Jan 20 2009
Grocery Shopping on Retirement Budget
Retirement Budget is meant to sound meager, but it doesn’t mean we have to be living on scratch in order to conserve at the grocery store.
Practical grocery shopping to reduce expenses is appropriate for all of us….except maybe for those who have “people” to do their shopping.
I don’t have “people” to run to town for my groceries, so I do it myself. I am retired and my wife works full-time, over 40 hours a week, usually. I pride myself on finding the best deals…but sometimes I am shocked by what I have overlooked! I will give you just two examples, both in the produce section:
Carrots: I was buying those cutsy little “baby” carrots in the little packages. Once I found out they weren’t really “baby” but just cut and tumbled like rocks to peel them down to size, I took another look. 
Regular carrots cost less than half of what the “baby” carrot packages cost per pound. After purchasing the regular sized carrots and shaving off the outer skin, I found that the regular-sized carrots tasted better! Yes! And then I discovered that they also kept fresh in the refrigerator better than the “baby” carrots, which always seems to get slimey before we ate them all. So. Fresh carrots. Full-sized. Half the cost.
Second example is Baby Spinach. Now, I insist on buying my spinach already washed because the spinach “bunches” have long stems and always seem to contain dirt. The most common way to buy this “baby” spinach is in the plastic containers….five ounces for $4.99. The larger container is usually two dollars more, at $6.99, but the container is one pound! Three times as much! Five ounces for $4.99 is like $15.00 a pound for spinach!!
Organic baby spinach is also available in bulk at my local organic grocery store for $6.99 a pound. And sometimes there are sale prices. It’s too bad that spinach doesn’t keep very well. We have pretty much solved that problem by not having other lettuces like romaine, etc., in the refrigerator at the same time. When we buy spinach…we EAT spinach!
As they say on television, “We’re out of time today, but will have more grocery store suggestions again during another visit.”
I have never heard of carrots being tumbled and peeled as you describe.However,we have here a breed,(if that’s the right word) of carrot called Dutch,and it is a small vegetable,about 6 inches long at best.Easy to grow,even in pots,and all you have to do is wash them.Yum.