Grocery Shopping

For a family of seven, the Food Stamps (we still call it that) subsidy is about $900 a month. Divide by four weeks (discrepancy noted) gives us $225 to work with each week. We've put the kibosh on going out this year, so the whole $225 goes to groceries. So with cash...er..credit card in hand, we head off the to grocery store.

The only problem is that there are no grocery stores. We're surrounded by mega-markets that have everything--including food and "edible food-like substances" (read Michael Pollan's terrific little book Food Rules for a great explanation). We're on a budget, so the upscale stores like Whole Foods and Harris Teeter are definitely out. We love those places, but going there contributed a great deal to our food expense bloat. In our neck of the woods, that leaves Kroger, Food Lion, and Walmart.

Did I just say Walmart? For groceries?! How is it that we now buy our food from a store started decades ago by a man who made his fortune selling cheap womens' underwear? Yes, Walmart--former all American goods store turned cheap import giant--is now seriously in the grocery business. In fact, Walmart is the number one or number two seller of groceries in most areas of the United States. And since they just plopped down a Walmart Supercenter not even four miles from our house, we buy most of our food there.

Did I just see your nose elevate a degree or two? Oh come now, you shop at Walmart now and again, don't you? Americans love Walmart, or it wouldn't exist. Remember, denial is not good for you. Come clean with it. Just pretend that you're at a G.A. meeting:

"Hello, my name is Jonathan S. and I buy groceries at Walmart."

It turns out that the quality for the price is as good as you'll get anywhere else. And we can still splurge at Whole foods if we just gotta have that organic starfruit. We assuage our guilt by going to the local farmer's market as often as we can to buy local and (sometimes) organic produce.

Having chosen the venue for spending our food pittance, timing is next. Don't bother grocery shopping on the weekends because they don't restock produce nearly at much as they do during the week. And yes, the store may be open 24 hours, but that's only helpful if you have a late night craving (which you should probably ignore anyway as such cravings are always for food you shouldn't eat). The best time to shop for groceries is on a weekday during the late morning hours because the produce has been freshly restocked and hasn't been picked over by your fellow shoppers.