Why Does Your Sonic Coupon Say It’s Worth 1/20th Cent?
There are times when you just have to wonder. Like, why would a Sonic coupon for $1 off say “cash value 1/20th or 1/100th cent?” It turns out because the $1 refers to the amount of money you will save when you order the item while the cash value amount refers to the amount anyone would pay you if you simply turned in the coupon. So, you would need 20 coupons – and a willing buyer – to earn a penny. This all came about during the Great Depression because food stamps were used to ration food and dishonest merchants hiked the price food and thus made the food stamps more valuable. So many states decided that all items used to reduce the cost of food would have the same value. Since these laws are still around in some states, but not all, businesses use the “cash value” system to avoid printing variations of their coupons.
