Pump62kin

Forgot to tell the OP to check out the Farmers Market, located at 3rd Street & Fairfax. It offers food stalls, sit-down eateries, food vendors, and produce markets.

If you're a foodie, then the Farmer's Market is a must! It's located near CBS TV Studios.

Santa Monica also has a weekly (outdoor) farmers market, but it's nothing to do with the above. This market consists mainly of fresh produce. It's located on Arizona Avenue, a few blocks from the ocean. If memory serves correct, it's operated on Wednesdays in the morning and lunchtime.

off_again

I will admit that I am a bit of a Safeway fan! They have an excellent selection, good spread of options and a good size. Maybe I am spoilt a little, but the local Safeway stores to me are as big as or bigger than the local Sainsburys / ASDA that I had in the UK. That said, I didnt live in a major city in the UK, so I wasnt near one of the hypermarkets!

Luckys seems pretty good and has a different selections and Raleys are good. Walmart is good for some cheaper items, but shop carefully though - if its really cheap, it is so for a reason! But that said, they are generally cheaper on pretty much everything - though the Safeway rewards program is good.

scrubbedexpat091

The cheapest I can make a burger at home is about 3 dollars each. All the fast food places sell burgers of some sort for under 1.89.

Ground beef is currently pricey around here, looking at 5-6 per pound, a pack of buns 4-6 dollars and when feeding 2 people, and limited freezer space, generally can't even use all the buns before they spoil.

For a family it's likely cheaper to make it all at home, but for a single or a couple with no kids, many a things are indeed more expensive to make at home especially once spoilage is accounted for.

I can make pasta at home cheaper, but burgers I cannot, lasgna is another one I can't make from scratch at a comparable price.

Depends what the item is, some are cheaper to buy frozen, others to make from scratch.

Raw ingredients like cheese in the case of lasagna is high cost, along with high cost of beef, and well, 6 dollar frozen one, sometimes as low as 3.99 cannot be made at home anywhere close to that cost.

I make what I can from scratch, but there are some things that just make better financial sense to buy frozen or pre-made.

Nutrition is secondary concern when your limited budget wise, you can't always buy the most nutritious options.

Veggies, fruit and meat at the priciest of foods, frozen and canned veggies are really no cheaper.

Pasta, mac and cheese, canned soup and frozen pre-made dinners are the cheapest but generally not the best nutrition but they keep your stomach full.


Our pantry is sparse right now, hard to keep it stocked with such a limited food budget.

We buy little fast food, maybe 5 in a month is spent on fast food.

We had a 75 budget for our last shopping trip, we bought lots of sale items so got 90 dollar value of items for 73 dollars.

2 boxes mac and cheese
Bananas
3 cans of sardines
2lb bag of oranges
Grapes (annual treat, on sale 1.4 pounds 5.90)
2 lemons
1 loaf of bread
1 box corn flakes
1 bell pepper
2 hamburger patties (was 4.00 marked down 50% to 2 dollars, couldn't beat that price.)
4 tomatoes
1 gallon of milk
18 eggs
1 bag of frozen fruit
2 cucumbers
1 bag oatmeal

Don't get much these days.


If we ate 2 burgers a day each for 1.39 (1 for lunch, 1 for dinner) the total cost would be 5.56 per day for 2 meals for 2 people. I can't find a way to beat that price wise making 2 meals for 2 people at home, however we choose not to because health wise it would not be wise, but it's cheaper no doubt.

kevntrace

Safeway is the parent company, and it is headquartered in Northern California (Pleasanton to be precise). For some reason the same chain is named Vons in Southern California and a variety of other names in other states.

Safeway is where we do most of our shopping. We also use Trader Joes occasionally (owned by either Lidl or Aldi, I forget which). And a Whole Foods opened here a couple of months ago. Haven't ventured in there yet.

Our local Fresh and Easy shut down after the takeover. Now the nearest one is about 45 mins away and I haven't ventured out there yet. I do miss that store. I tend to pop into the Walmart Neighborhood Market if I just need to top up on things like butter and milk. The queues are much smaller there than Safeway.

