Category Archives: Groceries

Grocery Update and Menu Plan

27 Monday Jun 2016

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Two menus in a row!  Maybe we’re back on track.

On Monday I went to Stop & Shop for a very small number of items.  Bread was buy 1/get 1 Free.  I bought some s’mores supplies.  We had them over the weekend and as is often the case, ran out of chocolate whilst having some graham crackers and plenty of marshmallows leftover.  Since these items are still on sale in the run up to July 4, I stocked up on what we were short on.  The other items are to round out a few items we have in the pantry in an attempt to use things up before we move.

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Saturday I went to the farm stand and Wegman’s.  The strawberries are local, despite the plastic packaging.

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Much of the Wegman’s purchase was for Sunday when we had Carne Asada for dinner.  Soda is on sale for July 4.  We need milk (always!).  Then there are a couple of other regular items.

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And, the meal plan.  With school finishing up I’ve purposefully not scheduled too much this week so we’re somewhat flexible.

 

Saturday:
Hamburgers
Chips
Strawberries
Pasta salad

Sunday:
Carne Asada
Homemade Pico de Gallo
Homemade Guacamole
Refried beans

Monday:
Adults: Homemade pizza
Kids: Macaroni & cheese

Tuesday:
Asiago chicken (didn’t make the cut with a last minute schedule change last week)
Veggie platter

Wednesday:
Steak & broccoli stir fry
Rice

Thursday:
We’re going to play this one by ear.

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza

Grocery Update and Menu Plan

20 Monday Jun 2016

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Well, its been quite some time since I posted a Menu Plan, but now that baseball season is over we’ll try to get back on track.  First, though, the shopping.

On Thursday I went to BJs, hence the inspiration for last Friday’s post.  I got some steaks for Father’s Day, some chicken for this week, refills of a few items we’ll use fast now that the boys are out of school, and what I expect will be my last batch of chicken nuggets for a while.  (After baseball season folks can be kind of sick of those.)

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Saturday we went to Wegman’s.  The potatoes and Romaine are sides for Father’s Day.  The brown paper hides the big steak which the adults ate for dinner Saturday night.  I got some steaks for early next week (their fresh packs allow purchasing this far in advance) and some regular churn stuff.

Finally, on Sunday I went to the farm stand for their strawberry festival.  We got lots of strawberry related samples and bought some chocolate covered strawberries.

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I wouldn’t normally buy meat there, but Wegman’s didn’t have veal cutlets.  The English peas and strawberries are now locally in season.  The other items are to round out various meals.

And, the meal plan.  With school finishing up I’ve purposefully not scheduled too much this week so we’re somewhat flexible.

Saturday:
Kids: afternoon BBQ filled them up enough that they weren’t interested in dinner
Adults: Cowboy steak, pan fried shredded potatoes

Sunday:
Rib-eye steaks
Baked potatoes
Cesar salad
Strawberries

Monday:
Chicken pot pie
Green beans

Tuesday:
I’m going out so we have leftover steak and chicken pot pie to choose from.

Wednesday:
Veal parmesean
Salad

Thursday:
Asiago chicken (with fresh English peas!)

Friday:
Kids: Eggs
Adults: Homemade pizza

The BJs Checkout Process

17 Friday Jun 2016

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Before critiquing, let me say that I generally like self checkout.  I appreciate bagging my own stuff so its grouped the way I want, and in fewer bags.  I don’t mind less interaction with staff.  And, I especially appreciate that those lines are almost always available.

However, BJs is different.  I appreciate that BJs offers self checkout.  But, for me it is not useful.  I need the hand unit to scan the big stuff and a quantity button for my 12 gallons of milk.  Plus, if I take everything out of the cart I almost always purchase enough that the belt fills up and needs to be emptied part way through.

Thus, today I went to a cashier.  She was atrocious.  Nice, but an inept cashier which cost me between 20 & 30 minutes – a huge amount of time.  It was so bad that the person behind me in line went fetch the manager to move things along and I employed the BJs survey to critique her performance later.

