I have two refrigerators and a chest freezer. Also, I drive past five grocery stores on my way home from work each day.
Really, to each his own, I suppose. It's no effort for me to pick up fewer things three times a week than to go on a massive shopping outing once a month. The fruit, veggies, bread, and milk we consume, I'd rather have fresh.
Plus there are different sales each week, and you can buy accordingly. Fresh produce is typically tastier the 1st week you have it.
Homemade bread is way fresher than what the nearest town grocer sells. It’s a chain store (HEB - mainly TX) but gets the seconds. Bent dusty canned goods, moldy produce, almost never gets in the circular sales products, refuses coupons (not that the local paper has coupons), no bakery or deli and the “fresh” regular shelf bread is shipped in frozen. Milk? Ha, if you have two gallons in your buggy someone will beg for one of them because the store didn’t get it’s milk shipment or forgot to order it.
I’ve posted before of the empty shelves. Venezuela has nothing on us.
Once, they had a sale on frozen catfish pieces. After several angry calls, I was told to come in right away and “the guy” would meet me at the back. It was like a drug deal. All hush hush and don’t let the other customers see. “The guy” tried to just give me a pound but, as you know, I have a freezer to fill so made him give me a whole box. Even the cashier and the bag boy commented they didn’t know they had any fish.
The meat department is about the size of a couple of computer desks so they only bring out 3-4 packages of each cut. That’s another reason customers just throw meat into their carts willy nilly without looking at the price. It’s either grab it first or you’re out of luck. Once, there was a sale on London broil and they had to go to the back only to bring out one steak swearing that’s all they had.
They have what’s called a “meal deal” in their weekly ads where you buy item X and get like 3 other items free. Of course, they usually don’t have all the items. On a Mexican meal once, they used the usual excuse of “the truck didn’t deliver” the tortillas. I knew the game so asked when the truck would deliver them. Was told the next day. Yeah, and I’m supposed to drive back in for tortillas (as with most things, I make homemade ones). Ok, so how many will be on the truck? They said 4. Uh huh, would that be 4 cases or 4 eight count packages? Yep, just as I suspected, 4 eight count packages. See, Venezuela.