Grocery Negotiations

I had read somewhere (probably a blog) that if you only shop once a month you’ll save a ton of money, mostly from not impulse buying. This made sense to me and really so little does anymore; what with politics, the recession, and the last frustrating episode of House. What can I say; I'm deep.

After careful consideration I figured that there was no way that I could shop just once a month. The whole rotting produce thing or God forbid running out of cheese. I decided to change to grocery shopping every other week. This seemed do-able. And, except for the little mozzarella incident we’ve stuck with it.

When I say we I’m using the royal “we”. The boys have not been quite so enthusiastic. But, they are along for this ride whether they like it or not!

Our 2 weeks are up tomorrow and the list of needed items on the refrigerator door has grown to novel size proportions. I’ve budgeted $200 for the next 2 week period so some major decisions need to be made. I thought bringing JR into the conversation would be a good way to get him to buy into the whole concept. Here’s an excerpt from our discussion.

Me: Oh look, Albertson’s has that buy ten things and get $5 off deal.

JR: Honey, the game’s on.

Me: They have some of the items on our list on sale.

JR: UH UH

Me: This will be a tough choice. Should I get 5 bags of brown sugar and 5 pounds of butter? WOW they have Fritos on sale.

At this point JR becomes engaged in the conversation. Fritos are a staple in his diet. Yes, it’s Okay if you hate him at this point. He eats Fritos, cashews and drinks a beer every evening after work then eats dinner then has homemade ice cream and cookies for dessert and NEVER gains a single pound. Not 1 single pound. Hating him right now is the appropriate response.

JR: Why do you need 5 pounds of butter? Why not get 5 bags of Fritos instead?

Me: The butter is for cookies. (Knowing that this would be the best angle to attack this kind of reasoning.)

JR: Okay, you really have to get those I guess. Can you get another 10 items? Maybe, go to the store twice? Then you could pick up 10 bags of Fritos.

Me: The deal says I can buy 20 items to get $10 off. So, some of those items can be Fritos. I was thinking more in the lines of 3 bags of Fritos, 3 bags of chocolate chips, 2 jars of peanut butter, and 2 boxes of oatmeal.

JR: Do you really need peanut butter and oatmeal?

Me: cookies?

JR: Right! How about cutting it down to 1 jar of peanut butter and 1 box of oatmeal? That leaves us (he’s getting into it now that his Fritos are on the line) 5 bags of Fritos, 3 bags of chocolate chips (they were never in jeopardy), 1 jar of peanut butter and 1 box of oatmeal.

Me: We could do that.

JR: Great. (As he shakes his jar of cashews at me) We’ll need some of these.

Me: Gee, they are not on sale but peanuts are. We could swap out 2 bags of Fritos for 2 jars of peanuts.

JR: No, that doesn’t work for me. Peanuts are considered good for you right?

Me: Sorry, my bad.

At least point JR is no longer interested in our grocery finances. He has gotten his 5 bags of Fritos and something exciting has happened on the game that he has missed trying to defend his beloved Fritos.

Love,

M