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Monday, July 30, 2012

Grocery Shopping: Adjusting to a New Area...NOVA

With a new area comes many changes when you move across the country...new stores, new layouts, and new regional grocery stores.

Back in Chicago, my frugal routine of grocery shopping was rock-solid....head over to Village Marketplace on Dempster for all my produce, meats, etc, (and favorites like Eastern European candies, different kinds of sauerkraut and Jon's favorite, Kabanos smoked sausages!)...then head to Aldi for the standards, like sour cream, milk, butter, pita chips, etc.

Here in NOVA or Northern Virginia, there are a lot of different choices,...Giant, Safeway, Super Walmart, Target, Shopper's Food Warehouse, and a multitude of Latino grocery stores.  In Chicago, I liked shopping at the ethnic grocery stores....they usually had better produce, meats and prices than the "Jewel-Oscos" and "Dominicks" of the area and I didn't have to clip coupons to get the best price.  Today I have long list of ingredients for this week's meals (I'm also doubling up on cooking many meals so I can stock my freezer with easy meals when the baby arrives!) so, I need to find the best and most frugal grocery options.  I saw an Aldi down the street about a mile which I was very happy about!  Stores I don't know too much about are "Best Way" which looks to be a Latino Grocery Store, as well as a couple independent Latino grocery stores along Richmond Highway.  I am interested to see what they offer in prices and food offerings.

I have bought a couple items at Safeway during my first week, which seems to be a "Dominick's".  Good overall basic American grocery store, but you have to hit the sales and coupons just right and use their membership card.  I checked out Shopper's Food Warehouse, no membership card is necessary, and they double coupons up to $1.00.  (And it's the closest to our home!)  So far, I like their offerings, except they don't have a meat counter...they do have a fish counter though.  Strange trade-off I think!  Anyway, Walmart was a total disaster when Jon and I tried it out and it may deserve another chance, but I'm afraid...when we walked in a couple weeks ago, it was chaos...a DJ was loudly playing and screaming right by the area you grab carts, children were darting everywhere, and the atmosphere was enough to deter us that day.  We have found since then, that Walmart in NOVA has the best price thus far on Breyers Ice Cream,...which is very important when it's summer and you're pregnant!

More to come on my findings and frugal grocery adventures...


1 comment:

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