Grocery shopping (& Consumer Reports)
 

love it; hate it; we all gotta do it. And you can't get everything at one store, nooooo.

I recently converted my paper Consumer Reports subscription to online, and I think I'm really going to like it. (Only problem is automatic yearly billing, but hey--I guess I can live with that to be able to search for specific products online.)

CR has these tips for grocery shopping:

--shop clockwise to spend less time & money. (Most stores have their door on the right, so you go counterclockwise naturally. I know I do).
--buy store brands; these have improved over the past few years
--you can have low prices or great service; not both. Go to warehouse-type stores for bulk packaged items; high end stores for fresh perishables
--study the circulars online; watch for patterns of sales so you can stock up on staples cheaply.

I'm off to the store now! :headshake

I admit that I do sometimes buy 'impulse items'. Sometimes there are 'opportunity buys', like meat department items marked down because they are about to expire.

My personal favorite is rainchecks. I love it when an item is out of stock. It's a lot easier to store a piece of paper than make freezer room.

Right now I'm sitting on BOGO (buy one get one free) rainchecks for sirloin steak burgers for my next BBQ.:yum:

Watch the register for ringing mistakes. I buy a lot of stuff on sale and I have found an error rate of up to %5 on sale items due to the computer not being updated or their failure to take the sale shelf tag or sign down. Most supermarkets give you the first item free and any additional items at the sale price. So in addition to making sure you don't get ripped off, you can get free stuff.

Check expiration dates. Last week I found some frozen gourmet sausages tucked away in the freezer section of a local market. The sell by/freeze by date was Jan 2007. Now technically they were frozen, but the freeze by date is meant for the consumer, not the store. I pointed this out to the manager.

Use momsview.com for coupons. There are a lot of coupon sites on the net, but I like the variety and quality there.

Happy Hunting

:vomit:
I don't think I have anything to add to my previous rant on the subject.

'twas a lovely rant, Steve!

Sometimes, for me, there's the thrill of the hunt--finding good stuff, on sale, even if it's just eggs. It's almost an atavistic feeling, like I'm doing the gathering for my family.

The funniest thing, I think, is people randomly wandering the aisles (mostly men, sorry guys) talking on their cell phones. Do we have sugar? What kind of oil should I buy?

and Rich, I agree with you. Pay attention the marked prices and watch the ring up. One of the things that makes me mad is misleading sale labeling: In the wrong place, so you identify the wrong item as being on sale, or obscure conditions--yes, you really do have to buy 10 of those to get the discount price; that expired last week, etc.

And check your receipt before you leave the store!

Sigh. And now for the part I hate the most--UNLOADING!

I used to experience that sometimes. These days, time is so limited, I just want to get in and out as quickly as possible, so I don't have time to enjoy the pleasure of the hunt.

I've done this many times, and so has Mrs. Dallas. What did we do in the pre-cell phone days??? Usually I know what kind of oil I want. For me it's usually more "they don't have the brand of whatever that you like. Do you want me to just not get it, or take another brand?" or "They have frozen buffalo chutney on sale... if I buy six boxes of it, do we have room in the freezer for them?"

If you didn't see it, I'm sure you'd enjoy the commercial for digital cameras and printers (from HP I think, but I'm not sure) that featured The Wife going to the store and taking photos, which she then used to print up a visual list of Here's What You Need To Buy for The Husband.

I've gotta say, for the most part I consider coupons to be too much of a hassle (my ego insists that my time and energy are worth more than 15 cents...) but I have found that I do have to watch to make sure they don't ring stuff up more than once. On three separate occasions, I have had the checker have a hard time scanning the UPC on the shiny diaper packages, and in the process of swiping it again and again it will ring up twice. 15 cents may not be worth watching closely, but $10 sure as hell is.

The problem I've seen with coupons is that they're getting chintzier. You used to get 50 cents off an item or something like that. Now it's just as likely to be 35 cents off FOUR of them. It's seemed progressively less and less worthwhile to bother with them over the years.

Here in MI, items still have to have paper sticker prices, and if they ring up wrongly, you get up to 10 times the difference plus $5 back :D I always take a minute of two to check my receipt ;)

We haven't had stickers for years, but I've been toying with the idea of jotting the price on the package with a grease pencil to check against the tape, instead of relying on my aging memory.

that's a nifty idea! also good for when you get up to the register and your item does not have a UPC.

