bargain hunting

When we moved to El Dorado 17 years ago, I plopped my 1-year-old daughter in the baby seat of the store buggy and began loading in groceries. Mentally I tallied up my bill as I piled in groceries to avoid going over my budget. When the clerk told me how much I owed the total was much higher than I had anticipated, “Oh,” I gasped, “that’s right, in this state food is taxed.”
I was thinking about that recently as the same clerk quietly scanned my purchases. It wasn’t just the state-mandated increase in food prices that left me gasping that day. It was also the financial pinch of having just purchased a new house, when interest rates were double and triple what they are now.
I sat up nights trying to figure out how to stretch the impossible budget.
One afternoon shortly after we moved, I sat down and listed all the staple food items we use. Beside the list, I left a space for each of the grocery stores in town. Then pencil and paper in hand, my daughter and I went back to the grocery stores. She amused herself with the cans of soup and boxes of cake mixes while I found and recorded the prices of each item on my list. At the end of my survey, I highlighted the lowest prices for each item.
None of the stores won with the absolute lowest price on everything I needed. It didn’t matter, I read all the weekly food ads with pen and paper in hand and benefit from having so many supermarkets so close together. Once a store promised a $25 grocery coupon for for filling out a questionnaire which included the question, “how much money do you spend per year at our store?” I pulled out all my canceled grocery store checks for the past year (I rarely use cash) sorted them by store names, added them up and discovered I spent nearly the same amount at each store. I submitted the form and received a coupon to buy more food from them.
Because I shop all the stores, I recognize many of the clerks, some recognize me. A clerk in one store discovered my penchant for bargains the day I bought several cans without wrappers. The next time I was there, she pointed out the buggy of sale items in the corner.
When my husband and I began teaching a Family to Family Class for relatives with a brain disorder, a clerk packed my groceries acknowledging the need for the class with comments on life away from the cash register.
Another clerk comments on my weekly column. Last fall she suggested I write about husbands who hunt while their stay home. My husband doesn’t hunt. However, I was inspired to write about the exciting things I do when he is off on a business trip’ activities like buying the expensive brands of juices and crackers to eat as I organize the food pantry before I go shopping again.
Too bad my family is smaller and needs fewer groceries. I enjoy my few minutes with the clerks at the local grocery stores.


Posted

in

by

Tags: