Yesterday when I went to the grocery store, one of the stressful things was the fill-level of the cart: it was getting so high, and each new item had to justify its space. By the time I finished, the cart was absolutely at capacity, and the rack underneath was also nearly full. This makes sense: the reason I go twice a week in Normal Times (plus I used to pick up some groceries during my once-a-week Target trips) is that once a week isn’t enough. But it made me very glad I had ordered a number of non-perishables online: it really made a difference to be able to skip things like soup, salsa, rice, peanut butter, and pasta sauce. Also: the store was still very low on all those things, so it was nice not to have to take from the store’s reduced supplies.
Here is my current goal: with a household of seven people, order enough online to make it possible to go to the grocery store only once a week. I went nine days between grocery store visits last time, and we were getting pretty desperate, and I couldn’t fit everything on the list into the cart. Grocery shopping is stressful enough without adding the stress of What Should I Skip.
Also, I want space for the Emotional Health items. I wanted Snyder’s Cheddar Pretzel Pieces and Entenmann’s Brownie Chocolate Chip Cakes, but can I justify those when space is so tight? Paul doesn’t ask for much, food-wise, but he gets significant comfort value out of diet Mountain Dew and Stacy’s pita chips; can I get those, or do I need to leave room for the more important foods? The kids seem to feel a lot better if I get the granola bars they like, and some snack cakes; if I can get some things online instead of putting them in the cart where I need the space, that makes my life easier and their lives a little cheerier.
I am shopping a lot more from Target instead of Amazon, as you may have noticed from the links. First of all, I am mad at Amazon right now, with their whole…*waves hands incoherently*…not-paying-taxes, owned-by-multi-billionaire-but-trying-to-crowdfund-fair-wages/benefits THING. But more importantly (I’m not saying it SHOULD be more important, but also I want to be frank, and also I’m sure Target has their own not-so-great stuff), right now Target seems to have what I want in stock (or in and out of stock, so I get it if I keep checking), with brisk free shipping, while Amazon has almost nothing I search for and has weird postponed delivery dates.
Anyway, today is a happy grocery day: the shopping is done for another week, and I am enjoying the treasures. I got two dozen eggs! Last time they were low on butter and I didn’t want to take much, but this time they had plenty! I got two packs of bagels, which were out of stock last time but this time were bountiful! There was a limit of two bags of flour per customer, and there was only one kind of flour available, but there was TONS of it (shelves completely full and a full pallet sitting in the aisle) so I went ahead and got two! They had baking powder, which they were out of before! They didn’t have our usual bread, and I had to loop back around and try the aisle again before I could choose, but I DID choose! And I got a bag of coffee, because I really do not even want to run somewhat low on coffee.
I have had excellent luck ordering groceries from Shipt. I haven’t been to the store in over 2 weeks, and I’m also shopping for my 80 year old parent who lives several miles away from me (I usually get it all delivered to me and then i drop off on his doorstep). What I do is keep a running order open, and add things as I need them. Sometimes it’s easier than other times to get a delivery slot, but I’ve always been able to get one, and being home all the time now means the time itself doesn’t matter. Once, I saw an open time pop up and I quickly added what I could think to add so that I could grab the slot. It’s not ideal, but neither is going to a crowded store. It’s been comforting not to have to worry about shopping outside for the last couple of weeks. The shopper also texts to say “I’m shopping now, is there anything else I should look for?” Which is how I received out of stock eggs. Anyway, that’s the current plan.
I should also say that I always leave a generous tip, and when I had some extra paper masks
I gave the shopper a Couple of those. Again, not ideal for anyone, but I am hopeful that these shoppers are making good tips and are able to earn an income where perhaps they wouldn’t have otherwise.
when i shop for my mom and myself i use two carts I push the small one and pull the big one not hard at all
Crazy how the victory of finding yeast, or flour or some other item you wanted becomes such a HUGE victory right now. I was positively giddy when I bought yeast last week because the previous week when I WAS able to buy bread flour, there was no yeast.
I’ve also stopped shopping with amazon for the most part. I’d been wanting to for awhile bcs everything about them seems awful, but now that I have time, I find I don’t really need anything in two days (which is great bcs I don’t think prime means two days anymore). I’m trying to support local book businesses (Powell’s) or ones that do good in the world (better world books) and for other things I’m trying to use other businesses that don’t make me feel upset. I know my business is small potatoes but in this time when I feel anxious and upset about a lot of stuff, I feel a little better not giving Bezos any more of my money for awhile.
I hate the current grocery shopping status. I can’t take the kids, but I can’t leave them home while my husband is supposed to be working. I don’t want to be out and about with a ton of other people in the store so drive through pick up seems like the better option. But I usually do big trips to Trader Joe’s, stop by Safeway to pick up random things after dropping off or picking up the kids from school, or (more rarely since kids) go by Nob Hill when Safeway doesn’t have what I want. But now, I haven’t been to TJs in exactly a month today and the kids’ favorites are either out or dwindling fast. So far I’ve managed to get a Nob Hill drive up time the first week our SIP was issued. Since then I’ve mostly been getting orders delivered from Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods. I hate it because I never know if things will be in stock so I end up adding more things to get to the minimum order amount and then more things because they happen to be in stock and I could use them at some point. Shopping this way around holidays has been especially frustrating.
