Gasoline.
Gasoline/diesel prices keep rising. That kicks up the prices of veggies/fruits.
Steak prices at Costco are soaring and quality is down. So we buy good hamburger, pork and Costco Deli Chicken. We also bought chicken thighs as they are cheaper this week.
Yesterday, we did our first Walmart pickup order in months. We bought good wine, canned goods and other non perishable items at better prices than our local small chain.
About a year ago, Amazon started butting in with their prices on hardware type stuff on our monitor. This week I purchased more water hoses and nozzles to be ready for the fire season. Walmart had a better deal on 2 50’ hoses versus Amazon and Home Depot. So instead a couple of 100’ hoses, I bought 4 50’ hoses from Walmart. Amazon had an excellent one time deal on good nozzles in 2 packs. I bought 2 two packs and saved a lot of money versus HD or Walmart.
So, we picked up the hoses on our Walmart grocery pickup and Amazon delivered the nozzles yesterday. Everything is now installed and tested. We hope we never have to use them.
We are retrofitting things that need to be replaced in/on our home. Our Outdoor lights were in bad shape. We went on line and this time HD had a better price on the lights, and my wife had $125 in HD gift certificates. So we ordered 6 lights from HD and 6 dusk to dawn bulbs from Amazon. They are up and working.
My wife and I are like purchasing agents trying to find the best deal at the best price. My wife basically is the grocery PA and I am the hardware guy.
We buy most of our produce from spring to fall from a local farm family. Our neighborhood chain store has excellent produce. So if our local family doesn’t have what we want, we often find it at the chain on our way home.
We check out the Monday or Thursday sale items at the chain. Often the brand items and their own canned items have excellent prices, so we load up. We also donate a bag of canned goods each month to a local charity. A friend and her husband pick up the filled bag once a month and leave an empty bag for the upcoming month.