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The Costco/AMEX Strategy: It WORKED!

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A month has gone by since I resolved to visit Costco once (count it: 1ce) a month and no more! This, in hopes of keeping the spending more or less under control.

The theory was that Costco is a gigantic hole into which to throw money, an effect amplified by the refulgent impulse buys that call out to one the instant one enters the door.

So last month I flew in said door on the first day of the February/March budget cycle, which begins on the 22nd of any given month (the day after the AMEX billing cycle closes). Being out of just about everything, I dropped $350 that day.

Holy mackerel.

But… As a practical matter, over the course of several Costco trips in any given month, I diddle at least that much away. The idea is, if I could make one monthly giga-junket and then fill in the blanks at grocery stores for the rest of the billing cycle, maybe I wouldn’t spend as much. Because I wouldn’t be entering Impulse Buy Paradise more than once a month, over any given budget cycle I would tend to buy mostly things I need, rather than repeatedly and ecstatically grabbing stuff I could live without. Comfortably.

And y’know what? It seems to have worked. American Express says the bill for the period that just closed was a piddling $1145, which is $55 below the amount budgeted for discretionary spending. I had two extraordinary (unplanned) bills last month, one for a plumber and one for a pool dude, and still came in under budget!

It’s a miracle.

Long as we speak of miracles, today when I went in to stock up on a slew of things that had run out — in specific, meat and veggies to make dog food, an expensive proposition — I spent $240, well under last month’s fling. And that included a pair of pink (!) jeans and a cool coordinating shirt.

Well. The jeans apparently are mismarked — they’re say size 8 but fit like size 6. So that return will bring this month’s Costco spend down to about $225, more than a hundred bucks less than I spent last month.

Last month’s relatively modest AMEX bill included a lot of trips to Whole Foods and to AJ’s, a gourmet-style market that’s a lot closer to my house than WF. I spend a lot more money than I need to in those places — obviously if I shopped in places like Fry’s and Albertson’s, my monthly disposable budget could be less than $1200.

However, I can afford that much and think I do without quite enough:  never travel, rarely eat in restaurants, buy my clothes at Costco or off the second-hand and surplus racks , drive a 15-year-old junker… There’s a limit already, with the asceticism.

Anyway, whether you live like a monk or not, consider: find the purveyor that consumes the largest part of your monthly budget, cut the number of visits to that retailer, and substitute purchases from other stores. See if that helps to bring down overall expenditures.

Stupid Retail Management: Why Amazon Is Taking Over the World

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Yesterday I went into FIVE stores searching for a few small items. I found one, count it one, of the items I set out to buy. Scratch that: at one store I found exactly what I wanted, but I couldn’t get them to take my money. As I marched angrily out of the third store, I said to the clerk, “I’ll get it on Amazon.”

Not that I want to pay two bucks in shipping charges for a bundle of damn hairpins. But if I have to, I will.

At 20th Street and Camelback, the hub of Phoenix’s East Camelback commercial district, there’s a big old shopping center that has, to a degree, been gentrified. Several useful stores (one imagines…) are gathered there. So when you have a half-dozen stupid little errands, it’s convenient to brave the UNHOLY parking lot so as to hit three or for stores at once. Videlicet:

yuckPetsmart: I wanted a bottle of puppy-repellent whose brand name is “Bitter YUCK!” You can get Bitter Apple just about anywhere, but in my experience, it doesn’t do much to deter dogs from chewing…in fact, the Late Great German Shepherd Anna actually developed a taste for the stuff. “YUCK” is what it says it is: truly yucky, to humans as well as dogs. Spray it on something, and the parfum de revolting will not go away soon. Get it on your hands, and good luck washing it off. It is, in a word, great.

Oh: the plan, by the way, was to spray the lamp cord that Ruby likes to choff on with YUCK, then take some clear Scotch-type packing tape and stick the cord to the baseboard, tape it up the wall to the outlet, and tape it up the inside support of the little table where her favorite edible lamp resides. I figured the combination of Gag-a-Dawg stink and sticky tape would bring an end to Ruby’s as-yet-unsuccessful efforts to electrocute herself.

