Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Grocery Shopping in the States

We were in the States on the weekend for a hockey tournament and that means shopping! Cross border shopping is always an interesting pursuit. This is the first time I have been down to the states to shop in a few years. Certainly since our dollar soared so high and definitely since the recent economic crashes. I really found that many of the prices have normalized between our two countries. There are some very big exceptions however and fortunately I was able to take advantage of those.

The biggest differences are in dairy and meat. I didn't look at produce - much of it you can't bring across the border. I also stayed away from convenience foods for the most part they were the same price, e.g. a can of Chef Boy-R-Dee Ravioli is $0.99 in the states and you can get them for that price here when on sale. A 12 pack of pop is $4.00 and you can almost always buy it on sale here for $3.67 - $2.99 a case.

But dairy is a big deal. A gallon of milk in the states is about $2.00, yes I really wrote $2.00! I actually bought 2 gallons at Wal-Mart and they were $2.26 each. The cheapest I can get a gallon (actually 4 litres) of milk is $4.19 and lately it has been $4.38 - $4.56 a gallon! Cheese is ridiculously cheap; I got a 5lb block for $11.49 (Costco) and here I get barely 2lb for $9.00! Also at Costco I purchased butter for $1.74 a pound; I usually pay $3.33 - $3.99 a pound. I got 8 lbs, lol!

I have read many US bloggers lamenting the price of cereal and believe me if you had to buy cereal in Canada you would not only never complain again about cereal prices but you would buy it every day. The name brands were about half the price of cereal here and at least 25% less than the best sale prices! So I saved even more and bought the giant store brand bags from Wal-Mart.

All together I spent about $200 US dollars, so probably $230 Canadian dollars on groceries and was able to stock up on several items for at least 50% of the cost. I tried to stick with things I would be purchasing anyways so as to really make it a savings. I will post a complete list with prices and comparisons, and my other purchases as well, there were a few ;)

I will need to pick up a few items later today but I should be able to stay under $100. For the first two weeks of February I am ~$140 under budget so I even with this shopping I figure to be OK.

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