[blindcooks] Re: Kind of a Rant - Shopping
- From: "Rob Hudson" <captinlogic@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 11:23:36 -0600
I remember S&F from my time out in California. Basically a restaurant supply
shop. Had some good deals on spices and cookware.
I live a rather cut down lifestyle already. I have no phone of any kind (except
skype), no television, no kind of credit card (although that sort of hurts my
chances for getting a house), no outstanding debts. I don't eat out that often
(although mostly due to lack of access.) Plus dealing with waitstaff, given my
horrendous hearing, is very aggravating.
My electric bill ranges from forty to 90 dollars in summer when the air
conditioner always runs. I suppose the only real way I could cut even more out
would be to downgrade my internet, but I have to admit I'm just too spoiled to
do that.
I have saved enormous amounts of money by purchasing spices and coffee online.
For instance, two ounce container of ground coriander at the grocery store,
seven dollars. Eight ounce bag at the spice shop, four dollars or less. Five
pound bag of my favorite espresso beans, thirty-four dollars online. At the
grocery store, eleven dollars for a single pound. Given the amount of spice and
coffee I go through, those grocery store prices would kill me.
Another way I'm thinking about cutting costs is to cut my own meat into steaks,
chops and cutlets. I go through more pork and chicken than beef, and buying big
pork roasts on sale and then slicing into chops would save quite a bit here and
there, when you add it up.
Chicken, not so much--at least for me. I tend to only eat the white meat, so
buying a whole chicken just to slice off the breasts and ribs wouldn't make
much economic sense. So for those, I wait for sales when boneless, skinless
chicken is 50 cents a pound and buy several frozen bags. And on the rare
occasions when I use chicken thighs--such as in soup--an occasional one or two
pound package won't hurt me too much.
I wasn't sure any helpful suggestions for things like couponing would come
through, but I wanted to vent anyway. Thank you all for listening. I felt much
better after getting all that off my chest.
----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Rawlings
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 10:04 AM
Subject: [blindcooks] Re: Kind of a Rant - Shopping
Robert:
Trust me, most of us deel with these same frustrations all the time.
The fact that you're in a rural area only complicates things for you. Were I
in your place, I'd probably do most of my food shopping on line and get my
pantry items and canned foods and things in bulk at places like Wal Mart or
Sam's Club as much as possible. It's a shame that Sam's Club is unwilling to
help you shop. You didn't mention any sighted friends that are able and
willing to help even occasionally, so I assume there are none right now.
When I was single, I
'm a little ashamed to admit I didn't worry very much about saving money on
my food bill. I lived on the same block as my grocery store, as well as a
store kind of similar to Sam's Club called Smart and Final. I generally just
bought what I wanted when I wanted it with little regard for cost. Then, along
came Emily, and all that changed. Not only does she go through the ads in the
mail with me, but our store also has a website where we can log in, enter the
code on the back of our store card, and load electronic coupons onto the card
that are applied automatically at checkout. Between all that and planning my
menus in advance and trying to stretch what we do buy, our grocery store
spending is really quite reasonable, especially given how well we eat. I made
barbecue chicken in the slow cooker last week that went on sandwich buns, then
took the leftovers and made awesome barbecue chicken pizzas for dinner
yesterday. We were given a free turkey about a week and a half ago which I
roasted last week. It has already made three meals for us, and there's enough
left in the freezer for five more. But, I digress....
In short, I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions or advice I can offer
to make things easier for you. I like Marilyn's suggestion to basically accept
your limitations with regard to your food bill and try to cut expenses
elsewhere that are easier to control and manage. Emily and I are trying to do
much the same thing as I also have my eye on buying a house as soon as
possible. Renting just sucks for so many reasons. Anyway, sorry I can't be of
more help.
Jon
----- Original Message -----
From: Rob Hudson
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, January 10, 2015 6:38 AM
Subject: [blindcooks] Kind of a Rant - Shopping
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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