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In My Local Grocery Store

0fashionqueen — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:12:03 -0700

Hello Members,
How is everybody doing? I hope that everybody is having a great day.
I paid a visit to my local grocery store where I brought some fuits and juice. As I was checking out I noticed that green bags for groceries were hanging in the check out area and I have always seen people carrying them around. However I just did not know where to find them and because I just happen to see them I decided to buy one.

Frugal Tip Monday-Online Grocery Store

FashionWithoutGuilt — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:40:44 -0700

Alice.com is your Online Grocery Store. You are able to select your household items and have them delivered to your front door. Setting up your account is very simple. Alice.com will ask you some questions about your household and create a shopping list that is suitable for you. Some great features that I have discovered are that since this Alice.com is still in beta mode, you are able to suggest items that are not seen on the site. You can create your profile and connect with other Alice users, give reviews on items your have purchased, and automatically ship items. This is extremely innovative and outright genius.

From Alice.com's blog, they list 7 reasons to use their site.

1. Get free shipping

Alice offers free shipping with every order.
2. Manage and automate your life
Alice is a service, similar to Netflix, that makes it very easy for you to manage and automate this entire category of goods so you never run out.

3. Use budgeting and advanced planning tools
Alice let’s you plan your purchases in this category, helping you budget and focus your spending, and avoid impulse purchases at the store.

4. Take advantage of competitive prices
You won’t overpay for the tremendous convenience of Alice. In addition to always free shipping, Alice’s prices are competitive with the traditional mass retailers.
5. Get coupons applied automatically
Alice has a completely new couponing system. We automatically find and apply coupons for you on thousands of products, making it easy to save even more without any extra effort.

6. Save time and eliminate store trips
Alice saves you time by eliminating store trips so you can do things that do matter.

7. Find all your favorite brands
Although just getting started, Alice’s product assortment is very broad, and we plan to continue to both major brands and the specialty brands you can’t always find on the store shelf.

Does anyone else think that this is a GENIUS IDEA OR WHAT?

Go Shopping With Alicia Silverstone

FitSugar — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 10:00:23 -0800

On yesterday's Oprah Show, actress Alicia Silverstone took cameras grocery shopping with her. I have to say that I was surprised at how many processed foods Alicia picked out. Although I know a lot of vegans who rely on synthetic meat and processed foods as the backbone of their diet, I expected Alicia to be different.

In her book, The Kind Diet, the actress really touts the benefits of grains, vegetables, and fruits over convenience food. Because of that, I'm thinking this list might not be reflective of Alicia's normal dietary habits, but her way of showing a mass audience that you can still eat well and indulge if you're vegan.

While shopping, Alicia raved about brown rice ("If you add whole grain rice to your diet, it will change you") and leafy greens ("They're loaded with calcium and make your skin glow"). She also couldn't wait to bite into a mint-flavored ice cream alternative, a Rice Dream mud pie. Alicia said that the mud pies still make her feel "naughty" in the same way that ice cream can.

To check out some of the other items on her list, read more.

Follow Your Heart cheese
Vegenaise
Organic olive oil
Maple syrup (an alternative to sugar)
Gardein Chick'n Scallopini
Newman O's

Check out the rest of Alicia's list at The Oprah Show.

Groceries busting your budget? Be a savvy shopper

c0rkie — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 04:02:34 -0700

If you're like me and tend to fill up your grocery cart until it's overflowing, this post might help.

Since I don't have a family yet and tend to just shop for myself, I've realized I don't need a grocery cart. I always ended up buying more than I really need to cause of all the "ooh! buy one get one free" deals. By the time I'd pay for everything and exit the market, I couldn't carry everything home by myself. So my grocery shopping motto since my college days has been: "If I can't carry it, I can't buy it." So I switched and use the basket instead of the cart. It has actually cut down my grocery cost by 50-60%! Oh yeh... don't EVER shop on an empty stomach either. You'll just end up buying everything at the market lol!

So while checking my email, I came upon the following article (pasted below). Good to get some more tips on how to save money while shopping for groceries - although the article seems to be more geared towards family oriented grocery shopping.

Groceries busting your budget? Be a savvy shopper
Robyn Moreno of “Woman’s Day” magazine offers money-saving ideas

If you struggle to stay within your shopping budget, then listen up. Robyn Moreno of “Woman’s Day” magazine offers a few of her favorite tips to save money at the supermarket.

Rethink the list: Plan meals first, make your list second. Consumers with shopping lists spend over 41% more than those who don't use one. When planning meals, make sure the week’s circular is in front of you. To avoid those emergency runs, make a master list of the ten meals your family eats most often and keep those ingredients on hand.