So, to Petsmart.

No. They do not carry “YUCK” anymore. The only choices were some wimpy “natural” bullshit stuff and Bitter Apple bullshit stuff. Faced with no choice, I came away with a bottle of Bitter Apple, a product that I did not want. At this point, I had yet to realize that almost everything I needed was going to have to be ordered from Amazon — if I’d known I was going to be racking up charges at Amazon, I wouldn’t have bought the effing Bitter Apple. In fact, I may take it back the next time I’m in that vicinity.

Next destination: Ulta, the mega beauty-supply store, open to the public. My hair is now long enough that I can wrap it up in a fine elegant bun on top of my head. First time I surfaced at the church in this “do,” I got a slew of compliments on how grand it looked. And now that the weather is warming, I’d like to get the fur collar off my neck.

Pinning such a bun up can be done with regular bobby pins, which I happen to have. But bobby pins are fingernail-breakers and tooth-chippers. I would like to have the type of pin that’s kind of U-shaped. They look like this:

hairpinsA humungous beauty supply store would seem to be the place to find such an object, wouldn’t you think?

Well. Yeah. But no. The only ones they have are black. My hair is bronzey-blondish-brown….about the color of those cheap brown pins you see above. Apparently Ulta thinks only Mexican and Black women grow their hair long enough to wear it up. Ay, caramba!

Moving on, at Michael’s I did find what I wanted, mostly: a small crochet hook, some pop-open knitting markers, and a (very good!) beginner’s how-to-knit book. They did not have a knitting needle gauge, which was annoying, but there’s no urgency to get that. So I load up on these and get in the line for the cash register.

This particular Michael’s is set up in the same annoying crowd-control way as a Fry’s Electronics, where they herd you into a long line and you wait for the next cashier who comes free. That, while the cattle-control mode is irritating, does speed things along. Or…it would, if they had more than one cashier.

The single woman they had at the cash register was one of those people who moves very, very, v-e-e-e-r-r-r-r-y-y-y-y-y slowly, as if she were swimming through molasses.

I mean, really. I know there are people who must have a physiological problem that prevents them from moving their arms and hands and legs at a normal rate of speed. And that’s OK. But why hire such a person as a check-out clerk??? Surely a big store like Michael’s must have some other job she could do well, be paid for, and not make the customers crazy. And is there some reason Michael’s can’t hire enough cashiers to put two on duty when things get busy?

A line of about ten people, four of whom were ahead of me, stretched back toward the store’s display shelves. More customers were joining the end of the line as the rest of us stood there. And stood. And stood. And stood. And stood….

It took this lady almost ten minutes to check out the woman at the head of the line. As one of the people in front of me stepped forward to take that customer’s place, I realized that even if Molasses-Woman could check out each person ahead of me at the rate of five minutes apiece, it would be close to twenty minutes before I would get to her register.

Screw it! I put the junk down on a display rack and walked out of the store, empty-handed and pissed as hell. And determined to order all those things on Amazon.

Next: Staples, thereinat to purchase a roll of clear packing tape, for the purpose of securing the lamp cord from roaming puppies. Miraculously, I find exactly what I want there and only have to waste about five minutes standing in line at that store’s cash register.

You’d think I’d be happy, no?

No.

Why? Because as I’m standing there waiting for the woman ahead of me to turn in about twenty empty ink cartridges to be refilled, I realize that if I’d known I was going to have to buy Bitter Apple instead of YUCK!, I could have gotten both items at a Target or at the huge Fry’s Supermarket that’s roughly on my route homeward from my Thursday morning business group meeting. If one of the stores did not carry the specialty item I wanted but instead offered me a product I could get almost anywhere, there really was no need for me to traipse to two places.

This insight makes me feel more bilious than I already feel, which is plenty dyspeptic.

Right across the way from the Staples in this mall is a small Pier One. I love Pier One — it’s always fun to go in there and look around.  Maybe a visit to this sweet little emporium would clear my head of ire. So I walked over there.

Holy shit.

