Grocery shopping is hard

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The 2 stores closest to me charge double what you would expect, have little selection and merchandise if often near expiration dates (same as any small town).

I used to go to shop 'n save but they closed and the nearest one is now about 45 minutes away. Then I started going to wal-mart, but since they use natural lighting and flourescent lighting flickers on every time a cloud passes by, I can't be in the store during the day time. I also shouldn't be in the car at night because of passing headlines. I could possibly go in with an eye patch but I had such a severe reaction to the flickering light in the past I don't want to risk it, as it could be deadly for the eyepatch to slip slightly and not fully cover my eye


In the other town, a walmart is about 25 minutes away. However they are rebuilding and the sounds wreak havoc. They also completely rearranged the store and have no signs telling where everything is, so I unintentionally end up walking past things that I have bad reactions to breathing in (ie some laundry detergents). They also don't have half the food in stock they usually do because of the remodeling - a good portion of the shelves are bare. not to mention I've begun to suspect a correlation between being startled and having seizures, and you'll be walking through there and all of a sudden there is a loud bang

There is an aldi's but thats largely just can and boxed stuff - neither of which I should be eating.

The butcher mart is good for meat but really nothing else.

So the question is, without driving 45 mintues to shop 'n save, where can I get the things I need like heavy cream, vegetables, meat that isn't from a cow or chicken, nuts that aren't coated in salted etc.

Don't worry, I don't want an answer. I just wanted to vent my frustration over trying to grocery shop for decent food at decent prices.

Last edited by Triangular_Trees on 26 Sep 2008, 10:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

I hear ya. I hate it too, wish I could have someone do it for me.

I've been tempted to go to customer service in the naturally lit walmart and say, "I'm sorry but my disability prevents me from being in your store, could you please go get this list of items for me"

And when they protest bring up how it was there store that caused the closing of shop 'n save and that there are now no real grocery stores in that area for me to go to instead. Though I'd probably be escorted out before I got to that point

I dont actualy do my shopping but my mum does it. We usualy go to a Coles or Woolworths which are a chain of grocery stores usualy with minimal. Only problem is the fact they are having a duopoly and use aggresive tactics to put others out of business, and there was a recent story about rats getting into things like shiting on meat somehow.

Dont they have those services where you can get people to deliver to you, I know they often do them for the elderly. Otherwise if need be I have heard of online shopping for groceries.

i find it to be an adventure. the decisions: mango or grape juice? corn tortillas or flour tortillas? the struggle:reaching for that item that's on the top shelf. telling yourself yes you can get through this. the random occurences:seeing your boss shopping and trying to avoid him.
it's all so crazy and then the climax: the checkout.
i like the whole foods store a lot better than the other stores. customer service is better: i get asked if i need any help by the employees . also, the product selection is nicer.

I don't have much trouble with those choices as its "eat them and be one step above comatose " or "live a semi-normal life." I prefer the semi-normal state.

Have you tried going to a smaller store, I prefer going to Italian grocery stores, and only get what I need for a few days.
I can't stand going to Wallymart, and the ones up here are smaller then the super centers they have in the States.

How about a grocery delivery service? Some major supermarket chains in my area offer it. You buy stuff over the internet, and they deliver it to your house.

I've never had it done, but I know some folks who do. Seems to work for them. It could be more expensive, though.

The only smaller stores are the two that charge double for lesser quality merchandise. This is the middle of nowhere after all

Time to start growing your own produce then. Raise chickens. Maybe you can barter some of it with neighbors for beef or whatever.

Wal-nut should already be avoided at all costs anyway. Their existance sucks chinese plastic wang.

There's no point in me growing produce I can't eat, and most of the things that I could grow around here are on my no-no list. Onions and tomatos are about the only things that could work, and I'd need a good strong fence to keep the wildlife out which I can't afford as i'm unable to work


Raising livestock would require a livestock that can thrive on tiny steeply sloped yard, and wouldn't be spooked by constantly passing trains. (my yard is not ideal for anything much more than growing weeds, and while I could grow hay, a bailer probably couldn't navigate the slope and I wouldn't want to deal with the ticks that would come with that)


Raising enough chicken and produce to barter for beef and milk would cost more than I spend on groceries in a year. And I don't have a cold stream near by so I couldn't make my own heavy cream without purchasing equipment.

You can buy a live chicken for a $1, and roosters generally go for $1-3. And look at the cost of eggs - a dozen for under a $1. You feed a chicken and 12 days later, you've made a whole $.89 and that's before you subtract the costs of caring for it. My brother was given 15 chickens for free once. Cows typically auction between 3-$500. Pigs are too expensive to keep even though they don't need much space. (my dad and greatgrandfather raised pigs and cows, and my mom has a weird obsession with having chickens as pets - the time a hunting dog got a rooster, the hunter offered to pay for the value of it. The rooster had been purchased for under $3.00, his only value was as a pet.)

walmart's existance may suck but if thats the only place I can get the food I need to stay to healthy, and for some of the foods it is, unless I'm going to drive 45 minutes or further away for grocery shopping, and its the only place in the local area with decent prices, then I'm going to go there.

You mention milk. I've gotten by for the past 25+ years without drinking milk. I never really liked it. I drink only water.

As for tomatoes, I grow them in pots, without any fence. The only pest I have to deal with is tomato hornworm.

And do you have a medical condition that requires you to eat a diet that's extremely high in fat? I do - heavy cream is one of the best things for me.Until they invent water with an extremely high fat content, I'm better off not using it as my only beveridge. The fat I don't get in my drink, I have to get in my food. So even if I didn't drink the cream, I'd still need to add it to my daily diet. I don't particularly like the taste when drinking it, but at 40% fat, its a miracle food.


If you grow your tomato's in pots without any fence, then you likely don't have deer that come into your yard every night. I do. The deer trail is only abut 10 feet outside of the yard, and for a while they were even bedding in the yard. I've seen my roommate try to grow tomato's without fences - the deer destroy the plants before they ever have a chance. They don't just sit there are and eat one plant, but they bite this plant, and then that one, and then that one.


To give you an idea of what type of area I'm in, this is the view from the front of my house- you'll notice I'm above the trains and that's with me standing in the street which is 5 feet below the level of my yard (there is a wall that makes this possible). The hill you can see across the river is pretty much the same size as the hill on this side of the river. The ascent of the hills slope varies somewhat from that in the picture, but it really depends on which part of the road you are looking at as to whether its steeper or not as steep.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh16 ... ion014.jpg

I have deer that often come through my yard, yes. I have even seen deer droppings near my tomato plants, on several occasions recently. Tomato leaves are poisonous to mammals, and that's why the only pest I have to deal with is a worm. I have never heard of deer eating tomato plants. The common pests of tomatos are various insects and mollusks.

Deer are one of the most common nuisances in trying to raise tomatos - just do a google search on deer and tomato plants if you don't believe it. Or even just search for "eating my tomato plants" and you'll see deer appear a few different times on the top page