I Heart Grocery Stores

I love grocery stores.  In high school I worked in a grocery store, and it was an awesome experience.  Ever since then, wherever I go, I have to check out the grocery store.  I also love to grocery shop—a good thing, because M loathes that task.

When I lived in VA, I had a choice of several different large chain grocery stores.  One thing I loved about VA grocery stores was double coupons.  In VA (and most of the south, I think?) stores double coupons all the time.  The particular store where I worked and shopped doubled up to $0.50, and then anything between $0.51-$0.99 was brought up to $1.  Anything over a dollar was taken at face value.

Here in IL, nobody doubles coupons.  However, along with a few large chain grocery stores, I also have my pick of many smaller regional chains and single-location stores.  This means that prices on some things—particularly produce—are extremely cheap.  At the big chains, both in IL and VA, a typical price for red peppers is about $3.99/lb.  However, the smaller chains and stores regularly have the same peppers for less than $1/lb.  I can also get a bulb of garlic for $0.10, and I never pay more than $0.10 for a lemon or lime.

Other things that are cheaper here: milk.  When I left VA, milk was hovering at about $5/gal.  In IL, it runs about $3 and is regularly on sale for $1.99.  Pasta sauce is also on excellent sale most of the time.  More expensive?  Cereal.  Holy cow is cereal expensive here.  At both big chains and small, cereal starts at $4/box, for the small box, and it’s not unusual to find large-sized name brands for $6.99.  The only exception is Target, which has cereal for the same price as VA (about $3/box).  Needless to say, I buy my cereal at Target.

I generally shop sales and use coupons.  My main grocery store is a small local chain—it has about five locations in the Chicago suburbs, and specialises in produce.  They also have an awesome deli and bakery.  I buy my produce and deli items there for sure, as well as some microwaveable Indian food for my lunches at work.  Sometimes they have good prices on packaged goods (your middle-of-the-store, in-the-aisles stuff), but typically I buy my packaged goods (pasta sauce, pasta, condiments, etc) at a discount grocery store that has many midwestern locations.  I also usually buy my meat there if it’s on sale.  Rounding out the grocery trip: Target or the one large chain that is usually absurdly expensive, but has a great loyalty program offering you deep discounts on the things you purchase regularly.

Not all grocery shopping trips involve all those stores.  I do take opportunity/time cost into consideration.  Leaving from work, I can hit all those stores in a nice arc without doubling back, so if I need to hit all, I do.  However, generally if the price of an item is less than $1 difference, I won’t make a special trip somewhere else to get it.

Household toiletries (papertowels, toilet paper, hand soap, toothpaste, etc) are M’s domain because she is very particular about them.  I am not wedded to any certain brand and would just buy whatever was on sale/I had a coupon for, but M is very brand loyal.  Therefore, she buys.  And I try not to tease her too much.  (But I can’t help myself—yes, our toilet paper comes in rolls the size of wine barrels and has to be suspended from the reinforced ceiling with industrial steel chain; it is also thick enough to double as a therapeutic pillowtop mattress pad if necessary, and when wet, it is strong enough to substitute as a whale sling for marine air transport.  Sorry, honey.)