Food Co-Op Order

So I got my first order from the co-op on Saturday, and it has turned out to be wonderful thusfar.  There were a few volunteers there to help with signing off on volunteer hours and checking off your food.

Since I was new, a guy was helping me get my food boxed up (it is on several tables and they give you a little checklist to gather your share).  He more or less took the list and took over, until the matronly “over-seer” said to him, “I told you to help her, not do it for her.”  I am rather bent out of shape about his help at THIS moment, because I just realized that I did not get ANY of my tomatoes.  If I’d been doing it myself, we all *know* that I would have my six, juicy tomatoes.  I could really use them, too, because I used my last tomato making Spanglish sandwiches this morning!  Ugh!!

Moving along…this month’s share was:

Standard Share

• 2 8oz. top sirloin steaks
• 4 5oz. pork chops
• 2 lbs. chicken legs and thighs
• 1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 lb. rice (white or brown)
• 1 loaf Stoneground’s artisan wheat bread
• 3 lbs. yellow onions
• 6 lemons
• 8 apples
• 1 cantaloupe
• 3 red bell peppers
• 1 romaine lettuce
• 2 avocados
• 6 tomatoes

And it looked like this (forgive the flashed-out quality of the photos, please; I was in a hurry):

Sadly lacking tomatoes!

Romaine & Artisan Wheat Bread

Brown Rice

Yummy fruit!

Mmmmmeat!

The Standard Share, in most of its glory!

Again, this was all for TWENTY-THREE bucks.  Not too shabby, eh?

Part Two: Why I Am So In Love With Smith’s, I Just Might Marry It

One of my favorite quotations is by my good friend, Henry David Thoreau:

Write while the heat is in you.  The writer who postpones his thought uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.  He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.

Ladles and jellyspoons, I do not want to attempt to burn a hole with a cool iron, so my previously promised post is going to be a shell of what I originally planned.  The fact of the matter is that two whole weeks seem to have escaped me, so I’m just going to pick up from today, rather than where I left off.  Mea culpa.

So, without further ado, The Frugal Bird’s Condensed Version of Part Two: Why I Am So In Love With Smith’s, I Just Might Marry It

I shopped at Smith’s for Thanksgiving last year and it was like running into an old flame.  I was intrigued, and, well, pleasantly surprised by my experience.  I hadn’t shopped at Smith’s in a few years and had been doing 99% of my grocery shopping at The Walmart (yes, The).  I figured that the one-stop-mega-humungo-emporium would naturally offer the best prices for all of my food needs.  My visit to Smith’s that November (initially planned to pick up produce items The Walmart couldn’t provide) showed me that I *wasn’t* getting the best prices or grocery variety that I could.

I left the store that day thrilled with the Fresh Values savings *and* that I had found everything I needed.  I even told my husband that it would be worth it to make the drive two cities north to shop there.  However, it was winter and I was tired and lazy, so it wound up being another of my abandoned ideas.

Until my trip on the 16th.

Equipped with my list and envelope of coupons, I entered the store.  I immediately found ALL items I was looking for, at or LOWER than the price I had down.  The trip was easy (with the exception of my baby having a complete melt-down because I was shopping during nap time) and I saved TONS of money.  How much, you ask?  Between coupons, sales and Fresh Values, I saved 26% of my bill! That’s over a quarter of the money I would otherwise have spent sitting cozy in my bank account.  Now, I know that through becoming a coupon goddess you can save way more, but I was quite pleased with my transaction, my $0.10 fuel reward and to see that I am just 54 baby points away from a $10 certificate.

Because the baby had a breakdown in the store, I never made it to Macey’s or Albertson’s, but that’s okay.  When I take my next shopping trip (within the next week or two), I will try to time it so that my dear husband can stay home with the baby so I can hit up those two stores.   My mental opinion of Albertson’s is that it is over-priced, and my opinion of Macey’s is that it is a bit of a PITA (pain in the arse)–much like Ream’s–but I’m willing to give them another shot.

Overall, though, I think I will make Smith’s my primary grocery store.  I am just pleased as punch with my experience there!