They’ve rearranged the merchandise, so of course you can’t find anything that you might want. And somehow, though they seem to have gotten rid of anything you’d actually WANT to buy, they’ve jammed the store chuckablock full of junk. There is SO MUCH CRAP in there that you can hardly navigate the place. At one point I spot some wine glasses (I do need a couple of wine glasses), but one couple (one little couple!) is standing in front of some stoneware trying to decide whether to buy it, and just those two people block the aisle so I can NOT approach the glassware!

I notice they still have the placemats that match the chair cushions I made from some curtains I bought there. One of the cushions could stand to be refurbished; I wonder if they still carry the curtains.

Apparently, they don’t carry curtains at all.

I ask a clerk who’s trotting along an aisle if they’ve stopped carrying curtains. He ignores me! By now I’m really, REALLY pissed, so I say something sarcastic like “Well, thank you so much” and start to stalk out of the store. He notices, apologizes, and points out the new curtain display, directly all the way totally on the FAR side of the store from where they used to be. And no, they do not carry curtains in the desired fabric.

Also needed are a few seat cushions for my outdoor chairs.

Pier One has always been THE place to buy seat cushions and decorative pillows. So I make my way through the thirty-inch-wide aisles to the cushion display, which they’ve also moved. There I see that they’ve hugely cut their inventory. The vast array of colors and patterns: gone. They’ve only got two or three choices, nary a one of which is very attractive.

Figuring I’d better buy at least a couple before they’re all sold out, I try to pull one out to look at it. But the aisle is SO narrow I can’t even get the thing completely out of the cubby they’ve stuffed it into. But I do manage to pull it out far enough to realize it’s too large. I leave the store empty-handed and no less annoyed than I felt when I walked in there.

This means the only remaining place in town to buy the kind of chair cushions I favor is Cost Plus. I stopped shopping in Cost Plus/World Market when they started requiring customers to sign up for one of those DAMNED membership cards to get a fair price on the merchandise. At one point along the line, I decided that I am not going to be made to share private information and I am not going to be forced to lie, in writing, on application forms so that I can buy things at a fair price. If your store makes me do that, I do not shop at your store. Hence I do not shop at Cost Plus.

There’s one word for all this, and it’s Amazon. Unfortunately, Amazon is not a very adequate answer: it doesn’t carry neat things like Pier One did (but then, apparently Pier One won’t be carrying those things, either…). And it gouges you for shipping unless you pay some outrageous annual membership fee that includes services and products that you don’t especially want. However, despite those drawbacks, in balance Amazon comes out on top.

Amazon does carry most things anyone could possibly want, and even if you decline to purchase an Amazon Prime membership, the cost of shipping is less than the cost of time wasted traipsing from store to store, fighting for parking spaces, searching for the merchandise you want, and standing in check-out lines.

Amazon diminishes our lives in some ways — we can’t get everything we used to be able to find in brick-and-mortar stores, and it kills jobs  locally — but it does save time, hassle, and annoyance factor. And since most of us will take convenience over cost savings, stupid store management, and bad service, eventually Amazon will push all but the most distinctive and specialized of local merchants.

How to Save Money: Get Sick!

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Heeee! The AMEX bill, which regularly exceeds $1200 (that’s in a good month…), came in at a piddling $955.02.

Hot diggety! I don’t remember when I’ve seen a bill for discretionary expenses under a thousand bucks. And how did this magical event occur?

Simple: being flat on my back half the month kept me out of my car! Not riding around in a car every day or two meant not going into stores. And what can you NOT do when you stay out of stores? Yup…NOT spend money.

Most to the point, I think, it kept  me out of Costco, where I can drop two hundred bucks without blinking an eye. Interestingly, that $955 included stocking up on expensive commercial dog food — I’m sure I spent at least a hundred bucks, trying to stash enough to last until I would feel like making real food for the pooches again, which I figured would be about a month after the surgical fact. It also included stocking up on food for myself: the chicken and the lamb shanks I prepared and froze, for example. And, come to think of it, a major wine run: at Total Wine I bought enough cheap, low-alcohol wine to last for the rest of my life.

