Armed with coupons

Our shopping trip Friday was quite productive.    I spent forty dollars and got four bags full.   That's what a  bag of groceries cost me on the eighties!  

I went armed with coupon binder, the ad, and my just for I list.  Bought mostly protein, fruit and veggies, and some bakery.  

I am reading of people that spend a thousand dollars a month on food.   I have never spent a thousand dollars on food a month.   Not even when I had three adult children living at home.    LOL

Good food doesn't have to cost a bundle.   It does take some effort to go to more than one store and pay attention to prices.    We lost our top foods, and there is no plans for us to get a Hagens.   ALBERTSONS and SAFEWAYS are merging , so Basically we are loosing 2 stores.  If I go to Fred Meyers I have to go one town over.   QFC and Fred Meyers are both Kroger.    That means we have two grocery stores controlling the marketplace.  That isn't good for consumers.  The less competition, the higher the prices.   I sure hope that Winco goes into  the top foods building.    There are alternative stores that carry a limited amount of food.  Some are priced way too high for a budget minded person.
When food is  twenty to a hundred percent higher than the rest of the stores, it's just plain gouging .  One of those stores  has a 42 percent markup.   Generally, the more speciality foods, alternative foods a store has,the higher prices you are going to pay.  They are going to charge high prices because of you are passionate about eating special foods, they will charge what the traffic will bear.

I buy inexpensive cuts of meat, but I won't buy cheap meat.   My mothers advice of buying the best quality you can afford is good advice on anything you buy with the exception of throw away things.   My mother didn't buy  much throw away things.   Those things are usually cheaper at the dollar store.
Any single use item doesn't have to be quality.  Ditto kids coloring books, stick pens.   For the store where they would disappear in a week, I bought stock pens at the dollar store.   They doesn't last long enough to run out of  ink!   I guess I'm saying use common sense.

Guess that's all.

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Jane