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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Oct 26, 2016 10:44:21 GMT -5
I'm ridiculously spoiled by my choices in supermarkets. If I drive 5 minutes south, I can go to Redner's, which is plain and cheap and has tons of good staples. If I drive 5 minutes north, I can go to either Giant or Wegmans - it depends on my mood, really. Giant is where I go when I want to go in and out quickly and don't need any specialty ingredients. It's great because I know where everything is, and their produce section is really quite good. The parking lot sucks, though, and it tends to get overrun by clueless elderly people at times. Wegmans is where I go when it isn't a weekend or evening, because it's literally always a shitshow, and their produce section is good for unusual stuff but weirdly not too good for things like fresh herbs (I've gone in there to get basil more than once and they haven't had any at all), but their prepared foods and deli and cheese sections are great; plus, they have a fantastic line of store-brand food (their Thai peanut sauce is delicious) and a ton of imported/ethnic stuff, like japchae noodles and weird British condiments and 20-pound sacks of jasmine rice. Oooh, I forgot about Wegmans! That's another one that's an extra ten minutes away from me, and yeah, has the same weird issues that yours does. What is with Wegmans, anyway? It's so odd what totally normal thing you would expect to be able to get there... that they randomly don't have in stock at that moment. But they can't be beat for ethnic and off-the-beaten-path stuff! (Our Wegmans has the worst parking lot in the history of grocery stores, though, and impossibly slow cashiers and baggers, so it always takes 80% longer to shop there than it should.) |
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Oct 26, 2016 11:25:44 GMT -5
Oooh, I forgot about Wegmans! That's another one that's an extra ten minutes away from me, and yeah, has the same weird issues that yours does. What is with Wegmans, anyway? It's so odd what totally normal thing you would expect to be able to get there... that they randomly don't have in stock at that moment. But they can't be beat for ethnic and off-the-beaten-path stuff! (Our Wegmans has the worst parking lot in the history of grocery stores, though, and impossibly slow cashiers and baggers, so it always takes 80% longer to shop there than it should.) It IS weird. Like, I scored a pound of fresh lobster mushrooms there once, and they make a big deal out of having Hatch chiles when they're in season, but sometimes I can't get fresh rosemary! The cashiers and baggers at my store are quite nice and usually efficient, at least. Mostly my problem is that Wegmans is basically just a giant zoo unless you go early in the morning on a weekend (I went at 8 AM once and it was amazing) or before school lets out on a weekday. People just do not care about whether or not they're about to run your ass over with their shopping carts because they aren't paying any attention. |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Oct 26, 2016 15:37:54 GMT -5
How to spend $160 a week on groceries:
Buy prepared food instead of actual food.
We're two and a half people (baby is in fact human but primarily consumes milk and detritus from our plates), and in August, which seemed like a pretty normal month, we spent $410 at grocery stores (which includes buying diapers, which represent ~$15 a week at least). There might be another $30 of cash spent at farmers' markets, too. So in a 4.5 week month, we averaged perhaps $40 per adult a week. I love shopping at Winco. I'm also prone to buying all of my meat at midnight for pennies (or at least dimes) on the dollar because it's about to "spoil," a trick which got me a 6-pound chicken for $3.50 last week.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Oct 26, 2016 15:43:10 GMT -5
