...yes I am. I went shopping yesterday, and by the time I got home I was exhausted. Is it only me, or have prices gone up even more. Seriously, I almost had apoplexy. All the companies who advertise regularly on television have lost me as a customer. I can't afford them anymore. And fresh produce. Oh my gosh. We are supposed to eat our fruits and vegetables, especially only organically grown ones because the others are loaded with pesticides, and heaven knows what.
During the winter a green pepper costs close to three dollars. You all know I'm not crazy about fruits and vegetables and seldom eat them. But when I saw a deal yesterday for locally grown, red, yellow and orange peppers at THREE FOR A DOLLAR...well, I could not resist. I'll make a Mexican dish of some kind out of them.
I don't even stop at the meat department...I've not bought a steak in years, and although I would love to buy a pork roast, who on a fixed income can afford that. So I waltzed my cart to the canned meat department and picked up the house brands of chicken, tuna and the one we love to hate, too.
I needed a roll or paper towels. I was appalled at the prices. Since I was with a friend I knew I couldn't buy a multi-pack because of room in the 'boot', so I walked, and walked, and walked down the aisle...gasping as I went...finally I found a skimpy roll for sixty nine cents and bought that instead.
I wanted snacks, and strolled down that aisle. Eventually I found the house brands and bought some tortilla chips and crunchy cheese-its. My favorite Kettle Chips were on sale in the health food department, but I walked by those thinking the house brand would be much cheaper. To my surprise I was wrong and I raced back to pick up two bags of my favorites.
Now, let me just say...just about every expert will tell us you can't tell the difference between house and famous name brands. Don't you believe it. You can. Oh, they are all edible, of course. But, as far a quality goes, nope, they are just not the same. They will not be as salty, sweet, crunchy, or have the general good looks of those famous name brands.
Take a dill pickle for instance. My very, very favorite (Name Brand) dill pickle is not only delicious, when you open a jar of them, they have the smell, taste and texture of the kind you used to be able to pick out of a barrel in the general store. The house brand is just not the same. Now, I've a jar of second grade pickles in my fridge I'm having a difficult time eating. Yes, it's the house brand, and it's the biggest size, cause it was the better buy, but now I'm stuck with trying to drain the jar down to the last one. I think there are three left. Sigh. It will be a long time till I buy dill pickles again.
Anyway, back to the naughty part of this story. When we are done shopping my friend and I always meet at the in store coffee shop for a sit and chat. Yesterday by the time my cart was comfortably full, I swung it into the coffee shop. Normally I purchase a tall, decaf coffee, black, for senior...cost a whopping 99 cents. I was so unnerved by the prices I had to pay for my purchases I splurged on my coffee and bought a tall, caffeine, Carmel, salted coffee with extra cream. Cost...four dollars. Sigh.
In the end I didn't do too badly. It was First Tuesday, the day the store offers seniors a 10% discount on purchases of house brand items, so along with all house brand purchases and coupons I had my total bill was under one hundred and sixty dollars. Still, ouch...shopping hurts.
I'm trying to justify I deserved to be naughty.
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