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Bottom dollar food

I would ike to know just where the nearest Bottom Dolla Food Store is to me So I could save some money. Publix is killing my food budget

leonore lindsay of FL @ Mar 23, 2009 19:03:34 PM

There's Aldi, Save A Lot, and Wal-Mart (also mainstream supermarkets' organic departments)

While not all markets have a Bottom Dollar Foods (or a Whole Foods for that matter), most shoppers tend to shop at mainstream supermarkets such as Kroger, Safeway, or Giant Eagle. Still, while Whole Foods tends to be pricey (as well as attract the vegetarians and the treehuggers), many mainstream supermarket chains carry organic and natural products as well...without the Whole Foods prices. And many such products are sold under those chains' store brands. Even Aldi, Save-A-Lot, and Wal-Mart carry some lines of organic and natural products. But, like many shoppers who could care less if something is "organic", the mainstream (non-organic) product lines still save you money over the organics. And many grocery shoppers, typically lower-income or budget-minded, are gravitating more toward "limited selection" stores such as Aldi and Save-A-Lot. Aldi, in fact, is owned by the same company as Trader Joe's...the German Albrecht family owns both chains. And Trader Joe's is a lot cheaper on some of their items than Whole Foods...and they primarily carry the "healthier" lines as well. Aldi and Save-A-Lot mainly carry store brands, and don't accept credit cards...but do a lot of business with food stamps/EBT cards. Wal-Mart's prices are much cheaper than mainstream supermarkets, but carry prepackaged meats. Some Save-A-Lots have meat departments where the meat is cut and packaged in-store, like most mainstream supermarkets, while Aldi's meats are prepackaged. Some people don't care much for prepackaged meat, since it sometimes contains preservatives and nitrites for longer shelf life. Fresh-cut meats don't contain preservatives. If you just want to cut your grocery bill to the bone, shop Bottom Dollar, Aldi, Save-A-Lot, Wal-Mart, or other such stores. Whole Foods...good, healthy food, but you pay a price...you can probably do better with Trader Joe's or a mainstream supermarket chain's organic/natural offerings.

Toby Radloff of OH @ Mar 23, 2009 16:48:28 PM

Short Sided Article

What is the cost to my family's health by switching to bottom dollar full of additives, preservatives and other harmful chemical laden food, instead of organic foods? Personally I would rather eat food that the farm workers do not have to wear gas masks while working in the fields. $5000 savings is not worth my family's health; instead we will save our money shying away from over priced sweatshop produced clothing and shoes.

Cynthia of VA @ Mar 20, 2009 12:00:44 PM

Comparison shopping

Well, there doesn't appear to be a Bottom Dollar Food that's Metro-accessible, so for me to shop there, I'd have to buy a car (or pay for a cab or a Zipcar), which would eat into my savings quite a bit.

Whole Foods has a reputation for being expensive, and I guess that overall it really is expensive, but I find that for certain items that I buy regularly, Whole Foods actually has better prices than the "regular" supermarkets. Tofu, for example (which I eat a lot, because I'm a vegetarian and because it's yummy), is $1.50/pound at Whole foods (last I checked) and $2.50/pound at my local Giant.

And then there's Trader Joe's, which has the best prices on some things (like whole wheat pasta and brown jasmine rice), but is very expensive for certain other things (like plain oatmeal).

So I've sort of settled into a routine where I buy groceries at five different stores (Giant, WF, TJ's, and two local health food stores) plus a farmers' market, and keep track of which stores have the best deals on which items. This isn't as much of a pain as it sounds, even without a car - in one trip to TJ's I can buy enough rice and pasta to last me at least a month, so it's not like I'm going to every store every week. Plus, grocery shopping is like a leisure activity to me, so I don't mind devoting a little extra time to it.

Johanna of MD @ Mar 19, 2009 17:26:52 PM

Lists

I usually plan all of my week's meals ahead of time. First, I plan what I want to make for meals and how long those meals will last for left-overs. To save the maximum amount of money, I try to make meals that will last us 2-3 days like casseroles or hot dishes. Then I make a list of all of the ingredients I will need to make those recipes.

When I get to the store, I stick with my list. If one of the ingredients is cheaper in it's store brand rather than name brand version, I usually go with that. Or if it is on sale, I go with that item.

I do not buy on-sale items just because they are on sale if they are not on my list. Even if I think, "I could use that someday," I chose to walk away from it...(gasp! walking away from a sale!!) because I know myself and the chances that I will actually use the item in the future is slim.

Grace of VA @ Mar 19, 2009 15:21:46 PM