You might also hear of Alberstons/Lucky. Used to be called Lucky when I first came to CA but got rebranded/taken over by Albertsons. I believe they are rebranding them back to Lucky, but not sure if that is a Northern California thing only. This chain is very similar to Safeway/Vons.

But IMHO all of them suck compared to a decent UK Sainsbury/Tesco/Asda. They have far less variety of products available than the UK equivalents.

Pulaski

That is not at all unusual. Kroger has many stores across many states in its own name, but IIRC Kroger also owns a dozen or more other chains that had a strong enough brand image that when Kroger bought them Kroger retained the separate name for that chain of stores.

scrubbedexpat091

A lot of grocery chains used to be regional in nature and then bought up by larger companies, but for marketing reasons they kept the names people were familiar with.

The reasoning for Vons in So. California vs the Safeway name just boiled down to Vons being the well known So. California brand, so the name was kept.

Vons used to be an independent company, was founded in 1906, or maybe 1905, somewhere around that time frame.

In 1988 Safeway closed up shop in So. California and sold the stores to then independent Vons for 300 something million and a 30% stake in Vons.

Then in 1997, Safeway acquired the remaining 70% of Vons and made them a subsidiary, but since Vons was the better known name and brand in So. California that name was kept.

In 1997 when Safeway acquired Vons, So. California consumers still didn't have a positive image of Safeway, so was best for them to keep the name Vons.

(No idea what the plans are now with Vons with all the recent stuff that has happened.)


We have Safeway in Canada, they used to be owned by Safeway, but were sold a year or 2 ago to a Canadian company called Sobey's who has thus far kept the name Safeway but not affiliated with Safeway anymore, and you can't get Safeway store brand products anymore.

Suppose they kept the name as the name Safeway is well known in this part of Canada where Sobey's is not well known.

scrubbedexpat091

Kroger has a good amount of banners.

In So. California they own Ralph's and Food 4 Less, and AZ they own Fry's Food and Drugs, and in WA (and other states) Fred Meyer to name the ones I can think of. (I know they own more brands then this.)

Food 4 Less outside of Southern California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Chicago, Illinois; NW Indiana are owned by other companies.

Fatboyslick

Yet to visit Vons but hit Ralphs, Pavillion, Trader Joe's and Walmart this week....Im really surprised how limited they seemed compared to the UK big guns.

What is interesting is how the UK supermarkets have changed in the past 5 years to support the changing buying habits - so there's lots of minimal-prep'd food (I don't mean Micro meals) and catering for people shopping for their evening meal rather than a weekly shop.

We definitely fell into this category and shopping so far in LA doesn't really support that style....it's very much cooking from scratch. Although Ralph's did have an ok hot and cold deli counter but not the scope we had in the UK.

One thing I've found super surprising is the lack of dilute-juice e.g. Robinsons, Vimto etc
I don't mean branded items, I mean simply bottles of the juice!

Not come across any yet other than Kool Aid which is like mouthwash and a powder anyway

sir_eccles

Is there a Cost Plus world market near you?

Fatboyslick

There is a couple - presuming they do juices if i have a look in store. Website has some good home comforts.

Obviously we all own one of these in our cupboards: http://www.worldmarket.com/product/t...er.do?&from=fn

dj6372

I like Trader Joes, on Sepulveda in Westchester, it carries some good tasty food, even carries Brit stuff at not too stupid a price!! They do a good Lamb Madras, and the OH enjoys their Chicken Tikka Masala!

They carry a good selection of cheese as well! not your yellow plastic cack, I bought some tasty Double Gloucester there!

Maryjo

Walmart is disgusting. Try vons or pavilions or for really fine quality food hit whole foods. Trader joes also very good quality. You will get great fruit and veggies at farmers markets which are all over the place. Gels ons is a rip off. They are closing locations because they are so expensive.

Maryjo

If you can find a fresh & easy near you you will get brit stuff. Owned by tesco.

scrubbedexpat091

Was owned by Tesco.

scrubbedexpat091

Wal-Mart's I used to go to in San Diego were no worse then the Von's/Ralph's/Albertson's.

Whole Foods is in a class of it's own, but mostly only high income people go there since they are quite pricey.