Grocery Shopping Woes and Wins

I went grocery shopping at 2 stores today and although I didn't have to go in the rain this time, it was very time consuming. I actually spend about  3 hours from the time I left my apartment to the time I got home. Grocery shopping has been an issue for us since we moved to DC because we haven't been fortunate enough to have a grocery store near us. And because we do not have a car in the city, it's been hard to find a system that works.

Initially we used a service that delivered our groceries right to our kitchen. I absolutely loved it. I thought it was one of the best parts about living in a city. But having groceries delivered to your house means you pay slightly more for some of the items you buy and it means you pay a fee of around $8.00 plus tip for the delivery person. The other method we used initially was to rent a car. We joined a local car sharing program called Zipcar which charges to use one of their cars by the hour. You can usually rent a car for around $8 an hour so it was even cheaper to rent a car than to have groceries delivered. Still, paying $8 just to get groceries is kind of ridiculous so we started walking the mile to the nearest grocer store and sort of making a day out of it every other weekend. We would hit up about 2 or 3 grocery stores that were within a few blocks from each other to make the trip worth our while.
Since we moved about 2 months ago to a new neighborhood I've been taking the metro or bus to that same area with the 3 stores and then metro-ing back home. This entire trip takes way more time than I want to spend grocery shopping. I could just go to one store and come home in about an hour but I figure if I'm going to be going out there already, I might as well make the most out of my trip. I've started going grocery shopping every week just so I can catch the best deals offered every week. Maybe I'll go back getting groceries every other week, or since I'm going every week anyway, maybe I'll just choose one store each week to visit. Either way I can't keep spending 3 hours grocery shopping every week. Ugh, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Anyway, I did continue on my stock piling mission today. Safeway had a special on peanut butter: $0.99 for a jar. I bought 4 (the limit you could buy) so I think we should be good on peanut butter for the next 6 months at least. I was also extremely proud of myself because I scored 6 cans of Progresso soup for $0.63 each. Giant had them on sale for $1.00 and I had printed a coupon that took off $1.10 if you buy 3. I did really great at Giant actually. My total before the sales and coupons was $25.47, and after the savings, I walked out paying $12.01. That;s more than 50% off!!!!!! :)

(photo: Dan4th, flickr)