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A stranger's comment about my grocery receipt saved me $40 a week
Standing in line at the Kroger on Broadway, the cashier glanced at my cart and said, 'You know you're paying for packaging, not food, right?' That hit me. I switched to buying bulk beans, rice, and oats from the bins instead of boxed stuff. Now I spend $65 a week total for me and my kid, down from $105. Anyone else have a random comment that reworked their whole list?
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ray_burns4d agoMost Upvoted
That cashier's comment sounds helpful, but I see it a little different. Buying in bulk only saves money if you actually use all of it before it goes bad, and a lot of folks forget that. Beans and rice are cheap, sure, but they take time to cook, and time is money too when you're tired after work with a kid asking for dinner. Plus, those boxed things often have fortification and stuff that picky eaters will actually finish, so you're not throwing half of it away. I'd be curious if your $65 week includes spices, oil, and other stuff to make those bulk items taste good, because that adds up fast.
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matthewking4d ago
My buddy Dave tried the whole bulk shopping thing back in March, we were both laid off and he had this big plan to feed his family of four on $50 a week. He bought a 20 pound bag of pinto beans and one of those huge sacks of rice from the restaurant supply place, felt like a genius for about a week. Then his kid refused to eat beans after day three, turned his nose up at everything with rice in it, and his wife got so sick of the texture she started making separate meals. By the second week, half the beans were still sitting there and Dave was roasting them in the oven just to try and salvage something, but they came out like little rocks. He ended up spending more on takeout that month than he ever did before because everyone was so tired of eating the same dry stuff, plus he had to buy a new can opener after the cheap one broke on the bag’s thick plastic. So yeah, bulk only works if your whole crew is on board, and Dave’s crew definitely wasn’t.
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