I'm afraid it won't help there, they won't sell it if it won't scan.
I remember being in a home store, where the price was marked on the package, and they wouldn't let me buy it because the register wouldn't read the damn UPC. The girl even called the manager over and he wouldn't let her ring it up manually. Idiots.

Sometimes (not often) they will. Happened to me today in KMart, which is why I thought of it.

I wanted to buy one of those little doggy toys--like the mini daschund, but the tag had fallen off. I told the clerk it was $3.99 and she entered it like that, somewhow. Sometimes it depends on their frustration level. :)

*thread hijack*

I'm a bachelor and find it annoying that the cheapest grocery stores bundle their meats and produce in mega-family-econo-paks. I'd prefer to shop the grocery store in my neighborhood instead of driving to the Stop'N'Shop 10 miles away. But I don't want a pound package of Serrano peppers when two are plenty enough. Maybe I'm odd in the fact that I'm the only bachelor that likes to cook and doesn't live off of Hot Pockets and frozen pizzas. Why can't grocery stores be more accommodating towards bachelors?

Oh, check expiration dates. Do not trust the stockers to rotate items like chips and dressing.

Damnifino. Or single people. I have the same problem. I guess the food stamp folks have given them some kinda mind set. WTF do I need with 30 lbs of chicken leg quaters?

How does this work?

If the grocery store has an actual meat counter next to the meat section, they'll repackage anything you want. Many times I've handed them a package of four steaks from the refrigerator case and asked them to just give me two of them in a package, and they happily do it. This is of course assuming they are packaged there at the grocery store and not a completely separate brand like Tyson or something.

The closest grocery store bundles their produce into Styrofoam packs and shrink wraps them. Very little produce is offered bulk. You have to buy the package of 6 zucchini and throw out the 4 you didn't use because you don't eat that much zucchini. This place is stuck in the 70's. The customer service at this grocery store sucks so it would be futile for me to ask "can I only purchase two zucchini?" These days I'm trying not to drive long distances to do basic errands. It's a carbon footprint thing. On the other hand, wasting food sucks because that also impacts my carbon footprint.

Meats I can freeze. It's the produce that irks me because not all of it can be frozen. Plus I don't have a large freezer to keep everything in.

If we only had a Whole Foods in my city.

Don't your supermarkets sell fresh produce individually? Here you can go into any supermarket and get yourself one of everything if you want.

With meat most of it is packaged in the supermarkets, and it's cheaper to buy it in bulk packs, but you can always bring it home and repackage it before freezing.

Yes, but it's a 15 min drive from home.

So?

carbon footprint, remember?

You just can't get your needs met by one store, I don't think.

I'm very lucky to have a good, natural foods grocery 5 miles from my home. It's the only one in El Paso. I go there for bulk foods, natural foods, hormone free beef and chicken, Apricot Ale, decent yogurt, etc.

I go to the mainstream, high-end grocery store, Albertson's, for convenience, fresh produce, and selection.

I go to Wal-Mart for everything, and they have the lowest prices--but not too often because I don't like crowds.

Occasionally I will go to Sams Club, but I don't generally buy perishables there. I'm a single person with limited storage.

My closest grocery store is a little country market with higher prices but better quality than the walmart. It's also twice as far but still my first choice (I don't mind walmart produce so much, but the meat doesnt even look real, plus its up to 12% solution. Um, wtf?)

Personally, I would definitely drive 15 minutes rather than buy packaged produced - although I stopped driving to Whole Foods becuase it was just too damn far.

I treat myself to Wegmans when we need goat cheese, buffalo yogurt, and other wildly exotic things :rolleyes: my little market doesn't carry - but its a 1/2 hr away.

I still don't get the clockwise thing.... I'm a perimeter shopper as it is, I dont see why it would matter which direction I went.

well, the story on the study doesn't say why--it just says that people moving clockwise spend less time in the store.

My most expensive shopping habit is wasting food--buying stuff then not cooking it. Either I don't get around to cooking, or I look at the stuff and go--ugh, I'm not eating that. That's why I don't freeze food--subconsiously or something I think it's gross.

I have the best plan going for grocery shopping. The goddess does it for me! We used to go together (usually around 11 or midnight) when we were younger with no children. Now, she would rather do it during the day while I am at work. I have offered many times (an empty gesture really) to do it on my way home, but she would rather I get on home to play with my son. She can just pop him in a cart watching a movie on her ipod, and shop with relate quite. That way we don't have to take up time doing it on the weekend. I really have the good life.

