Sticker shock at the grocery store

Status
Not open for further replies.
Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
I get the impression that this is a topic people don't want to talk about.

It's depressing, Merk.
wink.gif


People are grousing up here, because our dollar took a hit. Things go in cycles, unfortunately, particularly when things relate to the economy. I know everyone in Canada thinks its their right to be able to buy fresh mangoes any day of the year and pay next to nothing for them, but it's not reasonable. At one time, the only exposure we had to mangoes would be what was seen on TV. Pineapple was canned. And so forth.

As for ground beef, of course, it's gone up. It's not the end of the world. Try being a single guy shopping for some of this stuff. Look at bread, in specific. I have three choices, when I buy bread, all unpalatable. I get to buy a good, store baked interesting load of bread without preservatives and strange ingredients and with great taste at a sort of reasonable price, only to know it's going to spoil within a few days unless I want to eat a whack of bread in a hurry. Or, I can buy the new half loaves, which cost just as much money as the full loaves, and have a few added preservatives for my benefit. Or, I can buy the cheap Wonder bread and its ilk, which will last two weeks minimum on the counter, let alone in the fridge, yet is only barely palatable as toast.

No, I'm not baking my own, even with a machine, since the spoilage issue still arises. And no, I'm not freezing bread, either. I hated frozen bread when I was a kid and won't like it more now. If I have to root around through the deep freeze for supper, I'll have ice cream for supper. As an adult, I can do that.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: rshaw125
Pepper is one item I never buy in the regular grocery store. Either Aldi or Dollar tree. 1/3 rd of the price.

As an aside, our Coops here are nuts. Superstore will sell one of the spice shakers for something like $5 regular price, and drop a couple bucks off that on special. The Coop's regular price on the same product is $8!
 
We used to use our breadmaker heavily. I found that bread lasted longer if I left it on the counter. Just slice off what I needed, when I needed; but otherwise flip it over and have it sit on the cutting board, open/cut side down. It'd dry out a bit and quickly be good only for toast; but I found wrapping it up for "max life" was actually yielding the opposite.
 
Yep, some of those tricks do help a little bit, at least depending on the bread. I still can rarely get good value out of a loaf of bread, unless I'm deciding to have eggs a couple meals or days in a row, since I'll go through a pile of toast with it. Or, if it's something like pumpernickel, and I make a lot of sandwiches, I can avoid disaster.

But, the idea of having a slice or two of pumpernickel with a meal is simply out of the question. And people wonder why I eat out so much.
 
I have a coworker who eats out for every lunch and dinner. Keeps breakfast cereal at home, but nothing else. Then again, single, and he explained that he kept each meal to about $5 (granted, this was about 10 years ago).
 
I am so fortunate to have an excellent NH,MA grocery store chain called Market Basket 6 mins away.

Every other chain even Walmart is roughly 15-30% more in our weekly shop. Items are sometimes $1-$2 more elsewhere.

This place is nice to shop, clean and relatively modern and privately held. The owners are billionaires. I simply think other chains are poorly run. One thing of note the $4 billion company has no corporate website. The folks I know in upper management and store management are very well off. I have no idea how they are with employees except they all seem happy.
 
Originally Posted By: dlundblad
This topic was mentioned in the deteriorating quality thread.

Buy food when it's on sale and if you can, stock up.

We have 4-6 major chains within 4-5 miles, every week one or more chains have some we like on sale. If the price was very good we stocked up. I bought most items when they are 50% discount or more, and couple with coupons I can easily save more than 60-70%.

Our monthly grocery bills are around $200-300 or less.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: madRiver
I am so fortunate to have an excellent NH,MA grocery store chain called Market Basket 6 mins away.

Every other chain even Walmart is roughly 15-30% more in our weekly shop. Items are sometimes $1-$2 more elsewhere.

This place is nice to shop, clean and relatively modern and privately held. The owners are billionaires. I simply think other chains are poorly run. One thing of note the $4 billion company has no corporate website. The folks I know in upper management and store management are very well off. I have no idea how they are with employees except they all seem happy.


They used to have some more sketchy stores in Concord, but we don't go there that often. We find our local MB doesn't have a great meat selection; Hanaford's is better. But we still do lots of shopping at MB, was glad when the the big scandal was over and business went back to normal.
 
If you've got the freezer space you can buy a side of beef from a lot of different local farmers that will process and package it in steaks, roasts, and ground for anywhere between $5 and $8 a pound. Considering steaks go for $13-16/lb here and ground is $4-5 it works out to a pretty good deal.
 
We just bought London broil for $2.27/lb, and center cut pork chops for $2.49/lb. 80% ground beef was $2.49, so there was no compelling reason to buy it.

One can get 6oz of ground pepper from Amazon pantry for $6.80, but I can't see why one would buy preground pepper. A pepper grinder and peppercorns would be the better choice...
 
Originally Posted By: supton
I have a coworker who eats out for every lunch and dinner. Keeps breakfast cereal at home, but nothing else.

That's much like me. I eat a fair bit, particularly for my size, so it doesn't take much to eat up a lot of groceries. So, the buffet is my friend.
 
VONS is the same company as Randall's here in Texas.

I have found them to always be way overpriced on everything.

We stick with shopping at costco and splitting up meat purchases into portions and freezing.

We also buy from HEB they do not gouge us and the store brand stuff is always good.

I for one can not eat food from Aldi's or Dollar Tree, I want real food. Everything there is prepackaged and salt ridden.

We spend about $100 per week for two people and we try to eat at home 5 days a week.
 
Publix has weekly BOGO free deals and always quality meats on sale. Their store branded items are very high quality, so is their deli Publix brand meats / cheese.

I got a $50 Mobil gas card for $40 today. Saved $25 with gas card promo, sale items and BOGO deals.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top