The mighty scavenger

[torquill]

I feel like I've dragged home an elk, and now I need to render and store it.

As I gaze across the vast fields of plastic bags, I am pleased with my work today. I went out to do The Shopping Trip for the majority of the disaster supplies. I stopped at the hardware store to get things like heavy-duty trash bags, shop towels, and drinking-water tablets, then went kitty-corner to the Albertson's store for groceries.

I had heard that store was closing, in Albertson's effort to shrink its presence here. The signs were up all over saying everything must go, but I went in to see whether they still had anything on my list. Boy, I'm glad I did.

The shelves were almost full. Everything was either 15% or 25% off. I spent two hours in there, examining every shelf for stuff we need to store, or stuff we use all the time and could stand to save on.

I have never before filled a shopping cart.
I have never before spent over $300 on one grocery-shopping trip.

The initial bill was something like $519. The guy asked me whether I had a savings card, and I practically threw it at him. Then we all waited about three minutes as the computer meticulously applied discounts. I ended up paying $325 for a trunkload of groceries, and I have the three-foot receipt to prove it.

Now the stuff is all spread out on the living-room floor, and I am just about to sort it. We have almost all the food and most of the toiletries now, though... I need to grab little things like hand sanitizer and a few more energy bars, but the bulk of it is done. I'll buy the water tomorrow (because that was one of the things that fled the store first). I need to go back to the closing store next week to grab some more spices, as the discounts will get deeper and there's no way they'll clear the spice racks and the several flats of vanilla by then. (I got mincemeat for $5/jar!)

They were out of chips, jello, rice, and cosmetics. Weird to see what goes first.

Comments

[knaveofhearts.livejournal.com]

I need to design some disaster kits -- car, home, work, and travel -- in an ideal world.

Maybe we could work on that sometime.

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

We haven't quite pinned down what goes in the car kits, but we have things like mylar blankets and little first-aid kits. It's a start.

We have a whole folder of articles and notes, now. I can bring some of that down some Tuesday afternoon.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where you live so I dunno if it's practical or not, but palecur and I were at the Milpitas one (Calveras/237) today and they had plenty of water. Most of it was in large bottles rather than crates of small bottles, but there was plenty.

They also had tons of chips and jello. I think they were out of cosmetics, though I didn't look specifically -- I just saw that the row with haircare products and acne creams looked like a former Soviet Union market.


They had much wine, but little beer (mostly swill, though there were a few Sierra Nevadas and similar quality six-packs). Tons of juice, soft drinks, and non-fizzy but very sugary beverages were everywhere.

I felt annoyed because I came in because their sign said 70% off. It didn't say "up to 70% on select merchandise", it just said 70% off. It turned out that they were referring to greeting cards only. Harumph. Still, my fridge and cupboards were empty and after going away on vacation, I don't have the budget to go someplace trendy or snooty like I usually do.

I now own umpteen cans of crab, boxes of mac & cheese, and cookies. I'm going to make a fort!

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

I'm in Concord, and I don't seem to be traveling to the South Bay quite as much as I sometimes have. So I'll leave the Milpitas one to you.

Not interested in the cosmetics, just intrigued by the utter desolation of those shelves when so many of the others were quite well-stocked. And yeah, the whole personal-care aisle was bare, except for hair dye and some toothpaste. I think the selloff started today at this store, and I heard that they're going to keep reducing prices for three weeks until it's all gone. (Maybe I should check back when they're giving away shelving units.)

Ours had lots of juice -- if you didn't want cranberry. I thought that was an odd hole.

I'll be hitting Costco for a score or so of the square 1-gallon Crystal Geyser bottles. They're securely reclosable, durable, easily stackable, and I can drink the water in them (not always the case!). They rock. Add a 12-pack of little bottles to that, and we should be set.

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Square bottles? That's great. I use three-gallon bottles that are supposed to go into water coolers and dispensers. They reclose well, but they aren't stackable and they are very heavy. They're also inconvenient to refill because I have to take them upstairs and use the faucet in the bathtub. Which means, of course, that I have never changed the water in them.

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to replace those bottles with square, one-gallon ones.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

(nods) I noticed that the vitamins and supplements were nearly all gone.