If there is anything that best represents our piggish nature it is our grocery buying. We went to the grocery store 255 times last year and spent a shameful total of $18,583.80. That is how much some families make in an entire year! As stated in other reviews it is an embarrassing task to go through your annual spending habits. However, it does help Lacy and I to create some hard fast new year resolutions to be more conscience of our spending habits.
As with all my reviews, there are some awards to be handed out in the grocery category. First goes to the most visited grocery store, which is Giant Eagle (99 times). If you are outside of Pennsylvania than Giant Eagle may not be familiar to you. It is the largest grocery chain here, and because of this the most convenient. In 2010 we lived in two houses. The closest grocery store to our first house was a Giant Eagle and they definitely benefited from it ($3,062.80).
Interesting enough, the award for most money spent doesn’t go to a place that we went almost a hundred times to. No, the infamous Walmart, which we 27 times less (72 visits), but spent over 3x more at a whopping $9,247. That is only $44.18 from being half of what we spent for our total annual grocery bill.
Shockingly Walmart is actually not close at all to either of the two homes we lived in last year. On both accounts Walmart was a solid 20 minutes away. However, Lacy swears by the prices of Walmart and is willing to spend the gasoline to get them (not sure if we make out better when you calculate the outrageous gas prices).
I think this review shows just how much we consume here in America, or maybe it is just my family. Yet, I have a sneaky feeling that this is not the case.
Company Times Visited Total Amount Spent Recommendation Review
Aldis 1 $7.36 Lacy Likes We were introduced to Aldis by a friend and we liked the prices. However, it isn't really close to us. Futhermore, I could see us always forgetting to bring our own bags, because the store doesn't provide any.
Costco 28 $4,292.57 Lacy & Ryan Like Lacy is a big fan of Costco and would live here if she could. Ryan is just a big fan of their free food Ü.
CVS 1 9.78 Lacy Likes There are not a lot of CVS in the west, so when we came to Pittsburgh we didn't know about the store. However, after having our doctor's office recommend that we buy our prescriptions there we have found it is a great little store (very similar to Rite Aid). A little pricey, but very convenient.
Dollar Tree 9 $97.33 Ryan Likes In college Ryan lived off of the Dollar store. Now he bases where we will live on whether a Dollar store is at least 5 minutes away (note: you can buy 1 gallon bags at the dollar store, which normally cost $4 at a regular store, FYI).
Giant Eagle 99 $3062.8 Lacy & Ryan Tolerate Giant Eagle is the largest grocery chain in Pennsylvania. It is overpriced, but usually the closest grocery store (as you can see that we visited it 99 times this year). Their produce is far superior to Walmart's but still overpriced. This store is a necessary evil for our family.
Harmons 1 $84.22 Lacy & Ryan Tolerate On our Utah trip we went to Harmons to try to save money by not eating out. However, Harmons is like most grocery stores that are not Walmart -- overpriced.
Kuhns 25 $738.74 Lacy & Ryan Tolerate When we moved to our new house in Pittsburgh Kuhn's was the closest grocery store, but way overpriced (even by Giant Eagle's standards).
Magee Garden 1 $2.13 Lacy & Ryan Like When our little girl was born we decided that we needed a little break from the hospital food and splurged at Magee Garden, which is a convenient store in the hospital. It was surprisingly not that expensive, and the hospital did a great job making you feel like you weren't in a hospital.
Rite Aid 6 $117.23 Ryan Likes Rite Aid is with walking distance from Ryan's office, which means that is where he usually finds the snacks for his office. If you have ever been to Rite Aid you know that you can find very unusual and fun things there, but you also know you are going to pay more than if you found them in another store.
Safeway 1 $20.89 Lacy & Ryan Tolerate On our trip to Montana we stopped in the local grocery store, which happened to Safeway. When you are pampered by Walmart's cheap prices it is hard to swallow the prices of the other groceries. Safeway has done a great job making their stores feel like you are a small town bakery/grocerier as do their prices.
Sam's Club 1 $38.27 Ryan & Lacy Don't Like Lacy asked all her facebook friends about Sam's, and everyone said Sam's is overpriced. We bought a chair there with our parent's membership, and when we got the chair home it was broken. Ryan kept the receipt to return it, but it has been 8 months and he still hasn't done it. Regardless, we weren't impressed with Sam's.
Smiths 1 $25.75 Lacy & Ryan Tolerate Smith's is a Kroger brand grocery store, that we went to on our second trip to Utah. If you read our other reviews on grocery stores (with the exception of Walmart) you will see that we feel they are overpriced. Smith's was no different, but we did enjoy their bakery.
Trader Joe's 1 $6.49 Ryan Likes Ryan had to buy olive oil and Trader Joe's was the closest store. He liked how niche the store was, and that there were a lot of products that he couldn't find in regular grocery stores. Our friends the Matthews are always ranting and raving about Trader Joe's. It is definitely a store we will have to explore more.
Walgreens 3 $83.89 Lacy Likes Like CVS Lacy likes to use Walgreens for prescriptions. Other than that she wouldn't buy groceries due to the high prices.
Walmart 72 $9247.72 Ryan & Lacy Like In Lacy's opinion the cheapest way to shop.
Shop N Save 5 $748.63 Ryan Likes Decent store, but not as cheap as Walmart