begin with.

[LuxLiving]

Stv,S - I think once they give them to you in a carryout bag it isn't stealing, and if you decide to refill your ketchup bottle with them rather than have the annoying little packages laying about go for it - which is what the one person you decided to direct your original post to was doing.

Yes, there were mentions in that thread of people stealing them, which I do personally believe is wrong.

[MonkeyMama]

I agree - not worth it.

However, whenever we order out fast food we are HANDED piles and piles of ketchup and paper plates, parmesan cheese, paper flakes, etc. The fast food joints tend to give you way more than you need. We save the napkins too - I don't remember the last time I had to buy a napkin, we just use the excessive ones we receive. For us it isn't even really a frugal thing - I am just not going to throw away all this perfectly good stuff - more a conversation thing. Though I am trying to remember to say, no we don't need 20 ketchups and 50 napkins please!!!!

[rob62521]

I don't think Starving Student it talking about the packets you are given when you get carry-out. I think what's being discussed is the fact there is on a site where people are encouraged to lift many packets to take home and put in their own ketchup bottles. I believe it is stealing and it hurts everyone -- the business owner who in turn then has to raise prices to make up for the loss if this goes on a lot.

[disneysteve]

I'll admit to being guilty to occasionally grabbing a couple of extra packets of ketchup and taking them home. Is it stealing? I suppose it is, though more often than not, the situation is what everyone else describes where we were given more than we needed and just kept them.

What I don't get is why would you waste your time opening the packets and squeezing them into a bottle? Why not just grab a packet when you need some ketchup? We always have 3 or 4 packets in the fridge. My daughter is the only one who uses ketchup and only rarely. Buying a whole bottle just doesn't make sense to me, even for $1.

[m.f.walters]

Being the owner of a restaurant, I'm amazed by what people think they have a right to take. I've seen people take all the sugar packets from the basket on the table, any extra butter (that comes in sealed foil containers), coffee creamers. We bought some cute hard plastic cups with cartoon characters on them to store crayons in-those lasted less than a few months-crayons and cup were taken. We can't leave extra rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom as it disappears. The most shocking...we had a huge bowl of potpourri in the ladies room-one day I went in and the bowl was empty! Someone had emptied probably a gallon of potpourri into their purse(I'm assuming) and taken it! And we're an upscale restaurant in an upscale town. Go figure. I've been told that this is the "cost of doing business".

[Ima saver]

I don't like ketchup but my husband does. I never take extra packs of it. However, I do keep the extra napkins I get, in my car, just in case.

[LuxLiving]

In my house disneysteve, folks just grab the $.66 bottle (from the scratch n' dent store) instead of ever using up the packets. In order not to waste the packets, I occasionally spend a few minutes dumping them into the bottle.

[Ima saver]

My husband would never use the packets either.

[nanamom]

I keep picturing the guy on the movie that used crackers and ketchup packs for food when he was stranded in the airport. Really though I think those little packs are a pain. I use them if we get them but never take them with intent to save buying some. I even buy packs of sugar substitute so I can carry them in my purse and not take the restaurants. I do take th eextra tea bags the restaurant brings me (although usually I just order hot water and bring my own) since they are going to throw it away.

[JanH]

Hubby takes the ones we get from fast food places to work with him for times he needs them. But we don't go to those places much anymore. Here you have to ask for the ketchup and even napkins at times! They aren't not always given automatically. I thought maybe that is a new trend.

[creditcardfree]

I think it is stealing. Use what you need while you are there.

That ABC show about Camden NJ showed a man using several liquid creamers to make a bottle of milk for his granddaughters. So sad.

[lrjohnson]

Some of us are very clear that using extras we are given is fine, but taking extra on purpose is not. What bothers me is that some people really don't see a difference. It just weirds me out that some people do not see how it is wrong to take excess ketchup, napkins, etc. on purpose. The small value of the amount stolken doesn't make me feel better about the act of stealing without remorse. I read someone took the toilet paper from a motel room! Very weird to me!

[lrjohnson]

Man, I reread the original thread the person was referring to, and I'm the supposed source of ketchup stealing! Jeezamarooni, that is distressing. I do not ever take extra ketchup or any other condiment. I do use up what I am given. I am saddened that I wrote so vaguely as to indicate that I thought stealing was acceptable. It's not, and I don't do it.

[rob62521]

Originally Posted by lrjohnson

Man, I reread the original thread the person was referring to, and I'm the supposed source of ketchup stealing! Jeezamarooni, that is distressing. I do not ever take extra ketchup or any other condiment. I do use up what I am given. I am saddened that I wrote so vaguely as to indicate that I thought stealing was acceptable. It's not, and I don't do it.

I didn't start this thread, but the article I am referring to is on a frugal site. It told folks should get extra ketchup packets to refill their bottles at home, take extra sugar and/or sweetener, take extra packets of crackers if you get a basket of them, and so on.

I also saw the piece on Camden and the dad getting the creamers to put with water. He didn't lift a case of them and I bet the restaurant owner would have given them to him if he knew what he was doing with them.

When we go out if the server brings two packets of saltines and I eat one, I do take the other home, but I don't consider that stealing. I don't ask for extras, but maybe I should be leaving them. I thought maybe they would be thrown away when the table was bussed.

[m.f.walters]

Some things can be reused at a restaurant and some things can't. We routinely reuse butter and creamer packets because they are individually sealed and served in a bowl on the table. the extras that aren't used are still usable at another table, like the sugar packets. However, a packet of crackers, like a tea bag, usually come on a small plate with soup or hot water, and are much more likely to get dirty, wet or crunched. My point is that if plenty are brought to a table and customers can use as much as they need, don't feel like it is an 'all you can eat" and the extras free for the taking. Use what you need, leave the rest. To me that should be the motto for living in general.

[scfr]

I'm with those who won't take extra packets when helping myself, and if the server asks me I just ask for exactly what I need; however, if they throw a handful in my bag and I find I have extras when I get home, I will use those up and have been known to squeeze them in to a bottle!

Okay, folks, what about soap and the little shampoos in hotel rooms ... Do you take them? I'll confess: I take them! Is that stealing?

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Nah, I leave the extras in the car or when we get fast food to go. I don't ask for extra unless needed. I use the extra napkins and stuff in the car, but I do not take anything that is not going to be thrown away.

[pearlieq]

Originally Posted by scfr

Okay, folks, what about soap and the little shampoos in hotel rooms ... Do you take them? I'll confess: I take them! Is that stealing?

That's an interesting question. I never considered taking the extra unused soap/shampoo to be stealing, even though it is technically unopened and could be given to another guest. I've always taken them.

I think it falls under the rules of "extra". They give me a bottle of shampoo each day. If I don't use it, I'm free to take it home. Stealing, in my mind, would be taking 10 bottles of shampoo off of the maid's cart.

Last week when DH and I were at Disney World we watched a family in the foodcourt (at least 8 people) purchase a loaf of bread from the store there and then proceed to use the packets of peanut butter and jelly on the condiment bar to make sandwiches for everyone at the table. I guess they "technically" were paying customers and not doing anything wrong, but that seemed really sleazy to me.