Speaking of the which, I finally found not one but two reds that are more than respectable as table wines despite a fairly low alcohol content:

Château Bois Redon Bordeau Supérieur. 2012. Alcohol content: 13%, right on the upper border of acceptable. Flavor and bouquet are excellent. It’s a blend of 75% Merlot and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon. This stuff, while not expensive, does not normally fall into the “dirt cheap” range we covet. Total Wine has it on sale just now — I got it for around ten bucks, definitely worth the price.

Bellini Toscana Sangiovese. 2013. Alcohol content 12.5%, a little high but still better than any California reds you’ll see on the market. I also found this wine made a very nice accompaniment to steak, and later to some cheese and fruit. Got it for under ten dollah.

Red wines do not  benefit from lower wine content — in terms of palatibility, that is. However, these two specimens show it’s possible to make a decent red with less than 14% alcohol content.

Right now I have another sangiovese open: Pietro Sangiovese di Toscana. 2013. Its alcohol content is also 12.5%. I’d rate it as good enough for government work: not the greatest wine that ever came out of the cask, but an adequate table wine. It was very cheap: well under ten bucks.

For all around light swiggling, I continue to favor the Gazela vinho verde, a Portuguese white wine with an alcohol content of just 9%.  Sometimes this stuff can be slightly effervescent. It’s always light and crisp  — perfect for a warm day. Can’t wait till the weather gets hot: this will be the drink of choice for an Arizona summer afternoon.

So okay. Back to the subject at hand: the automobile and its influence on the average American’s finances. To wit: mine.

I decided to junk the scheme to buy a new vehicle and instead try to keep the Dog Chariot running for another 20,000 miles. So, the clunk is down at Chuck’s as we scribble, getting a new set of brake drums. Reasons for that decision:

1. I have NO clue how much the Adventures in Medical Science will end up costing me, and neither, it develops, does anyone at the Mayo. They just do not know, so complicated is our ludicrous pushmi-pullyu healthcare system. The only way to find out will be to wait until the last of the Medicare and Medigap payments come in and then pay whatever remains on the Mayo’s books. Though I’m told I may be able to negotiate that amount down, I figure it’s likely to come to four or five grand. That will bite into the car-buying budget… And not knowing to what effect, I think that’s one cliff I’d just as soon not jump off right this minute.

2. The five hundred bucks it’s going to cost to fix the brakes and the current oil leak? That’s a far cry from 26 or 30 grand for a new car! Why should I spend that kind of money while I still have a functional vehicle? One excuse I like to trot out, by way of justifying the scheme to buy a new car, is that I don’t trust the Chariot to drive around on day trips. But…hey…for 30 grand I could rent an awful lot of nice cars to bucket around the state!

3. I’m hardly driving the car anymore. Commuting to campus was the main mileage-burner for that crate. And now that all my courses are online, that cuts out three or four 20-mile trips a week. And while I was convalescing from the surgery, I think I made all of one (count it, 1) trip — down to the church — in more than two weeks.

That happened because I had stocked in food and household necessaries carefully, in preparation for what I expected would be a prolonged incapacitation. Once all that stuff was in the house and in the freezer, I didn’t really have to go anywhere. So I’m thinking I need to make that a regular habit: each month figure out what will be needed for the next 30 days, and avoid jumping in the car at short notice to run down to Costco or Safeway, both of them sinks of impulse buys. I think a lot of the overspending happens because I drive out whenever I think I want something rather than planning what I’ll need and restricting purchases, as much as possible, to trips dedicated to laying in what’s really needed.

4. In 2016 —  just another year or 18 months — the lightrail route that will come right past the ’hood will finally open. If the car runs another 20,000 miles, it should operate handily for two years…perfect.

I dislike riding public transportation, particularly when it passes through an area lined with dangerous slum apartments that house not only thugs and hoodlums but people who are crazy as loons and make pests of themselves. However…

• Now that I’m old, I can get a monthly cut-rate pass. It surely does cost a lot more than gasoline…but the longer it staves off having to lay down 30 grand for a new car, the more money it saves me.

