But yes, we do tend to expect some measure of kindness and compassion on this site, even as we also vent our frustrations by saying things in a ‘blown out of proportion’ alert way.

It keeps the site more healthy to tone down the agression/anger once in awhile, although it’s unreasonable to stifle legitimate expressions of frustrations.

We just try to maintain a reasonable balance in many ways, especially on this site where folks are free to say almost anything. And, where folks are anonymous, too, they tend to be less careful about being as civil as they normally would be.

Besides which, I’ve seen other threads on this site where those advocating less hostility get “eaten alive” for their troubles…we have had our fair share of shoot outs at high noon! So we aren’t as backwater as it would first appear.

As for being “compassionate” and “considerate”….how about asking those check writers that wait until the cashier gives them their total to be a little more considerate by filling out everything but the total while their standing in line waiting. It’s just common courtesy…..nothing to do with being impatient. Even though most of us have busy lives and more important things to be doing than standing in line all day.
One of the main reasons I started grocery shopping late at night.

“But you know the thing that’s even funnier? People buy that stuff without batting an eye. It’s hilarious and a source of great humor for me. I have to admit I get a perverse kick out of watching really dumb consumers.

That’s quite a statement . You might consider me one of these shoppers. In some cases, I don’t know that I’m paying more, and in some cases I do, and don’t care! Somewhere in the great scheme of life, it probably all evens out. If you write the article, I’ll tell you my habits and maybe you can help me, OK?

I hope somebody starts a discussion topic on grocery stores. That’s a topic that could keep us all pretty busy for weeks, if not months–maybe forever–who knows. I consider myself a “professional grocery shopper.” I am really, really Type “A” about it.

There’s no such thing as the “perfect grocery store.” Each store has pros and cons. You need a pretty hefty “mix” of stores in close proximity to one another to be able to reap the differential cost benefits between stores. Luckily, we have that here in Idaho Falls. In most communities, the “mix” is too spread out to maximize. By that I mean you lose in gas and time whatever you gain by differential shopping. These days it doesn’t take much fuel cost to offset a small savings between items or item classes from store-to-store.
Quality, origin, code rotation, item class diversity, and many other factors affect the “shopping equation.”

Here in Idaho Falls, unwitting shoppers can easily double their grocery bills by failing to understand the retailing dynamics that exist between the grocery vendors here. I know for a fact that the managers of each chain are often spotted in each other’s stores making copiouos notes as to each other’s pricing structures. How do I know this? Because I see them with my own eyes! As a result, there is a small but welcome amount of inter-store price matching, mostly in the form of “Manager’s Specials.”

I really enjoy grocery shopping in Idaho Falls–it’s a lot of fun and really easy to save big bucks. With astute note-taking and an awareness of seasonal sales cycles, an agressive shopper can save upwards of 50% here. Beyond that level it becomes very difficult. Fifty percent is pretty much the maximum overall that one can expect. If you’re not very aggressive or Type “A” about it, you can still easily save 25-30%–that’s almost a no-brainer and takes very little effort.

However, you’re welcome to pay double if you don’t care–stores really love people who don’t mind paying through the nose. A couple of the stores here in town often have the audacity to triple prices on certain items and sometimes entire item classes. I often laugh out loud when I see this blatant piracy. But you know the thing that’s even funnier? People buy that stuff without batting an eye. It’s hilarious and a source of great humor for me. I have to admit I get a perverse kick out of watching really dumb consumers. Trust me–there’s bus loads of them in this city!

Well, enough rambling, I gotta get back to work so I can earn money to go shopping!

Checking Out, The Volunteer

That does strike me as strange that someone will deliberately spend more because the help there is supposedly paid more. I don’t know if that is true. I do know that I will sometimes pay a little more to buy from a locally owned business.

You are right about stocking up, especially if you have a “rewards” card at Freddies……that, plus the coupons, plus their regular sales (Walmart only has periodic “rollbacks”) really add up.
Plus Fred’s always has the ‘discount meat’ section, which sounds gross, but (usually) isn’t.

Plus, in my experience, the salespeople are always friendlier…

And I think it’s unfortunate that so many people think that the two Walmarts are the only shopping options in town. I do a lot of my shopping at Fred Meyer and I really like the store, I also found that once I gave in and started using the self checkouts there I never wanted to switch back to the other way again.