I managed to get a dump run today, then kept on going to town to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Particularly recycling bags, having just run out. Of course, I’m not going to drive all that way for just one thing.

This is what $142.86 looks like.

Okay, so I did splurge a little.

The clear recycling bags, XL size, were $12.99
I got a 4pk of energy drinks for $10.99 – saving a whole 30¢ by buying a case. The enviro fee was 4¢ I also got a case of Coke Zero for $7.49, plus 12¢ enviro fee.
Tea – Early Grey Creme: $5.49
Butterscotch chips, 2 packages on sale for $4.99 each (which also earned me extra loyalty points)
Ketchup: $3.99 (house brands; I just realized I accidentally bought low sodium. Ah, well.)
Popcorn seasoning, White Cheddar flavour, on sale: $3.99
Popping corn, two 1kg size packages, $3.79 each (I need to do a test pop of our own popcorn again, so see if the kernels have dried enough)
Whipping cream: $6.79
Ice cream, house brand, on sale: $3.99 – we have all those little melons, and my daughters want to make melon bowls with ice cream 😊
Whoops. I really should read the labels better. The receipt says ice milk, not ice cream. 😕
mandarin oranges, sale price: $8.99
bananas: $2.01
Marble rye bread, 2 loaves, plus multi-grain, 2 loaves, all on sale for $2.49 each.
Vitamins, all half price. The receipt lists them differently from other sales. B12, regular price $19.49, minus $9.75, Zinc, regular price $16.28, minus $8.14 and D3, regular price $9.99, minus $5.

Last of all was my “big” splurge, while I was waiting in line near the floral department.

I got a coffee plant. A “premium” coffee plant, no less. 😄 On sale for $16.99 That’s for the girls. It would be cool if we actually got coffee beans, eventually, but at least it’ll be a pretty house plant!

I also got a $10 lotto Classic pack (1 Lotto 6/49, 1 Lotto Max, 1 Extra), using a $10 win I got from a ticket I got from a free play win. So the win from a free ticket paid for the new tickets. 😄

Sub total: $134.27, plus $3.58 GST and $5.01 PST

As I was slowly going through the aisles, looking for things I might have forgotten to include on my list, I went past a woman looking at the pasta. I’d given the section a quick look myself, and even the ones that were on sale were ridiculously expensive. Walking past her I leaned over and asked, “remember when pasta used to be cheap?”

Oh, boy, did that get a reaction! She looked at me with a slightly stunned expression and said, “I’m an American!”

Yeah. I got it. Instantly. Food prices in the US are so much cheaper than here! When I commented on that, she told me about shopping in this store for the first time after moving here, and how shocked she was by the prices. Even taking into account the exchange rate. Yeah, that would have been quite the culture shock. She wasn’t just seeing higher Canadian prices. She was seeing small town prices. She showed me a package of spaghetti that was over $3. That same package where she was from sells for under a dollar. Our KD (Kraft Dinner) is getting close to $2 a box. They’re 75¢ where she’s from (I didn’t think to ask where that was). Boxed cereal was another one she saw a really big difference.

We had an interesting chat about it, and how it really doesn’t make any sense for our prices to be so much higher. A lot of the current increases are directly related to our federal government adding tax after tax to things like fuel, making the cost of just getting food to people so much higher but, even before our current dictatorship went nuts, Canadian food prices were a lot higher than in the US. There isn’t much reason for that, overall. Lord knows, the farmers sure aren’t’ getting much of it. It’s all in those layers between farm and store. That’s without even touching on specifics, like government price controls on things like dairy and eggs.

I think she really, really appreciated being able to actually talk about it with someone, even if for just a few minutes! She was really nice, and I quite enjoyed talking to her, too.

Anyhow.

This is was my small, but expensive, grocery top up.

Hopefully, one of those tickets I got will be a winner of something substantial!

The Re-Farmer