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Safeway

Whole Foods Underprices Safeway

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As I mentioned in my last, having cut back on routine Costco shopping seems to be saving a ton of money. To give you a clue of how many tons, consider the fact that I’ve been doing most of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and Sprouts, and September’s bills came in at about 2/3 of budget.

Whole Foods is not cheap. But…its reputation as “Whole Paycheck” is suspect.

Couple of days ago, I stopped by the Safeway on the way to Whole Foods, figuring to pick up a couple of low-brow items that can’t be had in those more politically correct and environmentally self-conscious pastures. While I was there, I spotted the SAME baggies of red seedless grapes that WF sells. Thought, Might as well grab those here, because Safeway is bound to be cheaper than Whole Foods.

Well. No.

Paid $2.99 at Safeway. The very same product in the very same bags in the very same size was $2.69 at Whole Foods.

It’s not the first time I’ve found Whole Foods can have pretty good prices compared to other retailers. The only store that underprices WF on the prepared dog food I had to give the beasts when I was too sick to  make real food for them is Fry’s, a decidedly downscale chain. Whole Foods’ price for the same product is about half that of Petsmart.

On the same trip, I spotted a few other items priced the same as or more than Safeway’s cost. The only thing at WF that’s consistently higher than Safeway is the meat. But Whole Foods’ meat is undeniably superior to Safeway’s. Usually the wines are higher, but WF always has a sale on something in the $8 to $10 range that’s not the usual California plonk. Veggies are all organic and so appear to be higher, until you compare the prices of Safeway’s bug-sprayed products with the prices of the organic produce in the same store.

So. Maybe shopping at Whole Foods is not bound to drive one to bankruptcy, after all.

 

The Squeaky Wheel Gets the (Hamburger) Grease

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My father always used to say that: “The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Guess it’s some sort of Texas catchphrase. Well, the local Safeway just made that saying come literally true!

The bargain basement turkey having proved inedible for the human and indigestible for the dog—she barfed up a pile of it all over the office this morning—I went by the store during today’s voyages, by way of picking up some hamburger for her. Figured to have to spend about two and a half bucks a pound, a pretty typical price in that place. But lo! I found some for $1.49, not too bad at all.

On the way to the checkout stand, I stopped at the customer service desk to mention my misfortune with the foul fowl. Really, I didn’t expect them to do anything about it, but just thought they should know one of their products was looking a bit suspect. To my amazement, the manager whipped out a gift card and racked up the price of the defunct turkey on it!

Wow!

It covered almost all of two gigantic packages of hamburger, which was hugely on sale. The red-card discount knocked a $54 bill down to $29, and thanks to the gift card, I walked out of there with enough hamburger to feed Cassie for the next four or five weeks plus a bunch of other junk and paid $10 for the lot.

I felt really pleased: $1.49 for boneless meat is a much better buy than the $1.29 cost of the bone-in turkey. Though I had intended to use the carcass to make stock, even if the bones had been usable, soup made with onion can’t be used to feed the dog (and wouldn’t go far in that direction, anyway), and besides, I’ve got gallons of home-made chicken stock in the freezer.

So there you are: a$k and ye shall re¢eive. I didn’t even a$k for anything!

Thanks, Safeway!

🙂

Image:

Daderot. Columbia Expert, 52-inch, 1882. Public Domain.

w00t! Free flu shots!!

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Dang! I thought the community college was charging $20 for the H1N1 shots they were dispensing today. Barreled in there this afternoon and learned they’re free! Even if you’re not a full-time employee. That’s amazing…GDU never did anything like that.

I had to pay $20 for the regular seasonal flu shot last fall, ’cause Cigna, GDU’s new EPO provider, wouldn’t cover it unless you drove downtown to attend their flu shot clinic. Yeah. Right. My time is worth more than twenty bucks.

Even someone off the street could’ve gotten the shot for free, if they’d known about it…they didn’t ask for ID, and the form you had to fill out was just a disclaimer warning you not to take it if you’re allergic to eggs or have certain ailments.

So that was pretty amazing.

Got another nice deal, though not free, at Safeway yesterday: tough old skirt steaks for $1.77 a pound. Had it ground up into enough hamburger to last Cassie the Corgi for another month or two.

An hour & a half before choir practice: think I’ll grill some of it for myself over some fine mesquite charcoal.

Cheapskate heaven. 🙂

A$k nicely, and ye shall re¢eive

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Truth to tell, I didn’t even ask at the Safeway yesterday.

I dropped by on the way home from work, not feeling on the top shelf and absolutely not feeling like cooking anything elaborate. There wasn’t much in the house for me to eat or anything at all for the dog to eat. Thought I’d buy a porterhouse (3 or 4 meals for me) and an Idaho potato, along with a couple of other minor necessities.

All the T-bones and porterhouses were sliced paper-thin, the better to persuade buyers that the breathtaking prices were still buying them a nice steak. You can’t grill one of those things rare, and I don’t like shoe-leather meat. There was a nice, thick ribeye, but I really wanted a porterhouse, which would yield enough for several meals.

So, I picked up the ribeye to keep my hands on it, since it was the only steak cut thick enough to grill the way I prefer it, and then stopped by the butcher and asked if he could slice a porterhouse a little thicker than a quarter-inch, like…about the thickness of the captive ribeye. All the steaks in the fancy meat cabinet were also cut thin. He said he would, but another customer was ahead of me with a large order, and then he’d have to take his saw apart and refit it with a different blade. If I’d like to wait a while, he would be happy to slice a respectable porterhouse.

Tired and distinctly under the weather, I said no, I could make do with the steak in hand. He then – get this! – offered to cut the price on the ribeye!

Yes. The ribeye was already marked down. He marked it down even more, for no other reason than goodwill.

And with that gesture, goodwill was exactly what Safeway got! Not only that, but the checkout clerk was actually polite to me. You couldn’t pry me away from the place now.

Thought for a moment I’d stepped through a time warp: who would think we were in the 21st century? Wish other retailers would remember that customer service = business goodwill = customer loyalty = higher profits.

3 Comments left on iWeb site

Mrs. Accountability

Safeway employees are always extremely polite, helpful and friendly. I only buy sale items from Safeway, but their great personalities would more than make up for the higher prices.I would like to apply for a job at Safeway just once to see what their hiring procedure is like. I mean, they MUST do a personality test on people, to make sure they are “people” persons

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 – 07:47 P

Mrs. Accountability

Oh, and the other thing I’ve noticed… in the less affluent neighborhoods the steaks are sliced paper thin. In our little town they are 2″ thick steaks, much thicker than I would ever like. How many ounces of meat do you eat at a meal to make 3-4 meals of a porterhouse?! Guess I’m a pig! I can eat a whole one myself

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 – 07:49 P

Funny about Money

LOL! I eat a lot of veggies, grains, and salad, so the steak is just a small part of the feast. A typical meal is fish, meat, or poultry; rice, potato, or pasta; and salad or cooked vegetable. Plus fruit for dessert if there’s anything good in the house. Plus wine or beer if I’m not on a diet.

Old age helps, too. In my callow youth I could easily polish off a whole porterhouse, and did so every now & then. These days I don’t seem to want to eat that much. Not that I don’t want to eat or don’t enjoy eating (it’s one of my favorite pastimes), but that much smaller portions seem to suffice

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 – 08:40 P