Grocery happiness

I made an off the cuff remark after Thanksgiving dinner as my family and I were scoping out all the Black Friday ads.  Naturally, Walmart had an insert in the paper, which led me to comment on how many trips I had made to that particular store in preparation for Thanksgiving.  This inevitably led to a casual conversation about how busy Walmart always is, how shopping there can be totally stressful, how I wished I didn't have to shop there.....the usual Walmart tirade.  

Then, a liberating thought.  If I don't want to shop there, I don't HAVE to shop there. 

Isn't it kind of strange how you can commit yourself to one line of thinking, then have it suddenly dawn on you that it doesn't have to be that way?

Like just about everyone else in the world, I don't want to spend a small fortune at the grocery store.  Case in point, I would do my grocery shopping (and just about every other kind of shopping), at Walmart because, well, that just seemed like the thing to do if you wanted to save money.  But the experience of going to that store every week, sometimes several times a week, was seldom an enjoyable one.  The aisles are always crammed with people, which would always make me feel rushed, and there is just so much STUFF in the store itself that it could be incredibly overwhelming trying to figure out where to find or even just to start looking for a certain item.  Plus, I was never a huge fan of buying my produce at Walmart so I would always end up making an extra trip, usually to Safeway, to take care of that portion of the list.  On the rare occasion that I did break down from exhaustion and buy produce from the mega chain it always seemed just okay to me.  Not great, but okay.  And I know produce can be tricky and is seldom perfect anywhere you buy it, but for the sake of my argument I'm adding it to the list. 

So anyway, I have the liberating thought that went something like this.  If I don't like shopping at Walmart, and if the experience is never entirely satisfactory, why don't I just shop somewhere else?  I live in a small town but Walmart is still, thankfully, not the only grocery shopping option available.  So in an offhand way I made an observation as to whether or not I could go the entire month of December without shopping a Walmart.  I don't think anyone was really listening to me by this point, but I absolutely remember speaking the words out loud, and making a firm decision that I would in fact, not shop at the mega chain for at least the month of December. 

I'm 13 days in, well, more like 20 if you count that last week in November, and I have to say that I'm loving my life without Walmart.  I no longer dread going to the grocery store because it is no longer a stress inducing roller coaster ride.  I'm paying more attention to how much things cost, where as before I was always going on the assumption that whatever I was buying was cheaper because I was buying it at Walmart.  Silly reasoning, I know, but again, once you're in that mindset it can be hard to break out of it.  I'm also making myself pay better attention to the food I have on hand, and looking for dishes that can be made from what I already have available, rather than buying a whole bunch of new items each week.  In a sense, not shopping at Walmart has actually made me a better, more aware shopper.  I'm also exploring new ways to get fresh food, which is why Dean and I are looking into signing up for Bountiful Baskets. 

I didn't expect my break from Walmart to have such an immediate and noticable impact, but I can honestly say that I'm happier without visiting that store once a week.  I still need to crunch the numbers to see if I'm actually saving any money, but even if I'm spending a bit more by not going to that store, I feel like it's worth it.  In my book a person's peace of mind is definitely worth a few extra dollars, and I'm definitely enjoying having mine back as I peruse the grocery store aisles.  This might be one experiment that ends up being a permanent fixture in my life.

*I don't mean to offend anyone who likes shopping at Walmart.  This post is based simply on my experiences and observations, and I realize it won't apply to everyone out there.  Feel free to take it with a grain of salt.