2026, Food, Kids

Full Cart

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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?

38 thoughts on “Full Cart”

  1. 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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      1. YA and I have had a few excursions to Hy-Vee – another place we can get in trouble. Luckily it’s far enough from our house that it’s not on our normal radar. I will probably be there next week – they usually stock frozen pie crusts without lard!

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        1. Most of the frozen pie crusts that are rolled (2 to a box) are made with veggie oil. (Cub’s brand is “Essential”I have a lot of vegetarian friends so I buy these instead of making them. Not a sacrifice. Homemade pie crust are labor intensive.

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        3. Normally, I make my own pie crust, but I’m staring down the barrel of 15 pies next week, 13 of which are made with pie dough (as opposed to graham cracker or cookie crust) I’m buying it.

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  3. As tempting as the packaging and the concepts of the ready-to-heat products in the cooler cases at Trader Joes are, my experience has been that they are generally disappointing in some way, compromised in the flavoring or in the generosity of ingredients, especially in comparison with the picture on the package. I come away knowing I could do better and I will when we have a working kitchen again. We have been in the midst of an extensive remodel since December and with our cobbled-together cooking facilities, we have been persuaded to try a few of those easy-to-prepare offerings.

    I have standard items I regularly shop for at TJ’s, mostly ingredients, and I can disregard most of the sweet and snacky and “novelty” offerings but when Robin comes shopping with me more of that stuff lands in the cart.

    I can generally control my shopping impulses unless, for whatever reason, the items on offer are unusually serendipitous. If I’m in a used bookstore and find several titles I’ve long sought, I take that as a one-time opportunity and all bets are off.

    During Covid, there was a Japanese concern auctioning off vintage kimono and other Japanese garments as well as bolts of vintage Japanese fabric with a starting price of $1.00 and a reasonable shipping rate. Robin’s interest was in the fabric as much as in the garments themselves. On any day there were dozens, even hundreds of items offered, some of them spectacular. In our Covid semi-isolation it became an obsession to scan through the offerings and identify the ones worth trying for. Robin got pretty good at bidding at the last possible second and we ended up with about 200 items before the vendor started raising the starting prices and shipping costs. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to score really distinctive fabric for use in quilts and other projects as well as some one-of-a-kind garments. We weren’t out of control but we chose to be unrestrained while it lasted.

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  4. I don’t understand, Sherrilee, what bearing the number or proportion of items YA put in the cart had, since you paid for it all. That strikes me as an obfuscation.

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      1. Bill and Pj, you are correct. In the real world since I paid the bill it doesn’t matter at all. It mattered at the time because she squawked about paying for the Taco Bell, which was significantly less than I had just spent at Trader Joe’s. That’s how the counting up and talking about how many items went in the cart got started. No humans or grocery items were injured in the course of this argument.

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        1. And actually, now that I’ve typed the word “argument“ I realize that I may have made this look like a major disagreement between me and YA. And it was not… and never was there any suggestion on either of our parts that she should pay for any of the groceries.

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        2. My thought was, “That is a relationship quirk and I am not touching that!” Sometimes it is just part of the dynamic and I will not go there.

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  6. Costco’s hard to shop at with a list because so many other things look so tasty. For non-food items, they all seem interesting or attractive. I think it’s because they’ve developed a reputation for high-quality with everything they sell, especially Kirkland, so “you just know” this little gizmo or that heat-and-eat entree will be delicious.

    Wine stores are tough for me to resist too. Dates back to my Surdyk’s days. I loved working there (for the most part) because when it was slow, I could browse all the wines on the shelves and make a mental list to get ready for their sales.

    I’d also have a hard time leaving a golf store–especially if they have a simulator and let you try out clubs. We have an indoor simulator in Owatonna attached to a bar/pizza joint. I bought a monthly membership last summer and have been honing my game weekly. First time I’ve ever hit golf balls on a regular basis year round. I’m hoping that will help me avoid my spring slump, where I play bad the first two months of the season until I get my touch and timing back.

    And of course, bookstores!

    Chris in O-town

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    1. Bookstores are deadly.

