Grocery Trips

I ran into a neighbor at the store this morning.  She has a 2-year-old and was at the store alone.  She commented how it felt like a vacation.   I told her I totally knew what that felt like.  Though they feel a long time ago, those days weren't so long ago.  Back when Molly was a baby, I would have her in the Baby Bjorn and the boys in the cart, rushing as quickly as possible before someone started to cry (preferably not me).  Once Molly could sit up, I had all three in the cart.  We strolled through the aisles a pretty merry party and poor single kids would look on with an air of jealousy. 

These all occurred before I started doing a monthly shopping trip in Florida on the first Saturday of the month.  And I never again had to take multiple kids to the store. I don't believe I ever had to take all four, so John really missed out on that experience.  He's only ever seen me calmly roaming the aisles, not highly strung due to a screaming baby or toddler or diaper situation...while trying to find the combination of products that gave me the break in price advertised.  Perhaps his earliest memories of grocery shopping will be the Sunday morning trips Eric and I took to the commissary while the older kids were in CCD.  Which we counted as a date.  We were dressed up, most of our kids were with someone else,  and we spent money on food ==> Date!

Now, my grocery trips are regularly solo as the kids are old enough to stay home alone for the hour or so it takes to do our shopping.  But, occasionally, one or more will ask to come along.  One such outing was before a camping trip that Will was grubmaster on.  Grubmaster means you shop and cook for your patrol.  I take these as opportunities to show the kids how to comparison shop and stretch the dollars.  As a result, our patrols have food fees much lower than other patrols.  Last spring, everyone else had $15 food fees for four meals...we had $7.

In the above picture, Will is marking the price of a bag of oranges.  Note it is on sale!  Just prior to this, I had tried a grape to see if it was worth buying (because we have had too many bags of grapes go bad that were not ever worth buying).  Will saw me do this and as I turned back to the cart trying to decide, he immediately put the bag in the cart with the comment that since I had done that, we had to buy it otherwise it was stealing.  Good point. That will be a lesson for another day.  The gray area of grocery store ethics.

Going with John generally means we come home with some dollar item (note the dollar in his hand, this time he came prepared, because you can never count on how generous Mom might feel by the end of the trip)

Nearly every trip with John also includes a pineapple

The boys anxiously waiting to see if we had come below budget.  Of course we did.  Will had been keeping track the whole time.  The one swap we made was discounted turkey for ground beef.  I explained that side by side...one would note the difference...but, at night on a campout with everyone hungry, the $2/lb turkey would taste just as good as the $4/lb beef. 

And post camping trip, he said it tasted 'good'  which is pretty high praise coming from Will.  And I believe we came in at least $2 or $3 below other patrols.  I doubt other patrols know they are in a competition with me...but, I am still winning!

So our grocery trips have changed quite a bit over the last 10 years.  Now shopping alone is the norm, and shopping with the kids is the treat.  If you categorize teaching my children the power of comparison shopping as 'a treat'...and I do.