Life Changer

Trader Joe’s opened in September in our neighborhood.  Life got better overnight.  Seriously.

The awesomeness of this grocery store has completely changed my perspective of grocery shopping.  The place is a godsend.  It's unlike any other grocery store, and I am now a new woman because of it. 

The selection of food is limited, which makes shopping easier.  For example, they may offer four kinds of peanut butter as opposed to ten or three types of oatmeal instead of eight. They choose items because of quality, not quantity.

I like the limited selection.  I don’t comb through twenty brands to figure out which one tastes best.  I don’t try to recall the one good brand I luckily found on sale last week.  I don’t compare prices.  I don’t pay attention to “price cuts” or “deals of the week”.  They already sell everything at the cheapest price because almost everything they sell is their brand.  No middleman increases prices. 

Milk, fruit, cheese, guacamole, burritos, and vitamins –cheaper!  Cereal, apple cider, dark chocolate covered caramels, olive oil – cheaper again!  My shopping budget grows every time I shop at Trader Joe’s.  I love it.

They offer cool meal combos that save me time.  I make a dinner with the frozen vegetable fried rice, frozen stir-fry vegetables with sauce, and steamed pork buns.  I don’t hunt down a bunch of spices or sauces that I only use once every three months.  I don’t waste time cutting five different vegetables on our teeny countertop. I just rip open bags and throw stuff in a skillet.  I look like a world-class chef… until Ben finds the discarded packages in the trashcan.

The best and perhaps most well known thing about Trader Joe’s is their cheap wine.  It’s “wine on a dime.”  I should probably coin that phrase.  Trader Joe’s “Charles Shaw” wine, aka Two Buck Chuck, goes for $2.99 a bottle… a bottle!  The Heavens just parted.

You may read this post and think I’m plugging Trader Joe’s to get some sort of kickback.  I wish Itty Bitty held that kind of clout.  No, no.  I just love Trader Joe’s this much.