      However, recently I discovered the magazine section of the Library’s libby program. You can get every magazine there! That reduces the bookstore temptation to buy mags.

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  7. Growing up in Iowa, HyVee was just the local supermarket in Cedar Rapids, whose jingle was, “where there’s a helpful smile, in every aisle”.

    I do remember it was a big deal when they got the innovation of bins that would send you grocery bags out to a drive up line beside the store on a track to be picked up. So fancy!

    Like Bill, I’m mostly an ingredient buyer, and those are pretty spare and basic these days.

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  8. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    It is a great help to me that I dislike shopping. In the days of yore and department stores now gone, I would shop at a department store twice a year, for clothing and stuff on sale (usually kitchen items). Well, that’s done since it has mostly gone on-line, and I am not working so that wardrobe is defunct. Summer garden clothing is not that hard.

    So now my Achilles Heel is Costco. Yesterday I was there purchasing a cedar raised bed to join the others on my deck.

    OT-OpEd tantrum: The stocking people had these stacked so the items were out of reach, the stack of the boxed items blocked in by bags of soil and the assembled cedar bed. The soil bags were stacked too high to even move. I slid the assembled cedar bed over, then It fell off the platform, creating a racket. These sell out quickly at $150 per item, so I was there for the deal, but they made it a challenge to buy the thing. Of course there is no store assistance available. I finally got to them, sliding the top one into my cart using gravity as my friend. Somebody did not think this through Hmph. Tantrum over.

    Usually I find it is wise to go into Costco with a structured list, get in, get out and do not look around. Some of their prepared foods are OK, but usually I prefer to assemble stuff myself. I try to avoid additives and MSG which prepared foods contain.

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  10. hats get me
    fedoras
    if there are a bunch i buy a bunch
    like robins fabric
    if its a phenominsl deal you do it

    monopoly
    always buy all property. mortgage to get it
    except railroads snd utilities

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  11. In KC. We drive back tomorrow after we pick up the pup. We are also transporting another pup north so it’s people from Winnipeg can pick her up in Luverne as they head home from an appointment at the Mayo Clinic.

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    1. Last Wednesday McGee was neutered. He has been wearing his doggie surgery suit that works so much better than the Cone of Shame. The Vet is also now using Trazadone at a doggie dose to keep him quiet, which is so helpful! Friday the surgery suit comes off and we can resume normal life. Life with the pup is good.

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  12. Trader Joe’s is one of my favorite places to shop. Usually Husband does the grocery shopping, but I’ll join him on weekends for a trip to TJ’s. He’s a very organized shopper, so while he methodically goes up and down the aisles picking up our essentials, I dawdle behind, oooing and aahing at various items. A few end up in the cart—I’m especially vulnerable to interesting cookies. We don’t get many of the frozen prepared foods, it’s mostly things like rice, pasta, produce, and cheese, but we have tried the mac and cheese, which is nice if you don’t want to make a huge batch.

    I also love bookstores, of course. Years ago, I found a bookstore of just cookbooks in Washington D.C., and it was like I’d died and gone to heaven. A good kitchen store is also hard to pass up; I have many little bowls, plates, gadgets, and odds and ends that I’ve collected over the years.

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  13. Sugarcreek Bird Farm.
    There are dozens of birds. Many are kept for breeding purposes. I try to visit each one. Many are caged but there are always a few free flyers who will “step up” if they like you. I’ll buy food and toys in a few minutes but still spend an hour speaking Bird.

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  14. I have a fondness for the store at the megamall where they sell fancy socks. I remember going to Rosedale in the 70’s when they opened a store there. At the time, typically you could buy plain socks in a limited number of colors, or you could get argyle socks. Then they opened Sox Appeal, and it was startling to find socks that were specifically for Christmas! Or Valentine’s Day! In a store that sold nothing but socks! I also found the name of the store marvelously clever.

    Now you can get socks at the grocery store in every color and theme imaginable, but I still find that store rather charming. I like to stop in and see what new things they have, even though I don’t really have any need to buy more socks.

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