Yep, at my grocery store, all the different nuts in the loose bins are $1.98 per pound when you bag them (as the signs clearly tell you). But as the sign also clearly says right there w/ the bins, a bag you mix of ‘mixed nuts’ (ie some almonds and filberts and maybe some brazils and chestnuts and walnuts) costs $4.99/pound.
That’s $3.01 difference, b/c you didn’t have to bag a couple of the above-mentioned nuts separately and leave the store w/ them and go home and put them in the bowl together :D.
How freaking stupid does my manager think his customers are?!
In any case, now we know- conveniece costs $3.01 per pound.
I’m a semi- careful shopper. I’m sure I could do much better. I rarely use coupons for
instance, but I know they can reduce that grocery bill. Having said that, I find it the
cost of convenience incredible. I’ve recently seen tubs of mashed potatoes advertised
on TV??? What’s w/ these “helper” products, a small box of bread crumbs and a few
spices? I shop at a “bag your own” place. They don’t have Muzak, or most of the
other amenities, but they do have spices and dry foods in bulk at a fraction of the
price of the same products in prepackaged containers.
I also prepare large quantities, takes the same time and trouble as small batches, put
it in containers and pop it in the freezer.
I’m sure that most people don’t realize how much money they’re paying for
“convenience”, when in fact it’s really not all that convenient.
Another tip- ‘crown’ brocolli (the shorter, stubbier kind that’s had the end cut off) is dimes more per pound than regular broccoli, and all that’s happenes AFAIC and as far as the customer once told me is that the end has been cut off.
Not true. You loose the weight of the inedable cut off part. That makes up for the ten cents per pound difference.
I always account for the solution in prepackaged meat and adjust the price per pound in my head to see the true cost of the meat.
I think it funny that they want sepperate bags. The stores I’ve gone to don’t want the nuts sepperate. Tell us when a customer sepperates them at the checkout to save the money. Let your boss know too, it should be funny in an ironic way. (It cost money to wait for the person to sort the nuts.)
Well, now I know what a filbert is (a hazelnut). There you go.
I thought at first you were talking about the practice of charging a much higher price for packaged nuts - which may be a con, but there may be a hygiene justification. But what you describe is odd. I guess it’s to catch people who really aren’t paying attention.
We stopped at the grocery yesterday and saw in the parking lot where someone had dropped their bag of carrots - their pre-peeled and sliced carrots. C’mon now - how hard is it to scrape a carrot and cut it up??
It amazes me what some people will spend in the name of convenience.
No, I didn’t pick up the bag of carrots - someone had run over them.
To me broccoli crowns are depriving me of the part of the brocolli I like to eat raw (the flower part sticks in my throat) and charging me more. Also the stems are good in soup.
Another ridiculously expensive convinience is the pre-sliced and put-on-a-sheet frozen cookie dough… is it really that hard to slice a tube of dough. If thats too difficult, why don’t you just buy a bag of cookies?
Pre-grated cheese. I once heard something saying the price differential on buying pre grated cheese is akin to paying someone $80.00/hour to grate your cheese. I have no cite though, and no way to account for that number. Regardless, I get my two year old to grate the cheese. He is “helping” , I can see what he is doing, its fun for him, not that much work, and mean while I can do whatever else needs doing. (Make me an offer, he also sweeps floors and tries to wash dishes. Sometimes though he just keeps taking the same bowls in and out of the sink, back into the drainer, back into the sink. Bonus: your floor is half way to getting mopped after… that is its wet already!)
On the other hand, I do spend money buying fruit bowls of fresh cut up fruit (usually when they get the reduced sticker on them) simply because for that price I cannot usually buy as many different types of fruit. To buy a honeydew, a canatoupe, a fresh pineapple, grapes, strawberries and watermelon, in Canada, in November, would cost considerably more than my mixed fruit bowl. And the two of us wouldnt be able to eat it all before it went “funky”. So, what I pay for in “convinience” is also a savings for me in not wasting fruit, but still getting a variety. On the other hand, usually in summer I buy all the fruit, make my own salad and give some away. Depends on my time, price of fruit, etc.
