[blindcooks] Kind of a Rant - Shopping
- From: "Rob Hudson" <captinlogic@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 08:38:47 -0600
What follows is more of a rant than anything else. It has been a rather
frustrating little while, recently. Please bare with me.
I have been looking at a lot of different ways to save money on grocery bills
and over all budget cuts, due to the fact that I am thinking about trying to
buy a house, or a mobile home. The lattter doesn't really belong on this list,
so I'll stick to the former.
One of the ways you can save money is by shopping at different stores. Some
stores will have different sales on different items, on different days of the
week. The only problem is, those kinds of sales are announced in print
circulars that, last time I checked, did not scan very well on OCR programs. Or
they are stupid graphics in the middle of web pages that we can't OCR either.
Or there are big fliers tacked up in the store window that announce one
specific item is on sale that day, and because you're blind, you miss out on
the sale. How is that fair?
Another problem with the multiple store approach is transportation. Something
like a paratransit system requires that you schedule with them far in advance.
This is even more of a problem for me since I live way out of town. My nearest
big town is twenty-five miles away. So you miss out on the sales yet again.
Then, once you do get to the store, you have to rely on sighted assistance, who
have their own thing to do. So you end up feeling rushed, like you're intruding
into their busy schedule. This means that you can't really comparison shop. For
instance, maybe there is a block of cheese you want, but is it cheaper in the
deli section that day, or in the dairy section? Is that bag of flour tortillas
on your list cheaper in the dairy case or the ethnic aisle? Things like that.
Or maybe the store with the best deals--such as that one store that requires
you to bag your own groceries and that you pay a deposit for the shopping
cart--doesn't even offer you sighted assistance. The low staff count means
lower food prices, but is thoroughly aggravating for the blind shopper. So you
once again miss out on some good food prices, and there goes your idea to
budget.
I ran into the latter problem at Sam's Club. The one I went to wouldn't offer
shopping assistance, so I had to turn around and walk out again. What the heck
did I pay the forty-five dollar fee for if you won't <insert unfamily friendly
word here> help me?
Then there's online grocery shopping. To be honest, this is the approach I most
often end up using. This is great, because on top of making a customer service
rep feel put-upon by taking time out of their busy, busy day to bother helping
the blind dude out, I'm also so hard of hearing that conversation is an effort,
especially in a loud, noisy store. Both the rep and I end up frustrated with my
inability to follow along and it leads to a very unsatisfactory experience.
Enter the wonderful world of online shopping. It's great. I can comparison shop
to my heart's content, I don't have to get a headache trying to listen to
people, and the eleven dollar delivery fee is much cheaper than a twenty-five
mile taxi ride. Not that any cabs would come way out here, but that's beside
the point.
Except.
There's always an except, isn't there?
Except there is only one store in the area which does online shopping, and they
are pretty expensive to compensate for that. So you are basically comparison
shopping between something which is a little more or less expensive than the
other thing. So the budget isn't really saved much at all, especially when you
hear, for example, that the ground beef you bought online was two dollars less
at the store you couldn't get to.
And lastly, there's coupons. So far as I know, there is no way to use coupons
online, and the coupon printing sites are java-based and not terribly
accessible, so you can't really print them either. Or the coupons are just
graphics that you click on. Or they are in the newspaper, which might be too
big for your scanner. Or if you do manage to get it scanned,, as you are blind,
you can't really tell if you are cutting out the correct bit of newsprint which
contains the coupon. So there you go, missing out on even more deals.
All in all, I'd have to say that trying to save money on grocery shopping
hasn't really met with a great deal of success. If you guys have ideas to help
alleviate some of these problems, I'm all ears.
Thank you for listening to my little rant. I have seen lots of blogs about
budget savings and things like that, but not one of them takes these kinds of
things into consideration. Very frustrating, indeed.
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