What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Daehawk
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Daehawk »

Dollar General and a cheap off brand store named SaveAlot. We get small odds and ends. Canned food is about 0.89 for their brand of Chef Boyardee and their brand soup is better than Campbells by a wide margin. We can get 10 or so cans and share one can a day and get by.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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This thread totally delivers on mundane domesticity.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Zenn7 »

rshetts2 wrote:Being in Michigan, the go to answer is usually Meijer. They have good prices and are the definition of one stop shopping. I do have a Kroger thats closer but I only use that when Im pressed for time.
We buy a lot of store brand stuff, for which I find Kroger to be cheaper. Take advantage of digital coupons/sales for both places, and a couple items I know are cheaper at Meijer so I do get there when I go there (and take advantage of their MPerks). Shop at Kroger enough to get their best customer bonus coupons so every few months I get 1-3 dollars off for spending 10-15$ in produce, deli/bakery and meat&seafood, plus every month or so get 6-12 coupons for things we usually buy. And my Kroger has a gas station that's usually cheapest or tied for cheapest gas around - and the Fuel Points usually gives me one really cheap fill up every month. On the whole, I don't think I could likely save money by switching to Meijer for the bulk of the shopping. Though when we used to live a mile down the road from Meijer, we shopped there. Kroger was probably 3 or so miles away then. That was before digital coupons and both their customer loyalty programs.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Holman wrote:This thread totally delivers on mundane domesticity.
I knew I was officially "old" when I found myself enjoying shopping for vacuum cleaners.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by LordMortis »

Zenn7 wrote:(and take advantage of their MPerks).
I plan my grocerying live around MPerks. It's about 1/4 of the hassle of couponing and it probably saves me more money. According to Mperks, they've save me $205 so far this year. Which is a lie because I could sale shop at other stores for cheaper. But even if they saved me $100, it's been $100 for very little effort for stuff I was going to buy anyway.

Kroger kept screwing up my Kroger card and Kroger points. I eventually gave up on their version of rewards. My parents swear by them to they point that they do things like buy kroger gift cards on 4x point days and then turn around and use the gift cards to buy gas with 4x discounted points. It is not uncommon for them to end in argument with management over how the program is supposed to work vs what the program says. But management relent because arguing with an 80 year old who doesn't have to go back to work when the argument is over is pointless. Two hours of their day to save $20, is nothing. It's practically entertainment.
Holman wrote:This thread totally delivers on mundane domesticity.
I conceded to being mundane in something like 2011 or 2012. I'd much prefer bars and shows and mischief but my body begs to differ.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Odin »

We have so many grocery options around here it's not funny. The main stores are Wegman's, Tops, and Price Chopper. My wife used to work for the company that owned the local stores that Tops bought, so we had to shop there (she got a discount that was too good to pass up). Once they got bought and she got a new job, we were finally able to stop shopping there. Every week there was some new annoyance - products out of stock, new products (for which we had coupons) that they didn't get in for weeks or months, things they'd randomly stop carrying, etc.

So that left us with Wegmans and Price Chopper. Of the two, Wegmans is the 800-lb gorilla. Everybody loves Weggies. They're based in neighboring Rochester, NY, so they're almost local, and they tend to be pretty innovative. They've got a lot figured out, and they're consistently rated one of the best places to work year after year. But for the stuff we buy, they tend to be more expensive, and they're ALWAYS busy, which means the parking sucks and getting through the aisles can be a nuisance. In other words, they're so well-loved that we prefer not to shop there. We only go to Weggies for specific things or when we're in a big hurry (the store is 1/3 mile closer to our house than Price Chopper).

So the winner is... Price Chopper. They're not as innovative or spiffy-cool as Wegmans. They don't have a sushi bar or in-store sushi chef. But the concept of sushi disgusts me, so I can live with that. I like their prices better overall, and because they're not Wegmans they're not nearly as busy.

We also have Aldi, Wal-Mart Supercenter, Target, plus drug-stores that might actually have better prices on some things, but our patience for shopping around is fairly limited.

Also, Price Chopper has a deal with Sunoco gas stations where we earn gas points with our grocery purchases, and we've milked the hell out of that over the years. I tend to save up until my minivan is running on fumes because it has the biggest gas tank. I've gotten 20 gallons for as little as a couple bucks even at the peak of gas prices.
Last edited by Odin on Thu Mar 31, 2016 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Aldi did as much as possible, Kroger for the rest. Your Dekalb Farmers market when I get in that direction.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Madmarcus wrote:Aldi did as much as possible,
Aldi have these peanut butter cookies coated in chocolate that are just like girl scout cookies (Tagalongs?) Don't ever ever ever buy them. They are evil. I'm not even sure if it's physically possible to not eat an entire package in mere minutes after you open one up.