So here's a question for y'all, how much do you have in "backstock" at any given time? Things like pasta, canned beans/veggies, rice, frozen veggies, etc.? Because I spent about $70 at the grocery store yesterday (that included some fresh brats, 3 lbs of ground turkey and deli turkey) but we have a ton of random freezer and pantry stuff - and about 2/3 of that turkey will go into the freezer for future use, to join the giant bag of frozen blueberries, and the rainy-day tamales, and the bags of frozen spinach... If I had a convenient place for a chest freezer, I would have so, so much "backstock" at all times and never buy anything except milk and vegetables. As it is, we've usually got your standard baking elements, ten cans or so of beans and tomatoes, and maybe two weeks' worth of meat in the freezer. |
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GumTurkeyles
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$10 down, $10 a month, don't you be a turkey
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Post by GumTurkeyles on Oct 27, 2016 6:38:12 GMT -5
I'm ridiculously spoiled by my choices in supermarkets. If I drive 5 minutes south, I can go to Redner's, which is plain and cheap and has tons of good staples. If I drive 5 minutes north, I can go to either Giant or Wegmans - it depends on my mood, really. Giant is where I go when I want to go in and out quickly and don't need any specialty ingredients. It's great because I know where everything is, and their produce section is really quite good. The parking lot sucks, though, and it tends to get overrun by clueless elderly people at times. Wegmans is where I go when it isn't a weekend or evening, because it's literally always a shitshow, and their produce section is good for unusual stuff but weirdly not too good for things like fresh herbs (I've gone in there to get basil more than once and they haven't had any at all), but their prepared foods and deli and cheese sections are great; plus, they have a fantastic line of store-brand food (their Thai peanut sauce is delicious) and a ton of imported/ethnic stuff, like japchae noodles and weird British condiments and 20-pound sacks of jasmine rice. And if I drive 10 minutes north, there's a Shop-Rite and a Weis. I try to avoid Weis because their parking lot also sucks and their selections aren't always great, plus my dad works in the pharmacy of a nearby store and the pharmacist always wants to have really long conversations with me. Shop-Rite has the best bakery in the area, hands down. Their bread is just so, so good. And the desserts, too, even though I'm not hugely into sweets! My only real complaint is that Trader Joe's is 25 minutes away and a huge pain in the ass to get in and out of, but maybe that's better for my wallet. I have the same complaint about trader joe's. There's one 20-25 minutes south, but it's on a very busy street ("wait at a light for 3 cycles" type traffic), and the parking lot is generally a nightmare. There's a better, larger one 25 minutes north, and is only 8 miles from my work (at Patriot Place (go Pats)) but I have to go past my highway on-ramp/exit for 5 miles, and then going home, I'd have to drive 5 miles north again, just to go 30 miles south. So I really only go once every 3 months or so. There's a Stop and Shop 1 mile from my house, and there's a Whole Foods 2 miles from my girlfriend's house. I usually will go to those, depending on where I am at the time. |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Oct 27, 2016 8:47:56 GMT -5
We have two Trader Joe's within a 5 mile radius but the parking lots are always a pain in the ass. It seems to be their Thing.
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Oct 27, 2016 9:58:50 GMT -5
Trader Joe's finally opened around here a year or two ago, but I haven't been over to check it out yet. It sounds like it's hitting all the Trader Joe's requirements, though, because it's in an annoying far-afield location, on a road with devastatingly awful traffic, with inconvenient exit points from the road, and has a disastrous parking lot. Clearly they scout their locations ahead of time for exactly these qualities.
