shopping

There are two main grocery stores that we shop at in town, the fruit stands and occasionally the market.  One stop shopping doesn't exist here and neither do sales or coupons.  It's killin my grocery budget. Killin it I tell you!

The store we like to shop at the best is about 20 min away from our house.  It is in a lovely new mall that has a lovely new grocery store in it.  This means that I make Jason drive me there because I have issues with the truck we are borrowing this year.  That my friendlies requires a whole separate blog post.  When we can, we usually go on Monday morning.  He heads to the coffee shop in the mall to catch up on computer work and I head to the grocery store.

Why do we drive 20 minutes to get to a grocery store when there is one 7 minutes away from our house?  Well, let me list the reasons.
1) the produce there is way better - this is the main reason we go
2) way less people shop there
3) they have cheese (sadly, they don't carry cheddar, which is all I really want)
4) they have various types of American made chips
5) the meat seems better most days

Shopping here is always an adventure though.  I usually have to meal plan for more than 7 meals a week because when you go to the store you never know what you are going to find.  Last week they had no green or red peppers - out go the fajitas I was going to make on Wednesday night.  This week they had no green onions, which means that we will have to take a second trip to the other grocery store.

We usually have to make a second trip to the other grocery store for the following:
1) the butter and mozzarella cheese is cheaper there
2) staples like flour and sugar is cheaper and more readily available
3) the first store is always out of Coke
4) they have the more basic vegetables that the other store is usually out of - like green onion

It's always interesting to me what kinds of imported foods you can find over here.  A few weeks ago they had a few different kinds of bags of Malt-O-Meal cereal.  I snagged a couple of those up pretty quick until I realized that they were over $5 a bag and put a few back.  There has been a box of Golden Grahams that has been calling my name and if they still have it in stock, I'll be asking for it in my stocking.  This store had applesauce when they first opened, but have never had it again since.  You've got to grab it when you see it around here, because you never know if you are going to see it again.