Marty PSA

Warehouse clubs are a bit of a gamble. You might find a real bargain, and the deal you find may only be relative to the product. Brand names might well be cheaper per item than in a regular grocery store. But a store brand could be less expensive. And let's be honest: corn is corn. What difference does it make what label is on the can?

As such, I resisted the monstrous box of Cherrios offered me at my warehouse store yesterday. I like Cherrios well enough yet I don't want to have to eat them just to get rid of them, and store brand rolled oats so far as I can tell taste about the same, yet cheaper.

That does not of course mean there are no bargains at a big box store. I found vitamin D soft gels (I take one per day for vertigo) at a great price: two years worth for ten bucks, where a year's worth has been costing me $18. The allergy pills which I also take once a day were $15 for 365 tablets. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's a year's supply. The over the counter store brand with a 30 count was costing thirteen bucks every month. I checked the expiration dates, too: well after I will have consumed the pills.

So in doing the math, I saved $167 on both. By themselves that paid my year's membership while leaving me $112 ahead. And that's just two examples.

What it means is that if you're judicious, warehouse stores are worth the membership. Just avoid the Cherrios.

Friday Oatmeal

We're all, well, many of us anyway, a little too undisciplined with our spending. I know I am. And the fact is that it generally isn't the big expenditures which break our budgets. It's the nickel and dime stuff which leave us with $12.87 and payday three days off.

So in resolving to try and spend more wisely, on Fridays I am eating oatmeal for breakfast until I've eaten all the Quaker Oats I have. I'm trying to be old school Catholic anyhow and go meatless on Fridays as it is. This should help.

What brought this on was the big box of instant oatmeal which I bought at a warehouse store back in July. It was on sale, I liked the various flavors offered, and I should eat more oatmeal anyway, right? Good source of fiber or roughage or something, my doctor tells me. 

So there's 52 servings of instant oatmeal which I had to have back in July, and four of them have been consumed. Two of those were by my son and daughter in law respectively when they were in for Christmas. And that's not including the 8 count box of pumpkin spice flavor I bought in October because, pumpkin spice, right? So there's 52-4+8, or, wait, getting my calculator, 56 packets of instant oatmeal in a box on the fridge.

I'm going to eat them, two at a time, for my Friday breakfasts until they're gone. Then I will not buy that much oatmeal at once ever again. 

Unless it's a good price.

And it's the fruit and cream flavors.

And until the next time I lose my self discipline.

But up till then, it's not happening.

Another story

Mom always carries granola bars with her. One of the medications she's on gives her food cravings, and she likes granola bars. In fact she's actually gotten such a taste for them that me brother Phil buys them by the crate at warehouse stores. Very often the staff have to get a hi-lo and bring them out to his van on a pallet. But that's another story.

As Mom and I enjoyed our usual Sunday drive yesterday, I pulled into a Dollar General because I wanted to buy this blood orange flavored carbonated water they have, which is sooooo goooood. I'd never even heard of blood orange until I one day bought a bottle of this stuff at another Dollar General on a lark. Apparently there are oranges with a red pulp, hence 'blood' oranges, with a bit of a raspberry taste along with the expected orange dominant flavor. But that's another story.

When I had finished parking, Mom took about three granola bars out of her vest pocket and put them in the console between us. "I don't want to take these into the store," she explained, "Because they might think I stole them and it would set off the alarms and make all that noise."

"And I wouldn't bail you out of jail," I teased.

"I know that," she replied in mock disgust. "That's why I'm leaving them here."

And that's today's story.