Driving Farther for Cheaper Grocery Store

[Amethyst]

We shop, as I said, every 2 weeks, with an occasional foray for something that has run out unexpectedly. A freezer and careful menu planning are essential.

I buy two hands of bananas at a time: one the greenest I can find, one that is yellow-green. This results in edible bananas for about 10 days, and about 3 overripe bananas for banana bread. There aren't any bananas in the house for the final 2 days or so before the next trip, but there is always other fruit to fill the gap. A half-dozen mangoes, removed from the fridge one at a time to ripen fully on the countertop, last up to three weeks.

Salad greens last about 10 days in the fridge. Google "salad greens stay fresh" for tips.

Deli meat is generally long eaten before it has a chance to get a little "ripe."

Milk is one of tho few things that doesn't last 2 weeks, and requires between-trips restocking at the local grocery.

I'll drive further for quality, but won't drive much extra for better prices. But I don't have a single store that I like for everything. I generally go every 4 or 5 days, so I'll hit one that has the much better deli and meat section one time, and the next time I'll go to where I like some of the produce better. Maybe it'd be worth it to make the longer trip every other time to stock up a little more on things that will last a bit longer? I find, for example, I can stock up some on apples, but bananas don't tend to last very long (and are a main reason I go somewhere every 4-5 days generally). I'm over 1/2 hour from any decent grocery store so I usually try to combine it with some other errand or activity.

 

[ABQ2015]

Organic milk will last longer but it is more expensive and has a slightly sweeter taste. But I don't like going to the grocery store just for a few items so it is worth it to me. I buy the 1/2 gallon milk at Costco that comes in a three pack. Someone on ER was using a sealed Foodsaver bag to store extra produce and said it worked well.

 

[ivinsfan]

Organic milk will last longer but it is more expensive and has a slightly sweeter taste. But I don't like going to the grocery store just for a few items so it is worth it to me. I buy the 1/2 gallon milk at Costco that comes in a three pack. Someone on ER was using a sealed Foodsaver bag to store extra produce and said it worked well.

It's the UHT treatment that makes the milk sweeter and last longer, not the fact it is organic. The UHT also destroys some of the vitamins in milk.

 

[RunningBum]

Banana rules always work against me. If I'm know for sure I'm going to be back near a grocery store in 3 days, and would be fine with yellow bananas, they are all green. If it's going to be a week before I get a chance for whatever reason, they are already getting brown spots.

 

[kcowan]

We can walk 5 minutes to 4 grocery stores, Doctor, liquor specialty store. Once in a while, we drive to Costco. We turn high mileage used cars into low mileage resale S.

 

[Rambler]

The closest grocery around here is about 9 miles. The next closest is about 12 miles. Both are the same Brand. We've recently discovered that if we go about 20 miles, we can shop at a Winco, and save a bunch of money. Many of the items we buy, we can save .50 to $1.50 per item. For example, we buy milk in the half gallon size because of the layout of our fridge...3 bottles are placed in a refer in a storage room off the garage, and 1 bottle at a time is brought into the refer in the kitchen. Locally, we can buy milk for $2.59 per half gallon of 1%. 20 miles away, its $1.67. A can of kidney beans, same brand, same size, $1.59 locally, $0.67 20 miles away. Multiply that by 50-60 items in a weekly shopping trip and you've saved roughly $50 a week after paying a couple bucks extra for gas. $2500 a year. DW and I have vowed to go there once a week instead of our usual twice a week local shopping trips...just have to plan a tiny bit better so we aren't forgetting something. We lived in Japan for a long time, where you shop for food daily, so this is a big change for us.

 

[audreyh1]

14 miles to the closest store for us, so once we're in the car it doesn't matter so. We're picky about ingredients, so we'll go to the store that carries what we want. HEB has really good quality produce and seafood and great prices - we're lucky the closer one has the best seafood counter. But Costco also has great produce and seafood with great deals - although a much more limited selection on produce. So we shop at both. Costco is 10-15 mins farther, but we make it about once a week.

Costco has large produce portions, but they are packaged and handled well. I find I can use it in two separate batches over a week and it will be good. Seafood - we often vacuum pack and freeze half or all in two separate packages if we don't plan to use in within a day or two. Of course I carefully watch expiration dates on produce, and only buy seafood that was packed very recently. I've learned to go on Thurs or Friday because that's usually when the seafood is packaged that day or one day prior.

 

[Scuba]

We live about 1/4 mile from a large grocery store and stop in there a few times a week for fresh produce.

Trader Joe's is about 4 miles away but is close to restaurants and other places we go, so we go there every week or two. There are certain items we like that only TJ's has.

Costco is about 5 miles away. We rarely go there, maybe once every 6-8 weeks, but when we do, we stock up on frozen and fresh proteins.

 

[gerntz]

- Have a produce/meats/specialty/carry out meals market 1/2 mile away. So go there if only need those only those. great convenience.
- Have a local chain market a mile away, and shop there for convenience & small orders.
- Two Krogers three miles away for big shopping.
- Costco about eight miles away. Distance & large sizes limits how much we use.
- Two Wal-Marts 5-6 miles away but rarely use.

 

[imoldernu]

Aldi... 2 minutes
HyVee (think Whole Foods) 4 minutes
Walmart 6 minutes

Shop mostly at Aldi... 30% less than HyVee, 20% less than Walmart. I figure we save about $1300/yr. for the two of us.

BTW... Our Aldi has been stocking Organic for almost a year... now almost every vegetable is duplicated in organic... about 25-30% more. More and more organic packaged products every week.

