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Thursday, October 16, 2008

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



7 comments:

  1. What a hoot! I chuckled all the way through. $100.00 a week works for us, I can't do the two week thing, but I do, do the $100.00 a week thing.

    You write well!

    Linda
    http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com

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  2. Oh my God! I finally know where Ben gets it from; his father!!! He and I will have the exact same conversation, only instead of Frito's it would be Orange Juice, and instead of cookies it would be scones.

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  3. Wow JR has quite the diet. Fritos, cahews and a beer, then dinner, and cookies and ice cream to top it all off? Everyday? Not a pound?

    Stumping both feet....life is not fair!! I gain three pounds every time I look at something yummy!!!

    We buy as much as we can at Aldi. Then all I need to run thru the store to get are the perishables maybe every 10 days or so.(DETEST grocery shopping) It works for us as we have being doing this for 10 years now.
    This summer we ran out of dairy products a few times. With a garden I had alot of produce already so didnt go to the store. Oops. They forgave me tho.

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  4. You are too funny!

    You know... I can't eat Fritos. They smell like puppy paws to me.

    Hilarious!
    Lacy

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  5. You've been tagged!

    Daryl finally made it to Az to pick up the truck. Woo Hoo

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  6. 5 lbs of Fritos vs. 5 lbs of butter, hmmmmm!!!! Great post!!!

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  7. How funny! I was imagining this conversation taking place between me and HB, only instead of 'Fritos' he would be arguing for ice cream.

    (P.S What are "Fritos"?)

    I am not a huge fan of 'tags' - but like you its mostly because I am always worried about who to tag! I quite enjoy doing them.

    ReplyDelete