. So it's been a while since I last compared grocery prices. A tedious process, to be sure, and prices certainly change from one season to the next. I knew in a general sense that I was paying more at Stop & Shop for most of 2020, but the ease and convenience of getting groceries delivered to your trunk, with the added security of knowing I wasn't exposing myself to the virus, was just great. (And I'm still doing it.)
I save all my receipts, so I spent just a bit of time comparing Stop & Shop prices to BJs. Pre-COVID, I would also shop Trader Joe's, Shop Rite, Aldi's, Whole Foods and Caraluzzi's and even Big Y (I'm an equal opportunity shopper), but my grocery world shrunk to just the 2 grocery stores last year. I like the wide aisles at BJs and I always go between 8 and 9 am, but trunk deliveries are even better.
Of the dozen or so food items I regularly purchase and for which I have data on from both stores, EVERY SINGLE ITEM was cheaper at BJs than Stop & Shop. In most cases, not by a ton, and so you'd have to shop there consistently to really see a difference. There is also the $3 delivery fee for each Stop & Shop curbside pickup trip you make, plus I started tipping the young girls who brought my groceries out to me. I figure they deserve it given what they make.
I was able to schedule my 1st vaccine on Feb. 28, and it's scheduled for March 21. Yay for me!
It's the Moderna shot, the one my father got. But I have to go to a different location that I suspect may not be as hassle-free. It's an outdoor drive-through clinic in the parking lot of the mall. They only started there yesterday, so they'll have 3 weeks to iron out the kinks, hopefully.
I'll give myself one week for the first vaccine to kick in and do its thing, and then I plan to say bye-bye to Stop & Shop and hello to Aldi's, Trader Joes and BJs.
I spend serious amounts of cash on food. Last year, if you're curious, I spent $4,754 on groceries. And that was a decrease from the year prior. It was my #3 expense.
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Crazylibrarylady, yes, it's a meatless chili.
Wink, yeah, mostly I do buy organic, although not everything. There are certain produce items said to not be heavily sprayed, and those I don't go out of my way to buy organic.
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LuckyRobin, maybe with a family there might be a $40 difference between buying organic or not, but not for a single person. I'd estimate the added cost of organic for a single person, in a single shop of $90 might be $15 or $20 max.
But I do what you do: focus on the dirty dozen (and the clean 15) to determine what I buy organic or not. Things like onions, garlic, peas, broccoli are not really necessary to buy organic, and then I realized just the other day that I was spending $1.75 a pound for those big bags of frozen broccoli at BJs as kind of a knee-jerk thing.