• That lightrail line will go past a Sprouts (which I will shop in), an Albertson’s (don’t shop there; but Albertson’s has changed hands and so that store might be improved), a Fry’s (also probably a little too dangerous to shop there), a Target, a Costco, and (lo!!) the beloved AJ’s at Central and Camelback. With a motorized cart (which they’re required to let you take on the train!), I could in theory get a great deal of shopping done without ever burning an ounce of my own gasoline.

• And, also in theory, I could ride the train down to Maryland and walk a mile and a half to the church. That would give me three miles of walking each Sunday — wouldn’t dream of doing it at night, because that would be insensately unsafe). But at this time of year it would be easy and pleasant.

5. In 2016, I will be required to take a required minimum distribution from my big IRA. That could easily be as much as the proposed car would cost. Thus the car could double my taxable drawdown in 2015. And that does, decidedly, not sound like a very cheerful prospect. If I rent a car for day trips or longer junkets around the Southwest and use public transit for routine shopping, the Dog Chariot’s projected driving lifetime of 20,000 miles could last even more than two years. Possibly a lot more than two years. If, say, the vehicle didn’t have to be replaced for another four years, then I myself would have (at that point) a projected driving lifetime of about six or eight years. And then it would actually make sense to buy a used car that would tide me over to the end of my driving days, for a lot less than going out today and buying a new car that would run dependably until I’m 80 or so.

NEWS FLASH! Chuck just called to say the brake drums will only cost about $260, a far cry from his estimate of $500 a couple of months ago. He must be feeling sorry for me. 😉

He does have to figure out where the oil leak is and fix that. But I’ll betcha the whole job comes in at less than five hundred bucks.

 

Black Friday Craziness Casts Gray Pall on Thanksgiving

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As if the Christmas decorations before Halloween weren’t enough, now we get Thanksgiving dinner cut short by by retailers stirring up riots of buying frenzy along about 6:00 p.m. on the newly dubbed “Gray Thursday.” Jeez. There really is not shame out there.

Like…REALLY? Your buyers, dear Mr. Avaricious One-Percenter Retailer, really and truly can’t wait till the morning after TG to stock up on more STUFF? One article describes people selling their places in line to the highest bidder — and sitting on $90 bids because they know they can get more. What on earth can be worth debasing yourself like that? A 40-inch TV? Sure, $119 is the next best thing to giving it away for free. But you couldn’t get me to behave like that if you did give the thing to me for free.

But then, what the hey…I have no use for a TV set anyway. 😉

My friend Carol and I spent Black Friday at the Mayo Hospital, where I was invited to have my boobs subjected to an MRI preparatory to lopping them off. The last time they tried to get me in an MRI tube — the time I dislocated my shoulder tripping over Cassie — I panicked and ran away. So to lure me back, they had me drug myself with Valium.

Since I don’t take any kind of drug at all (other than a little Maker’s Mark 🙂 ), the stuff had quite a kick. Of course, driving up there was out of the question, so Carol chauffeured me. I’d been told the MRI would take about a half hour.

Well. Yeah. Depends on how you look at it.

About a half-dozen 3- to 4-minute scans (18 to 24 minutes) plus one 15 minute scan do indeed add up to about half an hour. BUT…that doesn’t count all the dicking around beforehand and between times. We left my house at about 9:15 a.m. and got back right at 12:30. THREE HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES.

The morning was shot for both of us. And since I’m bat-brained from the Valium, for me the whole damn day is shot. I’m going to bed whenever I finish cranking out this post.

The MRI itself was not bad. Because they have you lie face-down for a boob MRI, you can’t SEE the inside of the horrid tube, and so it’s nowhere near as claustrophobic and terrifying is it is when they roll you in there face-up. And the noise was just not that traumatic. More strange than anything. As it developed, there was no need to be drugged with Valium — in fact, it made things worse by drying out my mouth so badly it felt like the back of my throat was turning to petrified wood. Would’ve been a lot more comfortable without it.

Speaking of comfort, despite the loveliness of the afternoon and the prettiness of the front courtyard, wherein Cassie and I are writing this, I am retiring to the comfort of the sack.

Good luck in your shopping, if you’re up to that!

Image: Shoppers surging into Target. Public Domain.