Yep. Then you can buck the tide of rest of the folks going other way. Oh well

less time in the store = less money.

I've always gone "backwards" through the store--but that's because I like to put the non-refrigerated things like shampoo and toilet paper in my basket first, so the things like ice cream and meat are rolling around the store with me for as little time as possible. But in the three stores I've shopped in on a regular basis, that meant clockwise once and counter-clockwise twice. My favorite store layout ever had the produce in the middle instead of on the side, I loved that.

What makes me crazy(er) is the short shelf life of produce after you bring it home. It gets back to the days of shopping every day for perishables so you don't just end up throwing it away a day later. We go to Trader Joes (Great store!) about once a month to stock up on some things - it's about a half hour away. Sam's Club for some bulk purchases even though I HATE Wal-Mart. (Guess that makes me a hypocrite). Put in a big garden this year - those veggies don't go bad in a day, and the flavor is fantastic. We have the large grocery chains locally, but it always seems that I'm leaving the store checking the receipt and wondering "how the **** did the total get THAT high?.

Ain't THAT the truth!

It's even worse at the variety or discount stores (what do you call them?), which we haven't mentioned. Things like Target and Kmart are on my regular list of stops. :( I go to these stores at least as much as I go to grocery stores, and buy bunches of junk. They have food there, too, but it's all processed, so not very good if you want healthy.

Of course, if I go to Wal-Mart, I can skip this step, 'cause they have EVERYTHING. And the lowest prices, too. That's a combination that's hard to beat.

And I agree with you nowhereman. Growing your own is the way to go. Surely it can't be that hard to grow a container garden of vegies. Alas, I have not the green thumb. :thumb2:

But I was lucky enough to buy, this weekend, at the aforementioned KMart, a bunch of herbs, which are hard to find. Dill, oregano, flat parsley, curley parsley, and basil. I planted them, put them in a sunny window, and -- we'll see!

If I go clockwise I'd be picking up the refrigerated and frozen stuff first. Counterclockwise is paper/cleaning stuff first. Much more gooder.

Busterb, Telefunken, try Trader Joe's for veggies. They tend to be in smallish, almost boutique-y looking packages. For an instance, there is their guacamole kit, available in the produce section. Five pounds is their biggest size of potato sacks.

Their philosophy seems to be "small & fresh."

I used to buy milk at the grocery store thinking it was cheaper. It's the same price at the convenience store where I gas up for the week. What I have noticed is the milk I buy at the convenience store is fresher and stays fresher longer than grocery store milk. My theory is that the convenience store's churn rate for milk is higher since they have a smaller inventory.

One of our supermarkets (Tesco) has cottoned on to the fact people like to buy local. They have started selling Local Milk - milk which comes from a farm in your region, so it doesn't travel as far. There has been an outcry because in my region - "The Heart of England" the majority of dairies used are based to the East of the region (in Lincoln). This means the milk labelled local in Hereford in the West has already travelled 150 miles.

Meh. I'd rather buy milk from Lincoln than Scotland or France.

There is currently pressure from shoppers to include the country of origin on food products, which I think can only be a good thing. The supermarkets are waking up to the idea that some customers will pay more to have fresh food produced in their own region. Personally I like the idea of seasonal foods - it makes them more special. Now if I can only find somewhere that sells something other than Santa strawberries (tastless, watery things - grown because they are tougher and transport easier).

Cloud, I have to ask you what you think is wrong with a carbon footprint left by someone who chooses to buy their groceries from 1 store which provides for all their needs rather than going from shop to shop. I do not see the issue with this. I know people who drive all over the joint to buy bargains in bulk. For me, that's not economical, even though we personally do not pay for fuel.

Whoever said something about short shelf life for fresh produce. I'll go along with that. It shits me that the big supermarkets buy inferior products and then use 'special' lighting to make it look much better than it actually is.

I'd rather pay a bit more and get a good quality product which will keep longer than pay tuppence for shit. Mind you, I'd rather pay less if I could, but given the choice, I'd choose quality.

Herbs are easy to grow. I have a bunch of them growing on my front verandah which gets the sun most of the day. I have parsely, thai and sweet basil, mint, chives, rosemary, shallots, coriander and a chilli tree at the moment. All they need is sun and some slow release fertilizer once a month or so. I keep trying to grow oregano but it never works. It likes a damper environment than the rest of the herbs I grow, so I think that's the problem.