Stalk the markdowns: Markdowns can ring up as much as 50% off the original price, so it’s possible to save $5 to $20 a week on meat alone using this strategy. Ask the store manager when meat, dairy, bread and produce are marked down. Stores often slash prices as items near expiration dates or to make way for incoming stock. Be sure to check labels. Some companies are now labeling products “organic” or “low-fat” even if they’ve always been so. Also, many of the “low-fat” items you pay a premium for may have just as many calories as competing brands without the claim.

Buy frozen produce: Buy spinach, peas and corn frozen rather than fresh to cut cost but not nutritional value. If you can only afford to buy some organic food, make it produce. Organically grown fruits and veggies do not contain anywhere close to the level of pesticides that conventionally grown produce does. Bananas, canned or frozen corn, broccoli, and canned or frozen peas have the fewest residues. Be sure to buy your fair share of apples, pears, bell peppers, imported grapes, peaches, potatoes and strawberries.

Buy vs. use: The biggest mistake at the meat counter is buying too much. You can save money and get more flavor when you use ground chuck instead of ground round in burgers. Due to its high fat content, ground chuck makes a juicer burger. Purchase the large “family pack” and repackage it into smaller amounts for the freezer. Ground round doesn’t yield as much fat when it’s cooked, so there is less shrinkage, making it ideal for meat loaf, stuffed peppers and meatballs. Center-cut bone-in pork loin chops will give you the best flavor for your money. They cost about $2 to $3 dollars less than boneless chops and you’ll often find them on sale. They’re flavorful and juicy. Try to get them thick - an inch and a half is best. Boneless turkey cutlets can be used in many recipes that call for chicken or veal. To ensure the turkey cutlets emerge from the pan crisp and golden brown, lightly flour them first, then sauté briefly in a mixture of butter and oil.

Train little shoppers: Grocery shopping with children can add $100 to $400 a month to your bill. Not only do parents with kids in tow spend more time in the store - which can really add up each time you toss more and more items in the cart - but kids are masters of impulse buying. If you can’t go solo, turn the kids into smart shoppers. Give them some choices: They get to pick one lunch-box treat or two snacks. Or have them use real money (their own, or, say, $5 you give them) for anything not on the list.

Shop around: Toiletries, paper goods and other items are cheaper to buy in bulk at a warehouse discount store. Don’t buy different cleaners that do the same job. The main thing is killing germs and getting a room clean, so one all-purpose antibacterial cleaner will do the trick. Some cleaners come in concentrates that you can dilute. A spray bottle and water extends your purchase.

Check it twice: Grocery stores are not always reset with current sale prices. Your chances of being charged the full price on a sale item are high. To get it right, watch the scanner and speak up if you see a discrepancy. Americans lose between $1 billion and $3 billion a year in scanning errors!

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20164458/?GT1=10252

Grocery Shopping | What's your favorite store to shop at?

rlveronica — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:15:18 -0700

I'm just wondering where everyone likes to buy the majority of their groceries. I know it varies from city to state to country. :] As for me, I typically grocery shop at Wal-Mart because 1) it's cheap and 2) it's local and we have an abundant amount of them! But I wanna start grocery shopping at Harris Teeter, The Fresh Market or Trader Joe's because my recipes need certain foods that Wal-Mart just cannot provide.

I know some people go shopping in bulk at Costco or Sam's Club, which I have a membership to as well! Let me know where you go grocery shopping! If you have any suggestions, let me know too!

A couple of links to some US grocers:

Wal-Mart
Target
Food Lion
Farm Fresh
Publix
Trader Joe's
Harris Teeter
The Fresh Market
Kroger
K-Mart
Costco
Sam's Club

A full list of supermarkets!

*This is supposed to be a poll, but it's not working for me.

Saving On Groceries

Beachwalker — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:55:56 -0700

Most grocery stores will slash their meat and deli products
at the end of the day. So it's best to shop at night. You
could cut your meat and cheese bill by 10% and save on the
average of $120 annually.

Same with baked goods. On occasion I get so busy I can only pick up groceries at night and was pleasantly surprised to find that this is true. Then I stock up my fridge freezer with chicken breasts, chops or steaks if they are on sale. There is usually time on the expiry dates. If you use the product from the freezer right away you are safe, and getting a great deal!!!!

