Grocery Store Blech
Woman in the Middle | March 19, 2017I just don’t want to go to the grocery store any more. I forced myself to go this morning as I needed to pick up some basics like milk and bread, as well as what was needed to make Youngest Daughter’s birthday cake. (She celebrated with friends yesterday and the family fun with cake is today) As I blasted through my local store, trying to get the agony over as fast as possible, I contemplated why I so dislike grocery shopping these days.
Back when I first married, it was still a fairly new experience. The store was chock full of who knows what surprises. Also, I was working full time and ANY shopping was a delightful changes from the 8-5 grind. Once I had the girls, going to the grocery store by myself was the only alone time I had. Going with the little ones was a happy distraction for them and for me.
Nowadays, when what work I do is primarily from home. going to the grocery store is just a chore that keeps me from doing what I want to do or what I need to do. Of course, I have also done it thousands of times by now, so it doesn’t have the feel of a new or unique experience. It doesn’t help that my local grocery store has cut way back on the number of products they carry and has replaced its store brand in many instances with a significantly inferior product. Having groceries delivered looks better and better to me.
How do you feel about grocery shopping? Don’t mind it or is it an unwelcome chore?
I love going grocery shopping, I enjoy wandering around the aisles and seeing what there is I do the bulk of my shopping online though but still make a trip to one grocery store on Friday morning which gives me my shopping fix,what I really do not like doing is clothes shopping for myself as so often so many things do not fit right
I hate waiting in line, so I try to go in the morning, and never on the weekend. I’ve been shopping more at Ralphs because they are very good about opening another register if there are more than 3 people in line.
Other stores are just too far for me. You are much closer to Ralph’s than I am.
I love to grocery shop because I love all of the deals I can get.
I too feel the same way. I think it has to do with getting older. Our priorities change. Maybe our little ones are older and maybe not living at home anymore or they’re teenagers and can cook for themselves. Whatever the reason, tack on the knowledge that our local supermarket has discarded things we have normally purchased there, important things, so now going there will make us upset.
I know it still upsets me that Staters stopped selling their paper products. I gave that horrible brand they replaced their store brand with all a try: bathroom paper rolls, boxes of tissue, napkins, and roll paper towels. They all suck. I felt it was a huge pain in the ass to go to different stores and bring home different kinds of paper products, all in an attempt to find a decent replacement for each store branded paper product I’m not buying from Stater’s anymore. Of course, this is not by choice but because they replaced it with some God-awful brand that rips and tears so easily and is rough.
I was just there yesterday, at the closest Stater’s to me and strolled down the toilet paper aisle. I was in that aisle to buy their store brand wet wipes. At least they still sell those. I remember there would be times that they would sell out of the store brand toilet paper. Now it looks like they always have enough paper. It looks like no one is buying that cheap paper as a replacement. What’s is called? It doesn’t matter. I hope they’ll see how little of it they’re selling coupled with, most likely, consumers’ complaints about the replacement paper products and that’ll make them bring the store-brand, paper products back.
You asked for reviews of online shopping. I have used two services: Google Express and Amazon’s Prime Pantry.
Now, my husband has his own Amazon Prime account and there’s no reason to have two accounts in one household. He’s had his for years. If you have a close friend that can let you use their membership info just to try out the Prime Pantry, you can have your food delivered for the low price of $5.99 for one very large box. I have let my two adult daughters use my husband’s Amazon membership (they aren’t my husband’s children). One lives in near Dallas, TX and the other one in Seattle. Amazon delivers to them for free and they have watched Prime TV with it as well. So far, there’s been no problems.
I’ve used Prime Pantry once and am about to use it again. I can say, I got a lot of groceries and didn’t even get the box filled up. If you want me to measure the box that came, let me know and I’ll send you the dimensions. As you’re clicking and putting items in your cart, it will keep a running tab on how far along the box is full, like it’ll say it is 65% full. If you do have an Amazon Prime membership, there’s times you’ll buy something and at checkout, it will ask if you want to get it at the slower delivery speed and it’ll say they’ll give you a coupon for $5.00 off on any delivery from the Prime Pantry. You just have to buy a certain amount of things. I think it’s $15.00 worth of things. So I got all those groceries for only a 99cent delivery charge by using that $5.00 off coupon. The Prime membership is about $100 a year now but they have gone the route of Netflix and are charging it as a monthly fee, around $7.99/mo., which is great for everyone that previously couldn’t afford $100 as a one-time payment. If you’re a college student or one of your kids is in college, the membership is half-price and it will stay at the $49 price for up to four years. You only need to show some proof that you’re a college student. Right now, you can try out Amazon Prime free for 30 days.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/pantry/info/ref=pntry_wayfind_about
Now for Google Express. I tried it because someone gave me a coupon to try it. I got $15 off my first purchase. You have to buy more than $15 worth of things. The cool thing about Google Express is if you get a membership with them, it’s like Amazon in that you can buy from a wide array of stores. Groceries is just one of their services. Their membership is $95 a year I believe but they don’t offer it as a monthly payment right now. You do get to try it out for free for three months, which I did. I got my husband to use the coupon as well and we got two deliveries for free. They usually charge a small fee for the delivery if you aren’t a member. I think it’s $5.00 just like Prime Pantry but you have to buy over $15 of things. With the free delivery service as Google Express members and the two $15.00 off coupons ($30 worth of free stuff), I was able to get a bunch of stuff delivered to my house for less than $5 for both deliveries. I really liked the service because you can shop at stores you normally wouldn’t be able to shop at, plus you can fill your box with things from several different stores, not just from one store…think Cosco, Target, Whole Foods, and Smart & Final. I didn’t want to cancel the service but at the time I couldn’t afford the $95 hit. This was around Christmas time, in December of last year. I got an email from Google Express recently saying offering me a coupon for someone to try it. I think it’s only $10 off though but it’s still a good deal for trying out the service before deciding to join. Let me know if you want the coupon and I can forward the number to you.
https://www.google.com/express/
My teenagers were raving about the delivery services, really liking the idea of not having to waste time driving to a store and walking up and down the aisles looking for things that might be out of stock. Not to say things don’t go out of stock through online stores but at least you didn’t waste the time going to the store to find it gone. The cool thing is finding these amazing products that you might only find at places like Trader Joe’s, lots of organic and gluten-free stuff. You will still have to buy your perishables at the local stores but even that can get easier. They just built a Dollar General about a mile away from us and I can pop in there and get all kinds of dairy products without having to drive into town, which is more than ten miles away for me.
I have to add the following only because I went back to check:
You have to be a member of Cosco to buy from them ($55 for a regular membership, $95 for the Gold).
There is a $4.99 delivery per store (free if you’re a Google Express member but you’d still have to get at least $15 worth of things to get it delivered), that is for shopping at one store like for example at Whole Foods. I mean you could shop at more than one store but then for each store, you’d have to buy a minimum of $15.00 worth of things to get the delivery.
They do break down the membership now for a monthly charge of $10.00 and you would save yourself $25.00 if you charge it at the $95.00 annual charge.