The Joys Of Marriage: Grocery Shopping

One thing that I never too much cared for was grocery shopping. Now that I’m married, I can’t rely on my parents to shop anymore…it’s something that I have to do myself.

It started last night. I took a sheet of paper from J’s notebook and stole his pen. I got up, went into the kitchen, and I made of list of everything that we needed…not what we wanted. It just so happened that we haven’t done any “real” grocery shopping in a while. We just bought what was needed or wanted for that day.

But anyway, the list was done. Then, I thought…well, Super Wal-Mart isn’t always the cheapest. I looked at my list and decided to make columns: Food Lion, Bi-Lo, & Wal-Mart. Many grocery stores have their weekly ads on their websites so I looked through and priced everything that I needed at each store (excluding Wal-Mart) to see which store had what I needed for less.

When the list was done, it looked like I needed to go to Food Lion, but I still made the decision to visit all three stores. I mapped out which I would go to first (in case I had to get cold stuff). So it was Wal-Mart first (because I needed mostly dry items), Bi-Lo (was the farthest away), and Food Lion (because it is right around the corner from home).

I finished all of my shopping in less than 2 hours and most of the items that weren’t on my list came from Food Lion. I got less and spent more at Wal-Mart. Saved $29.26 at Bi-Lo and $20.43 at Food Lion.

So this is what $150 worth of grocery (necessities) looks like. It’s not as bad as it sounds or looks. A lot of those bags has little items (like canned goods). I doubled up on a lot of stuff (i.e. tilapia @ $3.33 for a 4-pack), and got a lot of value packed meats (i.e. ground beef @ $6 for 4 lbs.). We shouldn’t need a lot of stuff for at least a month.

So there you have it. My new method for grocery shopping. I would have saved $30 if I didn’t get those “I WANT IT” items….I have to work on that for next time.