Pays to Shop Around…

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FP_roll_with_bowlYesterday I needed to buy some new dog food for the Ruby-Doo, she suffering from allergies and now needing foods whose contents can be verified. I’d discovered that the exceptionally fancy stuff peddled at Whole Foods and PetSmart could be had for much cheaper at the Fry’s Supermarket in Richistan, and had thought after the doctor’s appointment I’d traipse up to Paradise Valley and restock that stuff.

In fact, since the next surgery takes place in a week and we’re running low on dog food in general, what I really wanted to do was buy enough to carry the dogs through to surgery day and about a week beyond it, since I know very well I’m not going to feel like driving around and I’m not going to feel like cooking, grinding, and mixing real food for the dogs. But yesterday I had a lot of errands to run and work to do, and after spending close to two hours chatting with a high-powered oncologist, I really truly did NOT want to drive way to hell and gone to Paradise Valley. There’s a mid-range Fry’s and a PetSmart near the mid-town Whole Foods & Trader Joe’s I frequent, and so I figured I’d run into that Fry’s and see if it carried the coveted dog food. Failing that, I’d check the PetSmart, and failing that, I’d pick up the stuff at the Whole Foods along with the human food items I coveted.

So after bouncing to the three other places I had to go, along about 1:30 or 2:00 p.m. I surfaced in the Fry’s at 20th Street and Camelback.

No. They did not have the fancy rolls of fresh unadulterated dog food.

So I walked across the parking lot to the PetSmart.

They wanted $27.99 per five-pound roll. TWENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS for the same damn thing I’d paid $12.99 for the day before!

Out the door and across the street to the Whole Foods.

Yes, I remember correctly: Whole Foods charges $19.99 for the product. Bought one roll to tide us over, since we were about out.

So today it was out to Tatum and Shea, thereinat to run several more errands. While there, I went into the now-famous Whole Foods on Steroids, where yea verily! We find exactly the same product for $12.99.

Heh. Think of that. We’re looking at prices for the same product, same brand, same amount, that range from $13/package to $20/package to $28/package.

And Petsmart charges $8.00 more than Whole Foods (!!!!!!!) and TWICE AS MUCH as a local grocery store! A pretentious grocery store that gives itself airs and locates itself in Scottsdale, a place where men are millionaires and women think they own the roads.

Petsmart. What a freaking rip-off agency. I will never buy anything there again.

My son buys a fancy kibble for Charley the Golden Retriever. He’s taken to buying it at a tack & feed store, because he gets it for a better price there. But one day when he and I were driving back from the Mayo, we spotted a tony-looking upscale pet boutique in the depths of darkest Richistan. For some reason we decided to stop in — as I recall, there was some exotic item he hoped to find there.

What he found was his fancy kibble: for significantly less than even the tack and feed shop was charging.

So. Look around. And don’t be afraid to look in unlikely spots — the best price may not be had at the most obvious retailers.

Speaking of places that cost your whole paycheck, yesterday at Costco I got gasoline for $2.79 a gallon!!!

A fill-up cost $25 and change.

Haven’t filled up the gas tank for under forty bucks in years.

🙂

Fry’s Kroger’s

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Fry’s Supermarkets is an Arizona subdivision of Kroger’s. By and large it’s a fairly downscale chain, catering to the (non-union) working class and the immobile. But recently this outfit decided it wanted to take out AJ’s, a ludicrously upscale outfit that had a store in Moon Valley, a district of mixed fortunes (one minute it’s all ritzy and titzy, the next it’s chez pitz). Right on the border of Phoenix (downscale), Scottsdale (mid- to upscale in that part of town), and Paradise Valley (Richistan!), they installed a wildly upscale outlet across the street from a small Whole Foods and within easy driving distance of the offending AJs.

Within weeks, the AJ’s closed.  The Whole Foods has hung on, but it’s no longer the WF of choice. It’s weak. Very weak.

Normally I don’t shop in Fry’s, for these reasons:

1) The one in our neighborhood, now mercifully defunct, was an exceptionally bad corporate citizen, seemingly trashing our area on purpose. The bastards.