I buy the broccoli crowns. I don’t eat the stalk part of broccoli, so it would be waste to me. I figure the $ per pound is offset by the lower weight. But if you eat the stalks, clearly the crowns aren’t the way to go.
I also buy the pre-cut carrots. I think of them more as a substitute for chips – a snack for when you just want to grab something quick, not prepare something. But if I am buying carrots to cook or go in soup, things like that, I do feel the pre-cut would be a waste. I’m probably already peeling something else.
I also agree about the pre-grated cheese being a waste. One roommate bought it, but she had rheumatoid arthritis and grating cheese would have been a major ordeal for her, so that made sense.
At my local groc store the broccoli crowns are about 10% more expensive than the whole broccolis. As a test I weighed one of their whole broccolis then cut the stem off, weighed the crown, and did the math. My result: a slight savings by buying crowns and slightly less effort. (I don’t use the stalks unless I’m making soup, and that’s pretty rare.)
In general I agree 100% that “convenience” is very expensive & really not very convenient. Over the course of a week feeding 2 people we open maybe one can, zero boxes, and no tubs, trays, or other signs of microwave “convenience”.
Real food for real people. Now there’s a slogan to live by.
And has anyone noticed that the bigger cans (sorry, in a hotel not at home so don’t have the actual ounces per can) of tuna cost more per ounce than the standard whatever-it-is 3 or 4 ounce cans?
I just buy several of the smaller ones and figure than opening 2 cans instead of 1 is a very small inconvenience to avoid the price increase.
I’ve noticed the same thing for some laundry detergent-the smaller size is much cheaper per unit than the larger so I just get two smaller ones.
I’ve a hard time when buying groceries though and the larger size is cheaper. Do I buy the larger knowing some of it will go to waste because I probably can’t use it all or do I buy the more expensive smaller size? It’s a puzzlement.
(The broccoli stems are the best part! Peel off the outer fibrous layers, the inner core is tender and flavorful. I like it better than the florets.)
It’s second nature to me - read the cost per ounce on products, not the total. Most of the time the large bottles/packages are cheaper. From there the next decision point is - if I buy the larger amount, will I use it before it goes bad? I’d rather spend slightly more on a cost per ounce basis, so I don’t have to throw away bad food.
I do cook my own food, and freeze the leftovers. Right now in my freezer I have eggplant mango stew, balsamic succotash, italian vegetable stew, whole-wheat flax bread, marbled-chocolate banana bread, cranberry hazelnut muffins, wine and cheese muffins, spiced rye muffins, and I am about to freeze spiked pumpkin soup. All home made.
I wonder if this is done merely to discourage the mixing of nuts.
Putting up a direct prohibition on nut mixing seems silly and would likely be ignored. But someone who wants to maintain a tight as possible control over inventory doesn’t want the nuts to go out without knowing right away which ones were taken.
Nevertheless it still sounds like a ridiculous idea to me.
Convenience has hit a new high (low?) in Thanksgiving cooking. Our Safeway has plastic tubs of pre-diced onions and celery, seasoned with sage, rosemary and thyme for making stuffing.
I guess you really need to be in a hurry to justify spending $3.99 for two stalks of celery and an onion sprinkled with herbs.
OTOH, if you never use the herbs any other time of year, it may be better than buying bottles of them and have them go stale.
I’ll go you one better: at our grocery last year they were selling “stuffing bread” – a spongy white loaf with sage and poultry seasoning and onion / celery salts baked in. (most of it went on serious remainder the following week)
There’s a freezer foods store around here that sells 6 packs of frozen microwaveable grilled cheese sandwiches. :rolleyes:
Otherwise, I don’t get it at all. I’d be swooping on the bin to gather my own mix if that were the case.