Also, their french bread pizzas for under $2 are awesome for a lazy horrible for you dinner. :o
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by gameoverman »

Aldi is going to be opening soon here in So Cal so I look forward to trying it out. I liked Fresh and Easy, which was owned by Tesco, but it failed and closed up. Maybe the Germans can make a go of it.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Spam.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Can mods edit posts without a record stamping, or are the bots getting meta?

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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Spam.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Sudy wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:00 am Can mods edit posts without a record stamping, or are the bots getting meta?
I don't know if it's a mod thing too or just an admin thing, but I seem to be able edit without a trace.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Blackhawk wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:05 am That's too much power for any mortal to command!
Did you forget? Admin rights grant one immortality.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Blackhawk wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:05 am That's too much power for any mortal to command!
But it’s just another typical nanosecond in the life of Skynet...
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:49 am
Blackhawk wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:05 am That's too much power for any mortal to command!
Did you forget? Admin rights grant one immortality.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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LordMortis wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:53 am
ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:49 am
Blackhawk wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:05 am That's too much power for any mortal to command!
Did you forget? Admin rights grant one immortality.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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ImLawBoy wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 9:52 am
Sudy wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:00 am Can mods edit posts without a record stamping, or are the bots getting meta?
I don't know if it's a mod thing too or just an admin thing, but I seem to be able edit without a trace.
WTF?? This is an outrage!! All OOers should DEMAND that someth
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Face it, Holman, we agreed to this oligarchy when we agreed to the TOS.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Of all the threads, this one seems pretty appropriate to post spam.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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As a matter of fact I bought some SPAM today.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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dbt1949 wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 6:47 pm As a matter of fact I bought some SPAM today.
I bought SPAM (low-sodium variety) on a whim about two weeks ago. If I'd ever had it before, it was as a little kid.

It was... actually really good. Will SPAM again.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Kasey Chang »

Since the pandemic, I shop in Chinatown. I haven't visited a supermarket or any place else for months. Everything else is Amazon delivery (Amazon Fresh or Prime Now, same inventory, different apps).

Right now, I like the Bratwurst sausages I can get on Amazon Fresh for $3.49 for 5. They cook nicely in the air fryer. They compare favorably to Aidell's which is like $5.41 for 4. The casing's a bit hard, IMHO.

Also, I had to stop drinking canned Diet Coke and make do with Diet Pepsi, since canned Diet Coke prices have risen quite severely. 12 pack for $5, 24 pack for $9.50. Diet Pepsi is like 7.99 for 24. I order 2L Diet Coke instead... they cost the same as 20 oz bottles (!!).

On the other hand, I don't like their canned soup, despite similarity to Campbells.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Jeff V »

Went to an Amazon Fresh store today for the first time. Lot's of Whole Foods product and pricing, ok pricing on some of the more mundane things. Beer prices were a couple of bucks higher than Jewel or Meijer.

They did give us a $10 coupon good next week, so I suppose we'll stop there again. I don't imagine it will be a frequent stop, but there are other stores nearby that bring us to that area.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by LordMortis »

I haven't set foot in a Meijer since Easter and I'm not likely to return for the foreseeable future. They went and got R&P on me, and COVID made my response to them easy. My two regrets are I'm going to need a new toothbrush when the head for Miejer electric toothbrush run out in the next couple of months and I won't be able to get my A&H deoderant for a buck on the 10 for 10 sales.

Nowadays, it's ALDI every other week and Costco once a month. Though I've scaled back since the autumn COVID spike went to 11. If I have to supplement with something I can't get at either store, then about once a season I make it to Kroger.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Jeff V »

We go through way too much fresh produce, so not shopping once a week isn't practical. A friend dropped off a bunch today that's going to be hard to use, I'm going to have to get creative the next few days.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

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Wal-Mart once a week. Wal-Mart because it is significantly cheaper and we're poor, weekly because the fridge isn't big enough to hold two weeks worth of food for four people. We usually stop in at either Fresh Thyme or Meier to get one or two things that Wal-Mart doesn't carry, but we can't afford to do our regular shopping there. I really wish we could, as their variety, stock, and quality are better, the stores are nicer, and everything is cleaner. But it does raise the shopping bill by probably 15%, which is a lot for us.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Kraken »

My base routine is Stop-n-Shop once a week, and Shaw's to fill in gaps or make quick supplemental runs as needed.

