Safeway vs. Price Smart
Holy crap Safeway is expensive! How in the world do people actually afford to do their weekly grocery shopping at this place?? As a loyal Price Smart shopper (no, I'm not anti-union, nor am I pro-union, nor do I neccesarily love Jimmy Pattison, they just have better prices and us being on a single income it's the bottom line that counts) I was really shocked! I shop at Price Smart (Save-On for years prior to the closer Price Smart location that opened this past year) and can get a whole heck-of-alot more food there than I did at Safeway. We all have preferences on where we shop; my sister-in-law only shops at Safeway as well as one of Greg's aunts because they deliver, my sister goes to Ralph's Market, my mom shops at Superstore and anyplace else that has sales (she has a very small car and the gas wasted to go to 15 diffferent locations is minor compared to my gas-guzzling truck), so I guess we just get used to a certain place. And I have to admit that I don't buy my meat at Price Smart because I happen to like the meat better from Costco, and I try to get to Two E's as much as possible because the produce is so fresh and cheap, but the weekly shop for the regular stuff is always done at Price Smart.

This year Greg recieved a $50 gift card for Safeway from his work for Christmas again, and today I decided I would buy a few groceries with it. We didn't really need alot of stuff; a little fruit & veggies, some sandwhich meat and bread. I figured the gift card should more than cover the total (it would have at Price Smart!) but it was twice as much! My total was $105 and change! Now I know my prices at PS and I can guarantee that almost everything I picked up today at Safeway was close to $1.00 more. One example is the Eggo Fibre waffles that I buy for Benjamin - at Price Smart they are usually around $2.69 (which I personally think is too much, but any opportunity to get extra fibre into my kid is never overlooked!) unless they are on sale, and today at Safeway they were $3.50 per box! Two boxes for $7.00 if you wanted. I just about cried buying one box, but Ben loves them and we're all out. That's almost a whole buck extra. Now, if we had 2 incomes, I wouldn't give any of this rant a second thought, but holy cow - that's highway robbery!

Aww, come on, who am I kidding? I know that when I do go back to work, having that extra income will not mean I'll be going to Safeway. My truck knows the way to Price Smart without me even having to steer and that's where we'll continue to go.