[blindcooks] Re: Kind of a Rant - Shopping
- From: "Sharon" <mt281820@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 12:48:51 -0500
Yea, that's where I remember it from too.
What spice shop do you use?
Sharon
From: blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Rob Hudson
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2015 12:24 PM
To: blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blindcooks] Re: Kind of a Rant - Shopping
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 <mailto:twosocks76@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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 <mailto:captinlogic@xxxxxxxxx>
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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