During the first covid spike I tried cutting my runs to every other week, but found that they were taking twice as long, so that wasn't helping.

For most of my life Sunday was grocery day, because it was the one day of the week I nearly always had off, and because the new coupons came in the Sunday paper. That habit persisted long after the reasons for it stopped being valid. Then, a few months ago, I started experimenting with going on different weekdays. I ultimately settled on Thursday afternoons. The store's never crowded, the shelves are well-stocked for the coming weekend, and the fish counter gets its freshest inventory because Friday used to be fish day for Catholics. Wife says that isn't true anymore, but again, habits persist.

This week brought the first bread & milk alert of the winter and they're predicting a two-loafer, so I moved my shop up to Tues to beat the Wed panic buying. Yesterday (Tues) was busier than expected, but I'm sure today (Wed) was like this:
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Just for fun, my regulars, in order of overall quality (broadly, everything, food, service, cleanliness, etc, weighted heavily toward food quality) Obviously IMO, and YMMV since there can be wide variety of experience even within the same company of course):
1. The Fresh Market
2. Whole Foods
3. Publix
4. Kroger*
5. Sam's Club
5. Trader Joe's
6. Aldi
7. Wal-mart
8. Target

THE FRESH MARKET (shocked no one has mentioned this one!)
By far, the cleanest, most enjoyable, consistently high quality food out there (in my shopping realm at least).
Very small, easy to shop, generally great customer service.

Biggest attraction: "Little Big Meals" - since we are a family of 5, this is a super deal, usually. You get a metric crap ton of high quality food for either $20 or $25, depending on the week. You usually get a choice between a main: red meat, white meat, or veg, then several side items. Example: their chicken parmesan deal gives you four pre-prepped (there, on-site, and fresh, using non antibiotic meats) chicken parms, a bag of their yeast rolls, maybe ice cream, something else, I dunno. But it's almost always worth wayyyy more than $20, sometimes crazily so.

Other attractions: their meats are freaking amazing - easily besting all the above in my list in terms of quality and freshness. Their in house bacon is amazing, as is their sausage (made there). Basically, anything refrigerated behind glass is amazing. Produce is always great, but very $$ so I rarely but it. Fruit otoh, can be very reasonable, and is easily best quality of all the ones listed. It looks like hand picked fruit. Desserts are also great. SUSHI omg. So cheap, and so good.

No-no's: staples - you don't want to buy anything here that is not their brand, because it literally can be 3x the cost of same item at say Kroger.

WHOLE FOODS
I used to shop here much more before Amazon bought them. They had by far the best fresh bread in town, but for some reason, after bought by Amazon, they hiked the prices way way up on their bread, and NEVER put it on sale like they used to. They have the best cherry pie I've had maybe anywhere, and their desserts are VERY good because they are usually a lot less sweet than other places, and don't use artificial coloring, etc. Expensive, but they do still put dessert items on sale.
Their fish and seafood section always looks amazing, with a corresponding amazing price.

Biggest attraction (now that bread is almost comically expensive there): their 365 brand of whole bean coffee. Can't be beat for value and quality - check out the Island Pacific bag in particular. Desserts (their cakes and pies are great). Fresh local beer that you can fill up using your own growler.

No-no's: Like Fresh Market, any non WF branded staple. Looking for a 2L Coke that costs $6? Look no further! :D

Ehhh, this is already very long, I'm stopping here. See TL;DR version above! :P
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by raydude »

I am within a 3 mile drive of an LA Mart, Aldi's, and Harris Teeter. Wife does most of the grocery shopping and she alternates weekly between Aldi's - where we get most of our meats, fruits, and vegetables, and LA Mart - where we get our asian stuff. Whole fish with head on, korean brand spam and instant ramen, instant dashi and miso paste, and tofu. Note that's not a complete list of asian foods, just a sampling.

Occasionally I'll go to Harris Teeter for "luxury" items, like Hank's Root beer, thick cuts of steak, or gelato.

In pre-covid times as a family we'd drive 6 miles to Wegman's and try their samples, get some mimolet cheese, mussels, and some yogurt and cereals we can't get at the other stores.
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Re: What grocery stores do you frequent and for what?

Post by dbt1949 »

Went to the store today. Everything in stock in good quantities.
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