Unlike other places, the BJs self checkout lines almost always back up.  This is often because the cashier lines are longer, but could be significantly improved fairly easily.

  1. Give the customer access to a hand unit.  It does not need to be a fully functioning one; just a moveable scanner.  And, it could/should be tethered.
    1. This would reduce the time folks take getting all those big items out of their cart.
    2. Leaving large items on the cart would reduce/eliminate the backed up belts that require one to stop mid-scan to rearrange the scanned items to free up space.
    3. Tethering it would prevent it walking around and getting lost among the registers which is a current problem with the employee unit.
    4. Much of the population has experience with these machines from other places – wedding or baby registries and grocery self scanners come to mind immediately.
    5. The wait for an employee to come scan your heavy stuff would be eliminated.
  2. Add a quantity button to self checkout.
    1. Receipts are already checked at exit.  If theft via quantity is truly a concern, self checkout receipts could be flagged for special counting.
    2. Heck, because of the membership card BJs can track everyone.  If they learn someone is routinely cheating they could prevent them from using self checkout, or just recind their membership.
    3. It would speed up self checkout – more items that don’t have to come out of the cart.
    4. Nobody wants to scan more than two or three of the same item.
    5. Lots of folks buy multiples at BJs.  I’ve lost could of the flatbeds I’ve seen go through the checkout line because 90% of what their buying is 10+ flats of bottled water.
    6. A quantity button would enable more folks to use self checkout thereby freeing up cashiers for those who truly need them.

The self checkout process should be a positive for the store largely because fewer cashiers are required to clear the same amount of merchandise.  But, BJs is handcuffing this process.  It should be set free.

Grocery Update

13 Monday Jun 2016

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A few more trips this week, again nothing super significant.  This coming week I’ll be doing some stocking up as its the last week of preschool and therefore my last week to shop unfettered.

I was at Stop & Shop on Tuesday.  Very little of this was on sale, which is unfortunate.  The most unfortunate items is the tomato sauce which is often 3/$1 (vs this at $1.19!).  But, I’ve run out of my supply from the last big sale so I’m eking my way to the next one.

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Tuesday I went to Wegman’s.  Milk here is still close enough to the BJs price that it makes sense, with the distances, to stock up closer to home.  For notes: (1) the fresh OJ was full when I bought it, but I had drunk most of it by the time I got home to take the picture and (2) annoyingly I forgot to purchase the crackers I like best with this fancy cheese so I’ll have to pick those up elsewhere/another time and delay my cheese eating.

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Finally, I went to Stop & Shop again on Wednesday. I got some steaks, potatoes, and the shallot for a fancy dinner.  The crackers are to try with the cheese from above; not the same as usual, but hopefully they’ll work out.  The Eggos are substituting for my planned hot dog purchase, ie. dinner for a few of the small ones that night.  It looks like Stop & Shop will no longer be carrying the hot dogs we prefer, which may or may not be a problem.  I don’t by them that often, but Wegman’s doesn’t carry them either so I may be limited to Star Market and I’m just not there very often.

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May Grocery Review

06 Monday Jun 2016

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I still need to go back and fill in some holes, but let’s get caught up to the present.  May was high.  I don’t know that it felt high in process, but when I started totaling up the receipts there were a lot of them!

May TOTAL: $1,171.01

  • Stop & Shop: $273.52
  • Wegman’s: $262.04
  • BJs: $383.85
  • Other: $251.60
    • Local: $43.76
    • Star Market: $153.60
    • Trader Joe’s: $24.93
    • Target: $29.31
    • Other: $0

Maybe to make up for this, I didn’t buy too much last week.  I made one trip to Wegman’s – on Thursday.  We’ve been going through tomatoes at quite a clip so I got two Family Packs; hopefully they’ll last a full week.

