(no subject)

[which_chick]

It's Monday night, campers, and by now we all know what that means.



Last week, the food budget was 1841.34. Following this evening's grocery shopping of $16.81, the remaining 2005 food budget is $1824.53.

It's said by experts that one of the things that helps people keep to a grocery budget is shopping to a pre-made list. I don't always have a grocery list, but sometimes I find one useful, especially if there are some items I would be very unhappy about forgetting... like milk for coffee or, for that matter, coffee. Tonight I took a list to the grocery store, which I followed except for the cauliflower. It looked crappy. I will not pay $3.00 a head for crappy-looking cauliflower. I will pay that for pretty cauliflower. I also deferred purchase of cheese and eggs. I decided I had eaten eggs and egg-based foods last week and would probably not make anything eggy this coming week because I needed a break. I also went through a pound of cheese in the last two weeks. If I buy cheese, I will eat it. The only way to show restraint in that department is to buy limited amounts. Yes, I am out of cheese. I can wait another week for more, though.

So what did I get with my money? I don't buy pre-made foods a whole lot. I buy ingredients and make the food myself. Given the weird shit I eat, this is probably for the best. This week I picked up 5 lbs. sugar, 2 cans tomatoes, 2 cans light red kidney beans, 1 lb. dried brown lentils, a container of iodized salt, half a gallon of skim milk, a pound of broccoli crowns, five lbs. rome apples, one acorn squash (replacement item for the icky cauliflower), 3 large white onions, and a pound of collard greens (Yay! They even look pretty!).

As a "Savings Club Card Member", I saved a whopping $0.79 -- I suspect I am not the target market for the Club Card. It is not saving me huge amounts of money on my grocery bill like I'm told it is supposed to do. *sigh* The only reason I shop at this grocery is because my old grocery changed their hours so that they're not open anymore when I get off work. This grocery has a relatively dreadful selection of ingredient foods. It sux0rs. It does devote a lot of shelf space to pre-made foods, though. I'd rather have more ingredient foods.

Comments

grocery reviews

[ardvaark99999.livejournal.com]

Did you inform the new grocer that their store "sux0rs"? I suspect that they would likely take that information and run with it. "Sux0rs" should be an option on feedback forms for commercial establishments. Imagine the street cred some enterprise would obtain from young, er...hip, technophiles just by having that on the feedback form. The response would surely be "Wow! The Wal-Mart Superstore has "sux0rs" on its feedback form! I'ma Wal-Mart guy for life now!" It is a matter of time until it is co-opted for profit.

FWIW, I also think that the amount of prepared, shit foods that are on the shelves (and particularly the cap displays) is contributing directly to the fattification of society. That and stupidity and laziness. Unfortunately, the latter two are terminal and incurable. The foremost shouldn't be cured -- it's not the grocers' faults that people cannot resist the siren call of high-margin pork rinds. It'll just be bred out of us in a few generations as those least able to resist the allure of triple stuffed Oreos die prematurely. Of course, the bif flaw in this theory of societal salvation is that humans breed before they can be selected for coronary disease thus) preserving the genetic lines of the fat, lazy, and stupid.

In any case, I like the grocery store coverage. I will remain to the bitter end this year to see if you end up eating pets or shoes or something.

Re: grocery reviews

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

There aren't many humans at the new grocer. It's self-checkout, which usually works pretty well. However, last night I bought collard greens, which don't weigh enough for the belt to figure out that I'd put them on there even though I did it (at the computer's lame-ass speed) three times in a row because it kept cancelling the sale and asking me to do it again. Finally the computer gave up and summoned one of the few remaining drones to come over to fix it for me. That took five minutes because the computer didn't like her override, either.

At that point, I was not in the mood to give a composed, rational synopsis of the store's shortcomings. I just paid for my stuff and left.

[ladyivy.livejournal.com]

I budget my grocery money by the month rather than the year, and include part of the eating out budget in there (the catagory is marked "food"). I have $350 budgeted a month. Granted this is for two people, not one. But it is interesting to see what stuff costs in a different area of the state.

Of course, the budget for Jan kinda got blown (by about $40) when the stove went last week and we a) ate several meals in restaurants that weren't planned and b) picked up a lot more of that prepared shit since most of it is microwavable, and it is hard to make "from ingredient food" without an oven or burner. (Yes, I have microwave specific cookbooks. Try getting the husband to look at one for when he is alone. And that also usually requires additional shopping since what I tend to buy and plan for is using the oven and/or burner cooking)

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

You guys live in the city, where food costs more. You also eat more meat than I do. (Some vegetarians eat more meat than I do.) Meat is a big-ticket grocery item -- probably accounts for a lot of the per-person difference in the budgets.

Also, while I don't eat out much, if/when I do, you'll see it in the budget. In all honesty, I might could eat out more, but I have a hard time paying money for the kind of stuff that's available around here. I can do better at home, so I do. The choices locally are limited to tolerable white-america steakhouse food, pretty good truckstop food, and fast food. Them's the choices. If I drive forty minutes, I can eat at a chain like an Outback, an OliveGarden, or an Applebees. No thanks.