It’s Nov 5, and we already have spent 155 on groceries. It’s all on reasonable stuff.
A really big bottle of kekap manis for future fried rice, laundry detergent, a bunch of peppers to roast and freeze for the winter when they go up to 4.99/lb, a pork shoulder because I love having 1 cup containers in the freezer.
But prices really do feel high these days. My coffee hasn’t gone on sale for months.
I’m a crazy woman, or actually not. But I’m a woman who does stuff others just won’t most of the time.
One of the things I do that others probably don’t is read USDA documents, and do charts based on them. One thing I found (this was way before COVID mind) was that the cheapest staples get all year is between the week before Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Also, groceries in general, go UP the most they do any time of the year after Christmas. Part of that is because of the discounts given during the holiday season being done away with. And some of it, I think, is just the retailers wanting a easy way to raise prices, so they do it all at once. I expect that we’ll still get the holiday discounts, although it may be back to 2020 prices instead of what was typical. And then they’ll go back up again.
Or, because of the supply shortages, they may just skip the discounts this year altogether.
I don’t know. I do know that I tracked 10 years worth of data and noted the ebb and flow of retail prices. There was next to nothing that was predictible, except what’s above. Pissed me off. I spent a LOT of time doing this, as you might imagine, and expected to get a lot more out of it.
I am super impressed by your data collection! I find a ton of value in you having done that work to share with us - because I also would have assumed there’d be other patterns !
there is definitely a pattern right around Thanksgiving and Christmas for us
Holiday t-minus 4 weeks, regular sales
Holiday t-minus 3 weeks, reasonable sales
Holiday t-minus 2 weeks, great sales
Holiday t-minus 1 week/week of, things pretending to be sales that are for those who don’t actually watch the price and just notice the ‘sale’ flag or can’t risk not buying the thing right now
Holiday t-plus 1 week, perishable things that didn’t move off the shelves which are highly associated with that holiday are on sale (turkey wings, hams, etc)
I read an article recently that said grocery stores are doing fewer promotions because they can’t count on having stock to meet any increased demand. And I sure haven’t seen many good sales lately.
4 cups of pulled pork in the freezer
oh, funny money saving thing yesterday. We went to the market, which has a number of shops upstairs and downstairs. I was looking for salted (not brined) capers.
Unfortunately they were all showing a lot of liquid in the bottom, and so I will try looking around a bit more in hopes I find one that looks better.
(eta: all same brand, same size)
The only other patterns I found were obvious ones: produce being cheapest in season, for example. Likewise dairy products. If you know that apricots are in season in May, as they are here, then it’s a no-brainer than they’re cheapest in late May or early June. Doh.
I was hoping for more concrete data than that and didn’t find it. Either it’s because the things that the USDA tracks are basics: meat, veg, fruits, and not prefab, premade meals/bits, or it’s because I was unable to see the trend(s).
Last year? I found a doc. that noted what prices were expected to rise in the following year: everything except fruits. So, I started buying more fruit.
This week we spent $86 at Aldi! I forgot to take a picture but we got mostly pantry goods and some things to make meals easier (frozen veg, store rolls), etc.
The Chinese name is “Old Godmother” – she is a badass worthy of @PAWG’s admiration:
https://www.whatsonweibo.com/lao-gan-ma-story-chinas-spicy-godmother-tao-huabi/
I think prices are up even higher since I shopped two weeks ago. There were quite a few empty shelves too, or like they had just one row of boxes but nothing behind it just trying to make it look better. There was also zero toilet paper. I didn’t realize we were back in that place again.
if you have a Job Lots or Big Lots store, i’ve found arborio there in the past. Do check the BB date tho’!
Just did a pantry tidy and reorg. Got the sweet potatoes in their basket, but the potato pillow case on the floor now has 2x as much in it. Maybe I should donate some potatoes too!
I went bonkers at Aldi and spent $124! There were a lot of great sales. I stocked up on canned soup (chunky brand was 0.70 a can!) for easy dinners. I also bought baking stuff, normal groceries, and there were good fruit sales too! I don’t usually buy my fruit at Aldi but the blueberries and grapes were so cheap and those are my favorites so I…bought a lot, haha. Ground beef was on sale too and while I typically get my meat elsewhere I think Aldi ground beef is tasty and I’m making chili this week! So many snacks and I got extra easy meals since I’m running low (I love frozen pierogi). I’m going to clear things out of the fridge tonight and make some easy ravioli (pumpkin and sage) I got in the refrigerated section. Not sure what type of sauce I’ll make yet…hm…
$203 Costco trip.
Normal food and sale stock ups:
Lots of red sauce
Cottage cheese (normally like $4, was nearly $6)
Sour cream (normally $3, was $5)
Coffee
Pickles
Sausage patties
Eggwich things SirB likes for early work days
Pepperoni sticks
Brussels sprouts
Maple syrup
I spent $58.03 at the market, but I saved a whopping $43.83 too! My local market seems to be putting out their category markdown/culls on Sunday mornings. Last week I bought $105 worth of groceries, notably our favorite cereal $2 off and a lot of premium dried pasta.
This week it was oil and vinegars.
Spectrum oils and Bragg vinegars. I bought grape seed oil, sesame oil, rice vinegar, Bragg cider vinegar, and Bragg salad dressing, all 1/2 off.
I also bought 2 boxes of tea on special (I had a coupon too), granola bars (1/2 off), agave syrup $3 off of $6.99, honey (needed it for the tea coupon), coffee cake (1/2 off), dried fruit ($1 off), organic lemons, and wheat germ.
Wheat germ disappeared here during lockdown and I haven’t seen it since. We ran out and so I’ve been looking for some since. The jar will probably last us about 3 years.
The $58 total includes $9 worth of Sunday papers too. So the groceries were $49.
Nice haul! Those are some really good deals.
$175 HMart haul:
That’s it. I gotta go to HMart.
@PAWG , my sister had the lazy susan in her kitchen removed so she could store bigger items in that cupboard, like trays, cookie sheets, cutting boards, and larger “small” appliances. I believe they installed a partial ahelf in there for the appliances.
This is a great idea for a thread! I have several photos, but don’t know if they’ll all upload in one post. I’ll do it over a few. Let’s start with the freezers. We have a small chest freezer, a medium sized upright freezer, and a freezer above our fridge. Here are the photos with description of contents below.
Chest freezer: a small 7 cu ft freezer. We store meat, poultry, fish, and ice packs here. We also store grains here for 72 hours after purchasing to kill any bugs in them.
This is the door of the upright freezer. It has frozen home grown herbs, homemade stocks, wheat germ, lemons, etc.
This is the inside of the upright freezer: It is loosely termed the fruit and vegetable freezer. Top shelf is mostly frozen fruit, though I see a tortiere in there! My sister knows wild blueberry farmers, so we have a bag of those in there. We also have frozen garden produce of all kinds.
This is the upstairs fridge freezer door contents: mostly bags of nuts & seeds, fresh ginger, yeast, and frozen limes.
This is the inside of our upstairs fridge freezer: there are more wild blueberries there, lots of flour I am going to use in baking this week, some stock, frozen veggies, homemade pesto, some pumpkin seeds, some Korean sauces and spices.
I can see, looking at these photos, that I need to get into the freezers and do a little reorganization. Lots of wasted space in them!
To be continued…