We’re lucky in that we’ve been members of a fruit CSA so we still get that every two weeks and I added a veggie CSA so that’s handled. Between our pantry and chest freezer we’re well set for food even though it’s not necessarily preferred by the kids. Milk and half & half for my coffee are the pinch point currently.
I had a dream the other night about going to Trader Joe’s and sitting down at a table and hanging out watching people shop and chatting with people I knew who came by. Our store doesn’t have seating, but apparently I miss going shopping and socializing so my brain put them both together.
The level of energy and work that I am putting into planning groceries, procuring groceries and preparing food for my family is astounding. I welled up with tears of joy and gratitude this week when I got milk and eggs. One of my friends was getting a delivery from Target and she added some things for me. This was good, because I hadn’t been able to get eggs or milk for over a week, and one of my children will not drink anything but milk. He was hospitalized last year for GI issues, so the not drinking is not OK. The last thing I want to do is have to take a kid to the hospital right now. (Or honestly, ever. But especially right now.)
We only dyed 4 Easter eggs because we were only able to get 18 eggs at our last trip and we are stretching to at least 2 weeks between shopping. Also, I made a box white cake mix last night and used only 1 egg white and substituted the other 2: one with applesauce, and one with a baking soda/vinegar mix. It turned out DELICIOUS. Although the bunny mold I made it in was a total disaster so we ended up with just a pile of cake. Which is not a problem.
Wow! Diet Mountain Dew is my comfort drink! And when you posted about putting sugar in your coffee, my thought was “I’ve been buying diet Mountain Dew regularly to have on hand” which is something I don’t normally do because we go through them so fast. Also, after I gave birth to my eldest son (I have three, the eldest is 12), my Screwup brother in law bright me a turkey sandwich and Stacy’s pita chips from the cafeteria because I was STARVING after a 27-hour labor and it was absolutely delicious—and very touching, since he is normally such a screwup. Ever since then I’ve held a special place for Stacy’s. I never assumed I’d have so much in common with Paul.
More relevant to your last post than this one (the no-reusable-bags rule), but just wanted to note that the food pantries in my community are seeking (possibly desperately seeking) grocery bags, both paper-with-handles and plastic ditto, to help the many, many families who are stooping by to get food. So if your new grocery shopping practices have led to a surfeit of bags that might be a useful place to drop them off for genuine and worthwhile reuse.
I realize that in the germ-elimination frame, handing over used bags seems problematic, but I’d think that (a) donors and (b) food pantries could set them aside in ways appropriate to allowing any viral particles to dessicate and cease to be dangerous. We are donating bags, and this is what we are doing.
We are a family of 5, and in normal times, I did one “Big Shop” every two weeks that was about $300, with sidewalk pick up, and then occasional drop-bys during the two weeks to refresh produce or pick up rotisserie chickens, amounting to another $100-150 in those two weeks.
Now, there aren’t any Pick Up times that work for me, or they’re gone by the time I wake up, so I have to go into the store myself. We are using the stockpile freezer meat more than I expected. We run out of things unexpectedly- Oreos, canned beans, shredded cheese. My family eats A LOT of shredded cheese when they are home all day and don’t have other options.
For a few years, I loved amazon and the miracle of 2 day shipping. However, the more I’ve read and learned about the company, I just get the same icky feeling I get about Walmart. So all that to say, only purchase from amazon if there is no better option.
Target gets more of my money these days because I think it seems like a decent company. I will also add—I did a target curbside pickup last week, and the people were literally outside with my cart when I pulled up to the store. Amazing and so easy!!
The logistics of any kind of online ordering/pick-up/delivery of groceries completely ramp up my anxiety, and I need too much control over my grocery shopping to make it work, so I shop now every other week, going to one main grocery store (either our local chain supermarket or Costco) and then Target, where I also buy mostly groceries. And I will say that our Target(s), by far, have had the best safety practices of any stores that I’ve seen so far, not just for shoppers, but also for employees. My first trip, over two weeks ago, employees were sanitizing cart handles before passing them off to shoppers, and spraying and sanitizing the conveyor belts and I think even the credit card machines, and having an actual staff person, standing a safe distance away, make sure that no one was crowding forward in the line before all this sanitizing was done between each customer. And then at my last trip on Thursday, the markers for six-foot distance stretched to the back of the store, well-marked, and they had erected three-foot plexiglass sneezeguards in front of the cashier stations. I have no idea how effective any of these measures are, or how necessary, but the fact that they were obviously trying and putting organized measures in place for employee safety, not just customer safety, was greatly reassuring, and made me feel better about shopping there.
I am very grateful for all the tips that people are sharing. Phone in ziplock – brilliant!
The overflowing cart is a problem, especially since the stuff will never fit back in the cart once it has been bagged. And also since I’m shopping by myself and not taking time to repack efficiently. And also since I am shopping less frequently and not eating out or even getting takeout/delivery, I need to buy more stuff. And ALSO my downtown grocery store’s conveyors are so short that I cannot completely empty the cart without clearing the other end of the conveyor of the already-scanned items.
Like you, I have just placed an order for groceries. My order is for pickup. In our area, they are asking us to reserve delivery slots for those who are unable to leave their homes.
Something that has helped is that I go get a second cart during the checkout stage. I can sometimes “flag one down” from someone who is returning theirs or from the staff member who manages the carts. My original cart of stuff ends up split into two carts and I take two trips to the car. That is FINE.