I was in a long check out line yesterday because only one person was working. Someone behind me asked the cashier if she had any help and she said, "just my manager but she's in the back working on something else." The person behind me said, "God Bless you for working because nobody else seems to want to. We've got that idiot, Biden in office so now I have to buy my groceries here to afford to eat. We need Trump back and everyone's afraid to say it. Well, I'm not afraid, I'm saying it to you all!"
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I want to take a minute to clear something up for any readers here: Dollar Tree is not a good place to go if you are struggling to afford groceries.
Their business model is weirdly small portion sizes and lots of processed products with long shelf life.
For many prices, if you do the math, you'll find buying the smaller portion Dollar Tree sells ends up being more expensive per serving than buying the bigger portion a grocery store sells.
Instead, if you are struggling to afford groceries, you should be shopping at a regular grocery store, but avoiding the "center aisles." You should be shopping for only the raw essentials: lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, and things like flour and plain rice. You should intentionally be avoiding things like boxed rice "kits," frozen meals, and, of course, things like chips.
Dollar Tree isn't a good place to go, but a place like Save A Lot can be. They sell real food (meats and produce), but their prices are lower than a Kroger or Publix. The meat and produce is lesser quality, but that's the cost savings.
We’re getting the same size dog food bag, same brand, for $6 less per bag at Dollar General. There are some other thing’s cheaper for the same size as well. Just got to price compare.
Dollar General is not Dollar Tree. Two different stores. Two different business models.
Dollar Tree's model is weirdly small portion sizes. Often they're from major brands and they're in sizes you only see at Dollar Tree. I don't even know how they get those contracts.
Dollar General's model is to pop up in food deserts where nothing else is around and sell normal stuff. Their stuff is usually price high for what it is, too, so you really are paying for the convenience of not having to go to the next town that has a real grocery store.
Of course, in both examples, there are outliers where something is cheaper at the Dollar General or Dollar Tree than it is at a normal store. But it's not the norm. And I've also noticed many times I've found that something I buy is cheaper at one of these places, I get in the habit of buying it there, then a couple years later I realize the prices have crept and now I'm properly paying a lot more and I would have been better off just going to the normal store from the beginning, since I'm not going to actively price compare every single time I shop.
Aldi's is a better alternative. Their store brand items (most of the store) are excellent, good produce and meat. And their prices are great. I can get two full bags of groceries there - nearly all produce and meat and staples - for less than what I'd pay for one bag at Walmart or Martins. Other than a rare Food Lion, those are the only grocery stores here. Walmart has jacked their prices up so much - more than the other stores - they are noticeably losing customers here.
We have some nice direct at the farm farmstands here but they've become chi-chi tourist attractions and are often more expensive than any.
Huge Aldi fan - do MOST of my groceries at Aldi and supplement what I can't get at Publix or Kroger, but I hate most of the Kroger around me. Very rarely do I shop Walmart. I do strategically shop sales and BOGO's for the items I know I can't get at Aldi and stock up enough for the sale cycle. I also use Fetch for the receipt points - and have enough points for about $120 in gift cards that I'll redeem closer to Christmas to use for my Christmas shopping, so I always check what is giving extra points.
No Kroger here any more but there used to be one in our little city about 50 miles away. It has horribly expensive so I never shopped there. This is a rural area with a few little towns, some of those have stores. Food Lion sold off most of their stores, a Save-a-Lot moved into two but they closed quickly. Some of the towns have a Dollar General and that's all for groceries.
And much of Walmart meat is from China!
Seriously. Those people eat bats and dogs. Barf.
Holy smokes, do you have sauce to back that up? That's friggin horrible to even consider.
I like Aldi’s. Been shopping there for years. I live in Appalachia now where they’ve been smacked down by globalism since Clinton signed NAFTA, so people who were poor are even poorer. I leave my cart free of the quarter chains. I used to get coffee beans there for 3.50 a bag; now the product is $5.95, still cheaper than other grocery stores. Olive oil has gone from 2.99 to 5.99. So Aldi’s is affected too, but still better. I also see lots of elderly folks there.
Aldi's generally seems OK, but be aware that (like most stores) a lot of their food contains bioengineered ingredients.
Just FYI, when I came out of Aldi's the other day, there was a punk teenager in the cart bin pocketing the quarters people had left behind. I'll tell you what I'm addicted to at Aldi's - I don't care for their ice cream, which is more air than cream, but I inhale their mango ice cream bars. Num!
I hear you on the price increases. My husband has little to no issues with cholesterol and is a cheese-a-holic. We used to pay .69 for an 8 oz block of cheese before Xiden took office and now those same blocks are now 1.89 if you're lucky. I'm not sure where the economists are getting their numbers but isn't that almost a 300% increase?
Needless to say, I'll be taking a class next week on making your own cultured cheese.
More than that here. I have an oversized live-in rat at my house too. heh
Why do people say "Aldi's"? I've seen the store and it's just called "Aldi".
Aldis is fine, too. I mentioned Save A Lot because that's what we have near me, but Aldi's is another alternative.
Anything but Dollar Tree, which is a business model that preys on poor, stupid people who can't do the math.
Love ALDIs and LiDL!
We briefly had a couple of those Save-A-Lots but if you blinked, you missed them.
I noticed the same thing with Walmart. I bought fruit to make a fresh fruit salad and it was close to $70 or $80. Granted, I made two huge fruit salads but that's still pretty darned expensive.
That's just awful. I do hit the farm stores for vegetables and fruits they grow themselves but they also buy things from other sources, including a local Amish produce auction, and those are sky high. I won't buy their heirloom tomatoes any more because they come from there and they're mealy. That means they've been refrigerated so were probably picked green like the red baseballs from Walmart.
I totally agree with you about that. I was just there to get garden gloves and a shovel! :)
Cheap: beans, rice, cabbage, carrots, bananas, onions and potatoes. Whatever meat is on sale. Beans and grains together will give you a pretty complete protein.