YA and I cannot be trusted at Trader Joes.
As I mentioned in the past, I do not have the shopping gene; YA has double. She has resigned herself to this and does all her window shopping and browsing on her own or with my good friend Brenda, who also has double of the shopping gene. (Once they went off shopping at about 10 in the morning and came home at around 5. When I asked what she had gotten, YA said “nothing but I did look at a sweater that I almost got”.)
My shopping Achilles heel is Trader Joe’s. It’s big enough that any shopping excursion doesn’t take that long and all the stuff in there is edible, which makes it easier for me to plunk down money. YA has discovered this and every couple of months says “I think we should go to Trader Joe’s” — she usually has a date/time in mind as well.
Last Friday, we headed off with only one thing on our list – salt. We have plenty of rock salt for the grinder but were out plain old table salt. Truly all we did was walk around and put things in the cart. Three bags and a lot of money later, we headed home. At that point YA wanted to stop at Taco Bell (yes, after just buying 3 bags of groceries) and I suggested that since I had ponied up all the money at Trader Joe’s, she should cough up for lunch.
This triggered a feisty discussion about who had put more in the cart. For every item of mine that she mentioned, I countered with one of hers. This did lead eventually to us going through the receipt and adding it all up. Surprisingly, we were very very close. I had put more things in the cart, but her items were more expensive. We did agree to not count the ginger beer since we had both wanted it.
The brioche waffles were the last thing to go into the cart. They’re pretty good but I won’t rush out to buy anymore before they are discontinued – to be replaced by some other goodie that will tempt us.
In a surprising turn of events, Trader Joe’s doesn’t stock plain old table salt (except for one pitifully small bottle)!
Any establishments in which you can’t control yourself?
Trail Baboon 
the marijuana dispensaries around the country. chicago, denver, vegas… i used to really like getting high and i guess i still do but i dont find a time to morph into an ameba very often these days. i have lots of buds, oils for the electric vape pens and gummies but every time im out of town i stop in and buy some more.
i bet it will stop when the stores open here.
i used to have a similar thing about horse racing but when the track opened here it disapieared.
by the way try the mega hy vee stores. the stuff they have is incredible. so many choices and offerings youd never come up with on your own.
like lunds or kawolskis in steroids with great prices.
thader joes figured out how to offer stuff with a high perceived value at a reasonable price . aldis offers everyday stuff at a good price. hv vee offers everyting at a reasonable price but it is a bit overwhelming
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We have a mega HyVee in Sioux Falls. It is pretty great.
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Husband can’t resist any store that has lots of cheese. Being from Wisconsin has predisposed him to that.
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