Most stores are planned for space expansion, and 900 new stores planned in next five years to total 2500.

Check the website for current prices. Bananas now $.29/lb and red grapes $.85

Have never in 12 years spent more than three minutes waiting in checkout. Excellent management and dedicated employees... I only wish the Aldi brothers would take it Public...

Ever wonder how many Walmart (et al) Stores?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/269425/total-number-of-walmart-stores-in-the-united-states-by-type/

...and some recent interesting comparisons w/ whole food/amazon, aldi, walmart and some other majors..

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/deals-shopping/fl-bz-doreen-christensen-whole-foods-price-comparison-walmart-20170901-story.html
excerpt:

I visited Wal-Mart, which is Amazon’s only true competitor, Trader Joe's, Publix, Aldi and The Fresh Market. On my list: Store brand organic bananas, apples, eggs, butter, milk, chicken and salmon. I added wine as a bonus, because, well, you know how I love a good, cheap bottle.

I must confess, I knew which store was is going to win my cheap challenge before I left the house. But, perhaps you’ll find the winner surprising.

My first stop was Whole Foods in Fort Lauderdale, where those eight items came to $32.12.

Now, if you guessed Wal-Mart as the winner, you’d be wrong. It was Aldi. The discount grocer’s total was $24.77, a whopping 23 percent less than Whole Foods. Trader Joe’s came in second at $28.13, closely followed by Wal-Mart at $28.29. Publix ranked fifth at $40.38 and The Fresh Market was last at $44.59. That means 85 Percent Paycheck came in fourth.

 

[Katsmeow]

I thought I would follow up with what I ended up doing. We've made a couple of trips to the new Kroger.

The first trip was a major shopping trip and we bought a lot of our regular staple foods. For many foods, Kroger was the same or was within a cent or two as HEB. Some of these were foods that were on sale, so maybe the mix would be different at another time. Some foods you get a discount with a Kroger card which we have. There were a number of foods that had truly astonishingly low prices if you bought 5 (usually a mix and match of different types. For example, organic canned black beans were 5 for $5. I had paid $1.68 at HEB. There were some foods where Kroger was higher although usually not by huge amounts although there were excepts (a cereal that was 22% higher).

Averaging out the food (for one of each items, not adjusting for quantity), Kroger was 1% higher than HEB. But, wait! With your Kroger card you earn points that can be used to reduce the price of gasoline. We filled out my Explorer today and got $.65 a gallon off. This saved about $10 on gas. If we fill up our cars each month at Kroger the savings on gas would definitely more than offset the extra 1% on cost of groceries. By shopping there more often we should have enough Fuel Points to buy most, or all, of our gas there at a discount.

There was one area where the Kroger prices were a lot higher. That was for household supplies and goods. Paper towels were 14% more expensive. Dishwasher soap was 25% more expensive. It averaged out to about 15% over several items.

Which led to our ultimate decision. Kroger is closer to us than HEB. It makes sense to go there when we are making a specific grocery run, leaving the house specifically to go to the grocery store. It is also reasonably on the way home from a couple of restaurants we eat at. In those cases it makes sense to go there.

However, the location of this Kroger is such that we almost never would go near it unless we were specifically heading there. We just don't often go that direction.

On the other hand, we pass by an HEB probably several times a week. There at least 3 of them that we pass by fairly often. Now, it is often not convenient to stop there so we often do make special trips there. Those will be replaced by Kroger. But, from time to time, when we are going by HEB anyway, we will stop in an buy paper products and supplies and the couple of foods that we often eat that Kroger does not carry. These are all mostly things we can stock up on once a month or so.

 

[bclover]

So generally I try to check the circulars before heading out. Philadelphia started this new beverage tax so basically I rarely do my major food shopping near my house.
I simply refuse to pay 1.5c tax per ounce on a beverage just to pump up the city coffers.

So a 64 oz bottle of coke that would cost 1.19 normally now has a 1.90 cent tax on it, lol the tax is more than the cost of the soda.

luckily I work in Delaware and go to NJ at least once a week.

In walking distance to me is a Whole foods and a Target. I love whole foods for things but it's really too expensive for me to do serious grocery shopping.

 

[ivinsfan]

So generally I try to check the circulars before heading out. Philadelphia started this new beverage tax so basically I rarely do my major food shopping near my house.
I simply refuse to pay 1.5c tax per ounce on a beverage just to pump up the city coffers.

So a 64 oz bottle of coke that would cost 1.19 normally now has a 1.90 cent tax on it, lol the tax is more than the cost of the soda.

luckily I work in Delaware and go to NJ at least once a week.

In walking distance to me is a Whole foods and a Target. I love whole foods for things but it's really too expensive for me to do serious grocery shopping.

Beverage tax..wow...is this only beverages that are "bad" for you or does it include stuff like milk and water.

 

[bclover]

Beverage tax..wow...is this only beverages that are "bad" for you or does it include stuff like milk and water.

any thing with "sugar added". so gatorade, ice tea, lemonade all are included.

milk prices in Pa are regulated so it's hard to tax them.

it's insane, the money was initially supposed to fund pre-k for poor kids who could not afford it but later it was revealed that it was also being used for other things.

can you tell I'm not a fan.

 

[Katsmeow]

i drink soft drinks (sugar free only) and that is the one thing I check sales on. The regular price for a 12 pack is too high so I check the weekly ad online among the main stores and stop by and buy wherever has the best sale. Occasionally there will be a week where no one has them on sale but that is rare.

 

[Meadbh]

I no longer drink soft drinks/pop/soda, whatever you call it. Instead, I like sparkling water.