Have Some Aloha in Your Life & Save Money

A few days ago I shared with you about saving money by shopping for produce at Mi Pueblo.  I got tons of people (here and on Facebook) who were surprised.  I wasn't.  I had known for awhile that I saved money by shopping there, I just didn't know how much.  Now I do, and that makes it more real to me (and apparently you, too).  Of course, that got me going, and I couldn't stop.  So today, after I went grocery shopping to get us through to next Tuesday (there is NO WAY I am stepping foot in any store between now and Christmas, nor the day after!) I had to do again -- this time with my purchases from Trader Joe's.

There about a kajillion reasons (give or take) why I love Trader Joe's.  I have mentioned it (many times) before, but they just have the best stuff around.  Taste-wise, creativity-wise, and healthy-wise.  I am not one of those big everything-must-be-organic people.  Quite the contrary, actually.  I kind of just buy things that sound healthy, make sure I have a lot of veggies and fruits, not so much dairy and fat, and OK, yeah, I love my sugar.  But I do try to avoid preservatives and added junk.  I try to make sure the food we eat is just that -- food.  Not chemicals and colors, but things I could find in my kitchen.  Good ol' Joe provides me with healthy, usually organic, DELICIOUS stuff.  And at a great price.  GREAT PRICE. 

Don't believe me?  Here, my list for today:

Do you see that?!

If I had gone to Safeway I would have spent $19.13 more, MORE, just because I chose one store over the other.  Um, I'm sorry, but what makes Safeway so special that it can charge me so much more?  I mean, I like Safeway, and I kind of feel bad for beating up on it this week, but you know... not really.  If they want to bring their prices down, then I will stop harping on them.  But until that happens, I will not be shopping there.  (And the same goes for all the other major grocery stores in my area.)

<FYI -- A Trader Joe's commercial just came on Pandora.  What are the odds?>

Just so you know, I did not get these numbers arbitrarily.  I actually price checked and found the equivalent item -- and the cheapest version of it.  In times that I couldn't find a match I did the math and found what the item would be for something of the same size.  (Yay for passing 5th grade math back in the day.  Let me tell you, as a teacher, if you can pass 5th grade math you can do almost anything in life.)  I did not choose any organic items in Safeway, although most of my TJ's item naturally came that way.  So these numbers you see?  They are the real deal.

So, what's this for a month?  $76.52   Yup, you read that right.

And a year?  $994.76  

Read it and weep, Baby!  Almost one thousand buckaroos, right there.  Plus my Mi Pueblo savings (because, let's face it, as wonderful as Trader Joe's is, most -- not all -- but most veggies straight from Mexico are going to be cheaper...), that comes to around $1,400 or so per year. 

Of course, I only went shopping for four days.  I will have to do another check when I do a whole weeks worth of groceries.  But until then, go and visit our friends in Aloha shirts at Trader Joe's.  Enjoy their samples, chat it up with the friendly people (who happen to me by name in my town -- yeah, I shop there a lot), and save some dough.  Like I said before, we all work hard for our money and I am pretty sure we want to keep it in our bank account where it belongs.  Or cash it in for some plane tickets to Hawaii and get some Aloha on for real.