Grocery Shopping

So, I do recognize that the title of this blog post may cause some people to flee immediately. Who cares about grocery shopping, and what is there to discuss on a blog, really? Well, in case you've been living under a log and haven't heard about this "extreme couponing" craze, it can be actually quite satisfying. Who doesn't like getting really great deals on stuff that you have to buy anyway (like food)? There are all kinds of guides out there on how best to organize your shopping so that you can save most efficiently and effectively, but here is my own personal take on what works for me.

1) Grocery Gadget - This is a free app I downloaded off of itunes for my iPhone. Get it (yes, it works for Androids too). You can sign up and access your grocery list either through the app or through the online portal when you're on your computer.

2) Weekly Circular - I shop for groceries primarily at Harris Teeter; I used to make a trip to Giant once a week too, but under detailed comparison found Harris Teeter to be superior as far as the price goes for all but maybe one or two items that I buy. Other than Harris Teeter, I only tend to shop for groceries at either Target or the local H-Mart (Korean grocery) -- but those stores only for specific items.

3) Online Shopping Cart - I hate when the weekly circulars only tell you "buy one get one free"... that still doesn't tell me how good of a deal I'm getting. If I type the item into the shopping cart, I can find out for sure how much the non-sale price is and what the sale price is. It even provides the nutrition info so that I don't have to go searching around the internet to find and compare products.

4) Coupon Binder - I was just putting all of my coupons into a little checkbook-sized folder, but I had a challenge remembering what was in there. After deciding to try the coupon binder approach -- which involves using baseball card protector sheets purchased on Amazon and organizing the coupons alphabetically-- I have gotten a lot better at actually making sure I use the coupons I have in conjunction with sales.


5) Wunderlist -  This is another free app that helps me keep things organized and has an online version too. I have a whole "list" set up for grocery coupons; each item in the list specifies the product brand, specific item name, coupon amount, and I place the expiration date under the task "due date". As I build up a larger selection of coupons, this will help me keep them organized and also provides me with a quick list that I can look through to see if I have a coupon for a particular item. You just have to be good about updating the list when you use the coupons.

Once a week when Harris Teeter sends me the weekly circular, I open items 1-3 and 5 in tabs on my browser. Starting from the circular, I create a grocery list from sale items that a) I actually need b) are a good price and ideally c) have a coupon to go with the sale. Sometimes they will try to be tricky and say "sale!" but the sale price is only 10¢ cheaper than the item would be regularly, so not exactly a great deal. I really try to keep this in mind and make a goal of saving at least as much as I spend. Although this doesn't always happen, I think it's a good goal to try and reach. If you can stock up on items when they are on sale, especially for shelf-stable items, it really helps to reduce the overall grocery expenditure. And once you get used to what kind of prices are good in general, you'll be in a much better place in the future for knowing when to buy and when not to.

For right now, my biggest weakness/problem when it comes to grocery shopping is making sure that I look around for coupons. There are a lot of websites available where you can print your own coupons, and I am really bad about doing that. I should also look at manufacturers' websites when I'm making up my list to see if they have coupons, too. Kashi and Seventh Generation are two brands that come to mind that usually have coupons available when I take the time to look.

Angry Birds

I'm not sure what is so incredibly special about it, but it seems that Angry Birds has become sort of a phenomenon for smart phones and ipods. Over the last few months, I have had multiple people tell me how great this game is and how I should try it out. Apparently it is one of the most popular games available from iTunes. So basically the whole point of all the levels of the game is to use a slingshot to fling these angry birds at their nemeses, these weird pig-like things, and blow them up.

While I normally do not get into these sorts of game crazes (I refused to give in to the Farmville stuff on Facebook), for some reason I decided I was bored enough to download Angry Birds on my iPhone (the free version, mind you -- I never buy apps!). Because Michael and I normally laugh to ourselves as to why these sorts of things become so addictive to people, I think he really was shocked to see me playing Angry Birds. He thinks it will rot my brain or something. Well, thankfully, I did not become a zombie. I played the game whenever I was bored and had a few extra minutes, and now I've finished the game over the last few weeks. I will admit that my little social experiment did show me that Angry Birds is kind of a fun game to play, but I still don't have a desire to purchase the full version. I guess I was just kind of curious to find out what it was about this game that got everyone so hooked. Maybe it's the cute little bird and pig characters, but I really have no idea -- and maybe I'll never really understand what makes some people want to play this game in particular. But at least Michael can be happy reading this post and knowing that I am finally done with that game he hates so much!

Sustainable Seafood Consumption

Figuring out how to be an environmentally-conscious consumer is important, but let's not kid ourselves --- it's also complicated. Especially when it comes to seafood. Some fish species are best to buy farm-raised, others are recommended wild-caught only, and some just shouldn't be consumed at all because of the state of the fisheries.

Salmon farming is a great example of this problem. So we don't want to over fish the wild populations of salmon, so why not just farm them? Well, farming can actually harm the wild populations in some cases. Crowding together fish in such a small area causes diseases to become epidemics, where as in the wild the diseases would be kept at low levels by predation on the sick ones. Huge groups of farmed salmon infected with sea lice cause wild salmon to have a higher likelihood of catching the parasite, with greater amounts of sea lice being transported to waters around the farmed salmons' cages. So not only does the farming hurt the local environment because it produces so much waste contamination in the water from the huge masses of fish that would not normally be there, but it also hurts the wild salmon by infecting them with parasites. You can learn more here.

Poor baby salmon. :(

Since we all want our descendants to be able to enjoy these species once we are long gone, but realistically, there is no way for us to research all of this intricate information on all species of fish we purchase at the grocery store or at a restaurant, I'd like to encourage the world to take advantage of the following tool. The Monterey Bay Aquarium has created a sustainable seafood guide to help consumers purchase wisely. Through either an online guide, printable pocket guide for your wallet, or mobile guide for your smart phone, the vast majority of the work is done for us. I can just whip out my phone if I am thinking about purchasing some fish at the grocery store, and the guide will give me a good idea as to what my best options are. Even some grocers that tout themselves as more environmentally conscious, like Whole Foods, still offer seafood options labeled as "Avoid" by the Seafood Watch Guide -- so as consumers, we have to be conscious of this all the time. Fish are yummy, so we might as well keep them around as long as possible and try to avoid population collapse.