not2old

Once a week at our house

I cook it by browning it first in a skillet pan, salt, pepper & garlic, then before dumping into a pot, I flour the meat. Into a stove top pot, (pressure cooker or crock pot) add in water, onions, celery & carrots.

1.5 hours in a pressure cooker, 4+ hours in a stove top pot, 8 hours in a crock pot

When done & tender (remove all the bones), finish it off as a stew (add gravy browning & flour) or curry it.

We generally eat it as a stew with spuds with another side veggie, or over rice.

Souvy

You are the kind of person we try to avoid being behind in a checkout queue. A woman clutching a stack of flyers is always going to be a nightmare.

Shirtback

But I don't shop clutching a stack of flyers; I usually check the flyers & work out where I'm going to buy what before I leave home, & make a list.

That last post of mine was pointing out what grocery shopping looks like when I don't have a shopping list, & am in an unfamiliar store/area, & shopping in a rush.

Recently my daughter introduced me to a "smart" App with quite impressive coupons/specials for a local store. The time it took to process said specials at the till was ridiculous, & I was highly flustered/embarrassed by the time it took & would have given up, if the cashier & her supervisors hadn't wanted to to "help"/find out for themselves how the process worked* - fortunately there was no one behind me in the queue.

*they'd received a memo & the requisite "equipment" from HQ, but I was the first person apparently who'd attempted to use it. None of us had a clue .

BristolUK

It's truly amazing how some people just don't understand how simple that actually is and I don't understand why people are just not bothered about spending $100 on stuff - the same stuff - that will routinely only cost $60 to $80 after spending 5 or 10 minutes looking at the flyers. Providing it's easy to use 'this' store instead of 'that' one.

And that's ignoring the likelihood that you're out and about for work, or you have an appointment or you're at the cinema and you may get the opportunity to drop in and buy that good quality steak or whatever that's half prize in the store you didn't go to that week because the better overall deal was the other one..

It takes little imagination to achieve that saving per $100. Multiplied up it can be the best part of $2000 saved over a year.

Yet many will go to far more trouble to go over the border to buy or collect something in America.

bats

I did the fliers thing when I lived in a city. Never found the savings to be the 20 to 40℅ you're talking of. I shop now by choosing bargains and mark downs. I don't go out of my way to go to another supermarket. At 10c a km for gas and the next nearest store 36km away it's not worth the time and effort.

Souvy

A very good point. Many people don't seem to factor-in time and gas cost.

bats

another reason I shop in the town is that we need to support the local stores to keep them going and the place alive.

not2old

is the 'flyer price matching' not available where you live?

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.c...the-modern-way

http://www.publisac.ca/peterborough/...gories/grocery

.

Shirtback

It *is* a very fair point. I'm lucky to have 5 grocery stores & a wholesale open-to-public place within 10 minutes walk. The time/gas cost factor is one reason why I no longer bother with Costco: it's just not on my regular route(s). The other is that it's not competitive with local store pricing.

When I DID live in the Back-of-Nowhere, Costco & its nearest grocery stores were worth traveling 45 minutes to, once a month. Even then my local store had the best prices on meat (factoring in travel time). Veg etc prices & quality were crap.

bats

Good point!

BristolUK

But whenever this crops up I do mention it. Shirtback mentions the proximity of stores to where she is.

In Longueil they were all convenient for us and they are here too.

I really don't see this problem with time. Even if people never went out except for work, surely there's not much of a detour involved in going to a different store on the way back.

If you have some kind of appointment or need to collect prescriptions, does it not open up a different to normal shopping possibility?

The thing with a list is it's targeted shopping. You don't spend as long in the supermarket with a targeted short list as you do if you just go around doing your normal shop.

If you do have the good fortune to have two competing stores not far from each other all you're talking is 10 minutes on the flyers and 20-25 mins in each store rather than 45 minutes in one.

That's about an hour on flyers and two stores compared to 45 minutes.

If one of us has a doctor's appointment that opens up a 10 minute walk to a store we don't normally use. Is that really so time consuming and expensive by car? You're practically there already. We collect prescriptions from the pharmacy. It's a Shoppers and it routinely has bread, butter, cheese, bacon, milk, coffee, chocolate, toiletries etc at better prices than the supermarkets.

We have to go there so why not pick up these bargains when there?

My stepdaughter works 50 yards away from a Superstore. If they're selling something for half price or less, like they do virtually every week, she can call in and get it. This applies to anyone working in or near a retail area. That must surely be many.

Any time I'm out and I'm near to a supermarket and there's a deal on, I go. I'm out anyway, so an extra half hour is no big deal. It may even save me more time if it means I don't have to do a shopping only trip.

Admittedly I have more time than most as I don't work. But not being a driver it takes me longer to go by bike, on foot or by bus, wait for taxi etc than it would by driving. So for those who do drive it takes less time.

If I worked in town it would be easy to visit either of competing supermarkets. If my work took me to different places that ought to open up more alternatives.

I really don't see that we as a family are in a position that few other people are.

I'll bet if people just sat down and thought about where they've been in the last month for work or other things like doctor, dentist, hair, bank, hardware etc a lot would find that there were places they could have called in to buy stuff that would have taken an extra half an hour and it would not only have saved money but it would have cut the time they'd spend on their normal shop.

Last night we ate out. From there we walked the 20 minutes to a Superstore and we were home, with a cartload of shopping, 90 minutes after leaving Montanas. 15 minutes of that would have been spent returning home anyway so we spent an extra 75 minutes taking in a grocery shop.

Today, we don't need to go out and do the grocery shop. Where's the extra time involved?

Shirtback

It is here. BUT it's such a faff & very time consuming to deal with .

I do realise it might not be possible everywhere, but here it's a lot quicker to just walk across the road & buy the item cheaper at the other store.

BristolUK

Same as coupons too. Restricted to a particular brand when another brand is cheaper.

Not like the days before barcodes when you could present a handful of coupons for stuff you weren't even buying.

Souvy

Do you ever wonder if you perhaps retired a little too early?

Living in Longueuil must have been bad enough. Finding enjoyment in going grocery shopping there is something that would scare Dante.

BristolUK

It wasn't so bad. It was 20-30 minutes drive to downtown Montreal and easy to do it by bus/metro.

We were living with inlaws temporarily and grocery shopping was more me accompanying the others, just buying particular things when I was going to cook.

But there is something very satisfying about eating very well on the cheap and being able to put the money saved to better use. It's where the wine and whisky comes from for example.