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Oct 27, 2016 10:03:15 GMT -5
Trader Joe's finally opened around here a year or two ago, but I haven't been over to check it out yet. It sounds like it's hitting all the Trader Joe's requirements, though, because it's in an annoying far-afield location, on a road with devastatingly awful traffic, with inconvenient exit points from the road, and has a disastrous parking lot. Clearly they scout their locations ahead of time for exactly these qualities. And yet. They have such great stuff. I almost wonder if they plan it to reduce traffic a bit. :-p |
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Post by Powerthirteen on Oct 27, 2016 10:18:17 GMT -5
Trader Joe's finally opened around here a year or two ago, but I haven't been over to check it out yet. It sounds like it's hitting all the Trader Joe's requirements, though, because it's in an annoying far-afield location, on a road with devastatingly awful traffic, with inconvenient exit points from the road, and has a disastrous parking lot. Clearly they scout their locations ahead of time for exactly these qualities. I just realized that the only time I went to a Trader Joe's (the closest one to my isolated hellhole of a town is Spokane, 90 minutes away), it too had a nasty parking lot. I bet they're trying to nudge people into walking or biking. |
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Post by pairesta on Oct 27, 2016 12:34:10 GMT -5
Trader Joe's sucks.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Oct 27, 2016 13:11:53 GMT -5
I admit that the one time I went in, I, as someone who buys almost no prepared food, really didn't see the point. |
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GumTurkeyles
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Post by GumTurkeyles on Oct 27, 2016 13:24:03 GMT -5
I admit that the one time I went in, I, as someone who buys almost no prepared food, really didn't see the point. Burrata for $4.99 for two (smaller) balls (heh), rather than $9.99 at whole foods for one giant one. This way you don't have to eat the whole thing in one sitting, and it's cheaper. Also cheese curds. And cheap flowers. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Oct 27, 2016 13:47:48 GMT -5
I admit that the one time I went in, I, as someone who buys almost no prepared food, really didn't see the point. That's actually always been my thought about it (hence, why I haven't been in the one that opened near here yet), but GumTurkeyles is making a convincing point, too. |
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Baron von Costume
TI Forumite
Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
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Post by Baron von Costume on Oct 27, 2016 14:03:20 GMT -5
I care not at all for shopping but for two odd exceptions: groceries and houses. I don't clip coupons or visit multiple stores to get slightly better deals on identical items, but I love prowling the supermarket aisles to pick out deals. I suppose this comes from shopping for myself for seven years before Wifemate moved in, and truthfully I still prefer to buy groceries without her so that no one can question my brand choices or whatever. Then I want the pantry and cabinets to be stocked just so. My college apartment was essentially right next to a Winn-Dixie, and I loved being able to walk back from the store carrying everything by myself with no cart. In more recent years I have been known to bike home from the store balancing a ham and a bag of potatoes on opposite handlebars, making it extremely difficult to steer and therefore more rewarding. This is the real reason why you need leg surgery isn't it? For me it varies really spectacularly. I tend to oscillate pretty dramatically between high effort meals and lazy eat things out of the freezer meals. In summer I would estimate my costs vary between $30-60 per week based on meat/things amortized over longer time (say large pasta or frozen chicken from my "fuck i need dinner" freezer pile) and how often I'm eating out. In winter of course hereabouts our fresh fruit/veggie costs skyrocket (part of the reason I'm really trying to do more canning) so I'd probably add at least 20-30% depending on how fancy I'm being in a given week. (Case in point: tonight I am going to eat a frozen pizza, while tomorrow night will be a nice sous-vide hunk o' beef with a fancy ass reduction) |
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Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Oct 27, 2016 15:40:47 GMT -5
TJ's has excellent cheese. They have quality frozen fish. They have a great variety of frozen veggies, some of which I've never seen anywhere else. They also have great snacks, excellent chocolate, so much more. Best bagels outside of NYC. I mean, don't you people eat crackers or bagels or anything you didn't freeze yourself?  |
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Baron von Costume
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Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
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Post by Baron von Costume on Oct 27, 2016 15:58:06 GMT -5
TJ's has excellent cheese. They have quality frozen fish. They have a great variety of frozen veggies, some of which I've never seen anywhere else. They also have great snacks, excellent chocolate, so much more. Best bagels outside of NYC. I mean, don't you people eat crackers or bagels or anything you didn't freeze yourself? I personally love TJs for a lot of those reasons (Montreal Bagels 4 lyfe tho.) Unfortunately the closest one is 7 hours away across an international border. The rare occasions I've been near one and had a kitchen I've found some neat things to play with. |
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Post by songstarliner on Oct 27, 2016 15:58:55 GMT -5
I know it's petty, but Trader Joe's packaging and advertising copy makes me fly into a rage. I don't need my groceries to be cute or whimsical - in fact, I insist that they are not. Also, the one time I went there the gallon of milk I bought soured well before the sell-by date. Fail! Fie upon thee, Trader Joe's!
