I was a military brat and my mother only shopped at the commissary wherever we lived. I didn’t set foot in a civilian grocery store until I was in high school.
After I graduated from college, I lost my I.D. card privileges, and then 20-ish years later, I married a retired military man and got it back. I went to check out the large commissary in the area and it had changed a lot-- in fact, it had changed into a regular supermarket!
When I used to go with my mother prior to the late 1960’s, the commissary we went to (after my father retired) was very regimented. All the shopping cart traffic was one-way. Seriously, up every aisle and down the next until you got to the registers, no back-tracking. If you forgot something, you sent your kid back to get it or parked briefly and went back yourself. There were the plain army-issue cans of beans, corn, etc., with the contents stamped on the end of the can.
Anyhoo, on my post-marriage field trip to The Post, I found that now you can go anywhere in the big, shiny, well-lighted store, in any order, and there are regular registers with scanners-- you know, 21st century stuff. They do check your I.D. card on the way in (which they don’t do at the PX–there they do it at the register if you buy something).
Are the prices really all that great? For savings to matter, do you have to buy large quantities? (My family of origin was just the three of us, and my married family was just the two of us.) Is the selection of groceries particularly good? I noticed a fair amount of German and Asian frozen items and non-perishables that you wouldn’t normally see in a regular grocery store. I found the produce department quite lacking–not even as good and fresh a selection as my local modest store.
So if you shop at the commissary–why? What are the advantages?
I have no idea what the situation is today, but when I was growing up in the 1960s, I knew several families with commissary privileges (I think the fathers were disabled vets or something like that.) It was entirely about the savings. The nearest commissary was something like a 40-minute drive, and it must have been a really good deal for those families to trek out there every week.
In Jakarta, the commissary carries a limited selection of items. If you had to rely on it for all your food, you’d eat really badly - mostly highly processed food like Chex Mix, granola bars, all kinds of candy, Kraft Macaroni 'n Cheese, Campbell’s condensed soup, taco kits, etc.
However, we like to go there to stock up on wine and spirits, as they are duty free and hence reasonably priced. Due to high tariffs, on the open market in Jakarta, even a bad bottle of wine usually costs $30 or more, and you’ll pay close to $100 for a single bottle of vodka.
They also carry items that, healthy or not, are difficult to impossible to source locally. Whole wheat flour (and American brands of white flour), kosher salt, frozen chopped spinach, and pretzels are high on my list of items to buy there.
I have a family member that shops there occasionally, here in the lower 48. The meat is much cheaper, and generally of a better quality than Krogers, and much better than Wal-mart’s meat.
My parents went to the commissary and Bx regularly after dad retired in the 1970’s.
They eventually started shopping at Sam’s Club after it opened. They commented it was almost as cheap, but you do buy in bulk.
The Bx had good deals on electronics. But eventually Sam’s Club had a lot of that too.
I don’t think my parents renewed their ID cards. It was always a hassle. They didn’t go shopping at the base in at least 15 years.
Dad continued visiting the VA for hearing aids and back braces. He had a service related disability. Working on the flight line cost him a lot of his hearing.
Mid-70s in Coronado, CA - I was single, so no need for a massive grocery buy. I went into the commissary a few times, and apart from having to wait in line behind people buying 3 cartloads at once (which I never understood) I couldn’t see any reason to shop there myself. The prices weren’t that much lower and the inconvenience was much higher.
Similarly when I was in Jacksonville, FL in the early 80s - I could do just as well at Food Lion or Winn-Dixie and not have to wait in ridiculously long lines. Did the commissary only get milk once a month, requiring people to buy 6 gallons at a time??
When I was deployed to Sicily and Spain, the commissary and exchange were convenient, but in the states, I couldn’t be bothered.
I save a lot of money going to the commissary, especially on meats. It is not as convenient as the local Giant, but if I need to shop for a lot of things, I go to the commissary. I wouldn’t compare how they were 10 or 20 years ago to the stores today. On a big base, they are just like modern grocery stores.
The only thing I find cheaper are the meats. Their hours tend to be really annoying (open at 9, close at 6, closed on Mondays) and I hate that you have to allow baggers to take your groceries out to your car, and then tip them. I do shop there occasionally for cheap steak, though.
The one I shop at, Andrews AFB, has better hours, and I don’t think they close on Mondays anymore, but I could be wrong.
They also have self-checkout lanes now, that always seem to have longer lines then the regular lanes. People with full carts will use them, as a way I guess, to avoid tipping the baggers. Seems like a lot of work to me to avoid a $5 tip to who are mostly older retirees.
My folks made the hour long drive to the commissary once a month all the way up until their deaths. They had a freezer in the mud room and would take those trips to stock up on meat and canned goods. Mom was a consummate shopper and could tell you the cost of a can of peas in every store in a 20 mile radius, she said the commissary was a better deal the vast majority of the time.
And you’re right, they are so different than when we were all growing up.
I go to a very small Commissary here and some items are a bit cheaper than say, Walmart, but not cheap enough to go out of my way for.
On the other hand, the PX Liquor store is a LOT cheaper, no tax, and a bit closer to my nearest civilian liquor store.
The hours are a bit screwy, though.
Yes, the commissaries in Europe and Japan had pretty much anything you can find in a US supermarket.
After I retired, we only had access to a military commissary/PX complex for the eleven years we lived in Alaska. I routinely shopped there, as the prices were significantly lower overall. I could probably have matched them by relentlessly shopping sales and clipping coupons and spending my weekend running around to a half-dozen different stores, but what a waste of time and gasoline. Traditionally, the biggest scores were on meat and dairy (and tobacco), and the PX had a price match on consumer goods. Find it on sale elsewhere and get the same price at the PX. If you had already purchased something at the PX and found it on sale for less up to a month later, they would refund the difference.
Here in Oregon, the nearest base is in Washington and the long drive isn’t worth it.
The commissary at the base in Riyadh was the only place you could buy pork, but you needed a ration card to get it, and only so much per month. Sucked when you wanted bacon but forgot to renew the card.
Just PLEASE don’t do your gift shopping there if you’re also somebody who is super touchy about people returning presents so they have to try to do it without you knowing about it. Unless everybody you’re giving things to also has access to the commissary.
Source: somebody who needs to have a yard sale. Soon.
Who gift shops at a grocery store? I wish more people did that “Yeah, I’d like a couple of Porterhouse steaks for my birthday, thanks!” Better then another T-shirt.