Most reusable grocery store bags pay for themselves over time

tdsollog — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:56:58 -0700

Most reusable grocery store bags pay for themselves over time
Published: Sunday, May 18, 2008
From the Press of AC:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/106/story/161343.html

ShopRite supermarkets this week increased their modest reward to customers who bring their own shopping bags - if those bags are reuseable.
ShopRites had been giving customers 2 cents for each bag used, whether they were paper, plastic or cloth, as long as they brought them to the store.

Now, if you merely bring back the paper or plastic bags grocers ordinarily use to pack your order, you still get 2 cents each.

But if you bring bags made from recycled fabric, recycled and woven plastic, or canvas, you get a 5 cents-per-bag credit.

As economists like to say, that's a 300 percent increase.

Still small change, of course, but the bag credit has never been about money, just as using fewer plastic and paper bags is only partly about benefiting the environment.
The best reason to bring your own bags is that you can use much better bags.

It's not hard to outperform handout plastic and paper bags. They rip easily, are less comfortable to carry and don't provide much protection for your ever-more precious groceries.

I like canvas bags. I can load them with cans, sweating cold drinks, even sharp objects, and they never tear or break.

The handles are wide and comfortable, they can be tossed into the wash when they get dirty, and they're useful for many other purposes such as gathering drinks and snacks for a car trip.

Unfortunately, canvas bags are now the hardest to find. I have several from the now-closed SuperFresh in Northfield, and several more from Wegman's - the nearest of which is on the other side of the state.

Acme used to offer a fine canvas bag much like the ones from SuperFresh, and I've got one of those, too. But now they only have the recycled fabric bags - good, but not as big, strong or flexible.

The preferred price point on reusable bags seems to be $1. Every store has reusable bags for that price.

At 5 cents credit per use, using them four times per month, the ShopRite credit would pay for the bags in just five months.

Genuardi's gives a 4-cent-per-bag credit, regardless of what kind of bag you bring. Pathmark gives 2 cents per bag. Acme doesn't give you anything for bringing your own bags, but an Acme manager said it's only a matter of time before it implements such a program.

Canvas bags, if you can find them, run about $3 per bag.

Pathmark has a larger bag from the Elizabeth Haub Foundation, a 40-year-old environmental organization, made from recyclable woven polypropylene. They have colorful images of wildlife on them, and they're also only 99 cents each.

With stores eventually refunding the costs of the bags and then some, it can't get much easier to have better quality bags to use.

Oh, yeah ... it also reduces litter, waste and energy use.

To e-mail Kevin Post at The Press:

KPost@pressofac.com

REUSABLE BAG RATES

ShopRite

Credit: 5 cents for reusable bag, 2 cents for plastic, paper
Bags: Earthwise recycled fabric 99 cents; ShopRite logo 99 cents; larger Earthwise $1.29

Pathmark

Credit: 2 cents per bag
Bags: Large Elizabeth Haub Foundation woven polypropylene 99 cents; Pathmark logo recycled fabric 99 cents

Genuardi's

Credit: 4 cents per bag
Bags: Large Safeway logo recycled fabric 99 cents

Acme

Credit: none
Bags: Acme pink logo recycled fabric $1, portion goes to breast-cancer research

ADC: Grocery Time!

atoxicsparkle — Thu, 03 May 2007 12:33:59 -0700

oOoOoOoOo I love going grocery shopping and dancing through the aisles of fresh produce. Ok, maybe not dancing, but lurving it just the same...I'm a vegey/fruit freak! So I'm definitely all over the Farmer's Market during the spring and fall here....oooolala!

I am one with the tomatoes!
Marc by Marc Jacobs Mairead Dot Sundress

Michael Kors Seagrass Wedge Slide

A nice large tote to hold some of my purchases!
Mulberry Hanover Leather Bag

Bebe Woven Headband

Ralph Lauren RL Sunglasses

Then I'd get home and slap on this apron for some cookin!
Anthropologie Cookout Apron

And I'd totally be using my Pink Kitchenaid to whip up the fabulousness!

ADC: Grocery shopping

CocoChic — Thu, 03 May 2007 11:28:13 -0700

I love going to the grocery store! I love wandering around and smelling all of the foods. This outfit is for an outdoor market, maybe in Europe.

Silk tunic $25 at Forever 21

Minus the belt...
Dressy shorts $18 at Forever 21

Canvas Cutout Wedge $88 at Urban Outfitters

Morgan Oakley Leather Ditch Handbag $325 at shopIntuition

Victorian Bracelet $6 at Forever 21

Moraccan Earrings $24 at Urban Outfitters

Win $1000 in free groceries!

kikipatterson — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:30:21 -0700