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Post by Powerthirteen on Oct 27, 2016 16:43:03 GMT -5
TJ's has excellent cheese. They have quality frozen fish. They have a great variety of frozen veggies, some of which I've never seen anywhere else. They also have great snacks, excellent chocolate, so much more. Best bagels outside of NYC. I mean, don't you people eat crackers or bagels or anything you didn't freeze yourself? Yeah, but I'm cheap as heck about them  For real, when it comes to frozen vegetables (as long as it's not something unique) I'm only really going to use them in places where gradations of quality won't be readily apparent, like in soups and casseroles, so I don't need to buy anything better than store brand. Sandwich bread I buy Winco's baked-in-house loaves for $1.78 each and they're pretty good. I'm spoiled though. I don't need TJ because in town we have an absolutely fantastic food co-op where I can get nice cheese, quality bread, and non-bargain meats if and when I want them. But they're occasional indulgences, not something I'd ever buy as a matter of routine. |
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Post by Liz n Dicksgiving on Oct 27, 2016 19:15:24 GMT -5
Yeah, but I'm cheap as heck about them For real, when it comes to frozen vegetables (as long as it's not something unique) I'm only really going to use them in places where gradations of quality won't be readily apparent, like in soups and casseroles, so I don't need to buy anything better than store brand. Sandwich bread I buy Winco's baked-in-house loaves for $1.78 each and they're pretty good. I'm spoiled though. I don't need TJ because in town we have an absolutely fantastic food co-op where I can get nice cheese, quality bread, and non-bargain meats if and when I want them. But they're occasional indulgences, not something I'd ever buy as a matter of routine. Yeah, the farm market where I get my meat has a fantastic bakery and a really great cheese guy. Also, they do in-house prepared stuff and carry some "gourmet" packaged snack goods. So they're kind of a non-chain answer to TJ, when I think about it. But to answer Pedantic Editor Type's original question about bagels and crackers, TJ can't top the NY-style bagel place in town, and yeah, now that I've learned how to do it... I make my own crackers. Trader Joe's is basically redundant for me, and a pain in the ass to get to!  (That said, enough people whose food tastes are similar to mine swear by many a TJ product, so I don't mean to pooh-pooh it.) |
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Post by Albert Fish Taco on Oct 30, 2016 21:54:55 GMT -5
The TJs by me is such a pain in the ass to shop at that what always happens is I'll only go two or three times a year thinking "Hey it's a random Wednesday afternoon, surely it won't be an exasperating experience now?" But it's still crowded. And honestly there's only a few random things I get there. Their (and Whole Paycheck's) mere presence in the Albany market has forced our regular supermarkets to up their cheese/ethnic foods game. As others have pointed out, this TJ is also located on a super busy suburban retail don't even think about trying to make a left out of here street, in a small plaza with not enough parking at times that it shares with a very unlucky mattress store (whose staff must really hate the TJ for scaring off business). I don't think their location is part of a social engineering plot to encourage walking/biking either since they pointedly declined to locate in downtown Albany. That said their JoJo cookies are great, and I like their house beers to be honest.
There's a ginormous food Co-op (Honest Weight) that has really good prepared foods, but despite their management's best efforts to make it more welcoming than in their old hole in the wall warehouse location their hardcore client base is still heavily the type that you can feel radiating silent judgement of you for not knowing the proper procedure to use at the bulk food cabinets. Makes it an unpleasant shopping experience.
Outside of the regular supermarkets I do really like this specialty deli/butchershop (Chester's Smokehouse) that has really good meats, cheeses, eastern european foods and so forth (though they are a bit pricy).
Also, Aldis is great for big stock up trips every two-three months. I'll go there to get frozen shrimp and some really good trail mixes, and other odds and ends. But I've found any of their cheese based products nasty.
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For real, when it comes to frozen vegetables (as long as it's not something unique) I'm only really going to use them in places where gradations of quality won't be readily apparent, like in soups and casseroles, so I don't need to buy anything better than store brand. Sandwich bread I buy Winco's baked-in-house loaves for $1.78 each and they're pretty good.
(That said, enough people whose food tastes are similar to mine swear by many a TJ product, so I don't mean to pooh-pooh it.)