2) Fry’s stores in general tend to appear in or very close to working-poor (or even nonworking-poor) neighborhoods, where they exploit the residents’ inability to own cars by jacking prices through the stratosphere. The bastards.

3) The meat’s terrible.

4) The typical store’s ambience is best described as grim.

5) I really, really, REALLY resent it when a huge national chain comes in and drives out local businesses. The bastards.

 This morning, though, I made an exception. Here is what I knew:

a) Ruby the Corgi Pup needed some more of her radically expensive dog food (more about which later).

b) Some branches of Fry’s carry said radically expensive dog food. This can be translated to read “the upscale Fry’s in Paradise Valley probably carries the radically expensive dog food.”

c) I also needed a bottle of contact lens chemicals, not available at a Petsmart (the other outfit in town that carries said radically expensive dog food, other than Whole Foods, which does not carry the totally unorganic, environmentally unfriendly contact lens chemical).

d) I had a doctor’s appointment about six blocks up the road from the invasive Fry’s.

So I decided to swallow my scruples and drop by the Paradise Valley Fry’s on the way back to the Funny Farm, by way of avoiding a lengthy drive into the central city, out of my way and annoyingly time-consuming.

Hence: I surface at the Fry’s at Tatum and Shea.

o

m

g

!

They were having an amazing sale. Pile that on top of the fact that this store melds upscale grocery store with Target with Cost Plus/World Market with  Bevmo…and the mind boggles.

Found the dog food: $8 less than I’ve been paying at Whole Foods and PetSmart (the Whole Foods of the dog food world).

Found the contact lens solution. Price: who knows. Didn’t have to drive to a Walgreen’s, park, search, and stand in line at yet another cash register to get it.

Found a Bodum French Press coffeemaker: $10 off the usual $39.99 price. Having been alerted to certain shortcomings by critics at Amazon, I busted open a package, pulled the thing out of the box, and inspected. It did NOT have any plastic parts in the plunger. SOLD!

Found sets of sheer curtains, two to a package, for 50% off. These, I need to replace the sheers purchased two or three years ago at Target and installed to shelter the patio plants from summer’s blasting morning sun. SOLD!

Found squirt bottles in various colors and sizes. CLEANING LADY JOY!  I make my own glass cleaner, which drives CL nuts. This is stored in a Home Depot squirt bottle. Also dilute and store Simple Green: into the HD squirt bottle, difficult to distinguish, except by the solution’s toxic-looking color, from the bottle of clear glass cleaner. And I place dish detergent (slightly diluted) in another HD squirt bottle, utterly indistinguishable from the clear glass cleaner, except by the label inked on with a Sharpie, ink that readily washes off. Cleaning Lady Craziness. To add to that: I keep a bottle of clean, clear water to squirt on the dogs when they get out of hand, also in an HD squirt bottle. Cleaning Lady and Proprietor Craziness.

Purchased a blue bottle for the glass cleaner (heh…Windex, get it?). Purchased a small fist-sized squirt bottle for Dog Squirt. Fifty cents off each of the above.

Grabbed a much-needed medium-sized French canning jar for storage. A dollah-fifty off.

Found some of those flocked coat hangers that keep your slimpsy blouses from sliding off onto the floor. No cents off, but didn’t have to drive way to Hell and gone across town to the Container Store.

Found GE three-way INCANDESCENT light bulbs. Grabbed. Haven’t seen those at HD for awhile. Will buy more (probably lots more) the next time I’m in the vicinity.

Found stainless-steel teaballs, $1.99, in a bulk container. Need. Haven’t seen for a long time, certainly not at that price. Certainly not free of nasty consumer-proof packaging.

Found package of three mesh laundry bags, now needed to do laundry in the HATED high-efficiency goddamn washing machine, for a mere six bucks. Two of these are excellent sizes. One will hold a bra or a couple of pairs of underpants. I guess.

Found REAL LIVE GREEN TOMATOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG. Paid price of regular tomatoes. GRABBED! Raced home, sliced, dunked in egg, cornmeal, and flour, cooked deliciously in a lake of butter. Ate.

Attained Nirvana.