When I moved to Manhattan, I never could have imagined that I would someday miss grocery shopping in this often teeth-clenching City.
Trials and Errors
I remember the very first days, when I would underestimate the weight of my bags and the distance home, only to arrive to my apartment with arms on fire and hands almost bleeding.
Then I would splurge on home delivery, but go to the store to pick out the items. But with miniature carts with no kids seat, skinny serpentine aisles, and lots of equally ornery shoppers, the experience was little improved, even if someone did cart the stuff home for me.
Plus there were the typical child attention span issues. On a couple of occasions, I had to abandon my cart in the aisle and exit the store with a crying baby, resorting to nursing him while sitting on a newspaper stand on raucous First Avenue.
I tried ordering groceries online from the D’Agostino’s on 80th and York, whose website I liked, especially the sort-by-unit-price feature. But after one too many calls from the store manager saying he was out of the Progresso soup on sale or the granola bars, but he would throw in a “really big” bag of french fries to make up for it, I finally climbed onto the Fresh Direct bandwagon.
The converted raved about this New York-only internet supermarket, but I was wary. Why did they have to package everything in boxes? If I bought my “fresh” food from the corner fruit and vegetable stand, why did I need Fresh Direct? Would I miss being able to touch and see and stroll down the aisles?
Tips for Eating Well on Less
Last month I gave a speech, “How to Save Money While Raising Money in NYC” to a social and educational community for new moms in Manhattan called BabyBites. In honor of Money Matters week on their blog, BabyBites published a portion of my talk in this short article, Take a Bite out of Big Apple Food Costs.
You can hear my three main tips here, and how New York ended up winning me over.
As an extra bonus, here is a post I liked from the Simple Mom blog: 11 Tips for Eating Healthy on a Budget.
Back to the Check-Out Line
So three months away from moving to a life of suburban ease in Syracuse, I find myself dreading going back to the way most Americans feed their families: shopping in person at a spacious, luxurious supermarket with a gazillion choices, double carts in the form of race cars, and giant parking lots.
Luckily we humans are amazingly adaptable, and from what I hear, I think I’m going to like the local supermarket chain, Wegman’s. How bad can hauling over to the store be when Wegman’s was chosen, over Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, as the Food Network’s pick for the best grocery store?
And compared to New York City prices, anything is going to seem like a great deal. So get ready, sushi aisle and international cheese section: here I come with my four-wheel drive!
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