Adventures in Thrift: Clearing out an Entire Chain of Grocery Stores in One Day!

Some people look forward to a day at the spa.  Some people look forward to the release of their favorite movie.  I have less conventional desires.  I live for a going-out-of-business sale!  Our local grocery store chain just closed six stores in New Hampshire, which for me is like Christmas!  Everything in the stores was 50% off.  Everything!  Getting a good deal is always a thrill, but getting a good deal on food is a whole new level of excitement.  If you buy shoes on sale, there is always room for self doubt.  Do I really need these shoes?  Will I wear them?  Are they worth it?  But not food.  I mean it's food, right?  We eat it every day! It is the most guilt-free purchase ever, and that makes it the most fun too. 

When we heard the stores were closing, our family took a little day trip to take advantage of the deals. We went to one store where we did almost all of our shopping, but then stopped at one other one to clean them out of one item that I was particularly interested in - shelf stable 8 oz. boxes of milk for school lunches.  We used to get them in Utah for super cheap, but here in Boston they are prohibitively expensive.

This is two of my kids with just two of the many carts we filled.

By the time we were done, we filled five carts to over flowing!  One of our receipts was so long they had to have us pay on that one and start a new one.  The cashier joked that we had enough receipts to wallpaper our house!  Roughly 25 feet of receipts!  We filled the back of our suburban so high with bags we couldn't see out the back window, and my husband had to sit in back with the kids while I drove home because we filled up the passenger seat with bags too.  The entire car was filled to the top with layer upon layer of groceries and kids and more groceries.  Looking at my family in the rear-view mirror, they looked like life-sized dolls in a box full of packing peanuts!

On the way home the kids were hungry, and we debated about paying for fast food.  I guess we couldn't see the forest through the trees!  Eventually we realized we were literally surrounded with food, so they ate a 50 cent box of cereal as a snack while we happily drove home.

 Here is a small portion of the bags of food we brought home.

It took me three full days to figure out how to put everything away.  Canned veggies ended up under my 5 year old's bed.  The juice is still sitting in my dining room, because I haven't found a spot for it yet.

There are a lot of places we could have spent our time and money on that day.  And if you asked our kids what they like to do for fun, grocery shopping probably wouldn't be their ultimate vacation destination.  But in the end, we had a really great day as a family, and ended up with something a lot better than just a day at the movie theater.


Kate

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Our receipts!