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Grocery Update

23 Monday May 2016

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This was not a particularly eventful week for grocery shopping.  And, with baseball & soccer still underway meals really weren’t interesting.

First, I went to Wegman’s.  There really isn’t anything here that will become a meal (unless you count the eggs or cereal).  This is pretty much all to fill the kid’s lunchboxes.

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On Tuesday I went to Stop & Shop.  I guess you could say this is more interesting.  Besides being on sale, the mac n cheese, marshmallows, and ketchup combined gave me 400 gas points (40¢/gallon off).  The Eggos were on sale and gave me free strawberries.  The precut fruit was for preschool breakfast on Wednesday.  The ground beef went into the freezer because I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with it yet.  The only things that aren’t on sale here are the precut fruit and hot dog buns.

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Finally, Saturday night I went to Star Market.  I never go shopping Saturday night, but I had another errand to run and wasn’t sure when this week I’d get there otherwise.  I did not take a picture, but can summarize.  We were almost out of oatmeal so that was my main reason for going.  It was on sale so I bought the whole shelf – 12 boxes.  I bought 6 pizza dough balls, not on sale.  Pizza cheese was on sale though so I bought 9 of those (thought about the whole shelf, but it was too much).  Lastly, grape juice was on sale so I bought that whole shelf too – 7 containers.  That’s it!

Grocery Update

16 Monday May 2016

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If you missed last week’s post, it’s baseball season.  That means we have a 6-8 week stretch where we’re at someone’s game from 5:30-8 pm almost every day (it varies each week) except Friday & Saturday.  But, Saturday we’re all gone basically all day, getting back exhausted just in time for dinner.  All in all it doesn’t make for good meal planning / quality eating / family dinners.

The grocery shopping reflects this.

On Monday I went to BJs; I basically bought staples.

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Since they’re nearby, I went to Target the same day.  Again, this was basically staples.

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I made my monthly run to Star Market (used to be Shaw’s) on Wednesday.  Again, there’s little here that makes a meal.  My approach to baseball season is to have some basic stuff on had and make a last minute decision as to what to have based on who’s available.  Pizza dough and pizza cheese are the two items I travel to Star Market for.  I was out of baby carrots.  Hot dogs and chicken nuggets were on sale and make easy quick dinners.

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I also went to Stop & Shop on Wednesday.

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Hot dogs were also on sale here, and buns are cheaper.  There was an extra 400 gas points (40¢) for buying 7 PAM.  The ground turkey and potato chips were on great sales. The turkey will get divided and go into the freezer for after baseball season.  Margarine, lemonade boxes, and bananas we were just low on.

Grocery Update

09 Monday May 2016

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I guess I was making up for last week with (only) two rather large shopping trips this week.

On Wednesday, I went to Wegman’s.  I’m disappointed that bread crumbs are now in pouches.  Thankfully, I hadn’t run out yet so I still have the canister from a previous purchase that I will dump these in to.

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On Thursday, I went to Stop & Shop.  (Sorry for the extra low light in this picture.)  Taco shells, bread, chicken nuggets, and grapes were on sale.

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April Grocery Review

02 Monday May 2016

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This was very welcome after a couple of higher months!  We were still eating out a bit with the house on the market, but not nearly as much as we had been.

  • April TOTAL: $
    • Stop & Shop: $823.80
    • Wegman’s: $240.67
    • BJs: $145.69
    • Other: $210.11
      • Local: $37.81
      • Star Market: $129.71
      • Trader Joe’s: $17.12
      • Target: $25.47
      • Other: $0

I only stopped for groceries once this week: Wegman’s, on Monday.  I got my free pastry (in the bag).

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Grocery Update

25 Monday Apr 2016

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This week I went to Wegman’s on Tuesday.  It was a pretty big visit.

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On Saturday, I picked up a few items at the farm stand.

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Then, on Sunday I made a small trip to Stop & Shop.  I didn’t get to take a picture of all the groceries before we stared cooking, but here are a few.  We were making Carne Asada.

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