Anyway, I like shopping. I'll do it in any direction. I don't think it matters which way I go, I still spend more than I intend to every time.

Me? Nothing. It was Telefunken who expressed concern about this.

Thanks for the tips about herbs. I do have oregano in the pot, so we'll see what happens.

Good luck with the oregano. If it grows, you know I'm gonna have oregano envy right? ;)

(snort)

well, it's Greek oregano. It's dry in Greece, isn't it?

Right. I'm sure there might be one in New Orleans or somewhere in the surrounding 500 miles.

wish we had one where I live!

Sundae, you'd love it here on the Oxnard plain. Strawberries are our specialty, the number one earner crop. We get an early crop about early February and the main crop lateish June.

Strawberries recently beat out citrus, which was our used-to-be. In World War Two we alleviated a labor shortage during harvesting -- a long season -- by employing German POWs to harvest the lemons and oranges. I've seen the German-language manual of instructions in the county museum.

My only rule for grocery shopping -- which I violate frequently -- is don't go when you're hungry. Everything looks good when when my stomach is empty.

Oh, yeah, barefoot. Get some kind of sticks-with-you complex-carb-n-cheese snack in you first. A solid power bar kind of thing -- not the gussied-up Rice Krispies with goop kind of bar -- works about as well and is cheaper than ordering a personal pan pizza. Fits better in a purse, too.

The closest Trader Joe's to me are in the Twin Cities and near Chicago, either way, at least 2.5 hours away. They are supposed to be putting 2 in Iowa, but the website hasn't said where yet.

When they do, I will definately do a LOT of my shopping there. Last month I went with my SIL and 2 other women to the Mall of America for a girls weekend. I spent $30 at MOA, about $120 at Trader Joe's. And that was without any perishables or wine!! (we all spent over $100 each)

Here's a shot of our trunk: *cues Low Rider*

I hate shopping. I keep time and cost to a minimum by having a list on the fridge that people must add to if they want something. If it isn't on the list, it doesn't go in the cart. Period. And if I can't read what's on the list, I'm not wasting time interpreting. Ask beest -his handwriting has improved no end :D

Omnivore's Dilemma
http://www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php

Talk to your shopping list and print it out. Only $149.99
http://smartshopperusa.com/

The whole secret to TJ's -- aside from treating their workers so well they've never felt the urge to unionize -- is that they make a point of tasting what they buy. The result is lots of nice stuff at very reasonable prices; the place isn't a boutique, nor a deli -- it's a grocery store that sells stuff the grocer would want to eat.

. . . so why can't we get one in my town? darnit!

I'm sure there's some official TJ's site you could pester. Squeak your wheel!

Now, technically there's no Trader Joe's in my town either, but the Oxnard greater metro area is straddled by Camarillo, with a TJ's on Carmen Street, and Ventura, with a TJ's on Victoria Avenue. Happens the Ventura one is the more convenient, but neither is a big expedition.

I checked the site. No Trader Joe's anywhere in my state, or any bordering state, for that matter. But the good news is, if they ever did open one, it would probably be right in my area, because it's the only part of town that isn't currently saturated with Whole Foods and Central Market.

The closest TJ's is in Madison Wi. About 150 miles away. We go about every 3 months next time we are taking $200.00 and getting every thing we can fit, and then it's off to Whole Foods for the rest.

So, generally workers unionise as a response to unkind treatment from their employers?

Um... yes? Why else would workers unionize?

Wasn't that sort of the impetus behind the very first labor unions? And kind of a recurring theme in the founding of labor unions?

I really don't know much about unions, other than the fact that they bug the shit out of me (mostly due to evangelizing unionists).

My superficial understanding of it is that's how unionism started. What's soured the whole thing has been the monopolistic rules unions operate under -- laws having been passed to set up this monopoly. Unions have now so largely priced themselves out of the labor market, especially in the manufacturing sector, that they are withering. They had driven the cost of employment and production too high, and the labor market corrected the situation. The only growth sector of unionism is government employees -- the SEIU.

I'm surprised no one's anything about Consumer Reports here. Has anyone else subscribed? It's sooo much easier just to do a search than to fumble through old magazines.

I have an online membership. Beats having to keep back issues in my cluttered apartment.

exactly!

The few times I've read the information in Consumer Reports, I haven't found it to be that helpful. Is there something I'm missing? What products has it convinced you to buy or changed your mind about?