Our Wal-Mart Trek

So we needed to do some grocery shopping today and I just hate going to Giant, our local grocery store ... it is just so expensive and in our area we have only one other choice ... Shoppers Food Warehouse ... which doesn't carry half the normal stuff we get ... so I wind up having to stop at Giant anyway ...

I checked online for a Wal-Mart with a grocery store and there is one 30.99 miles away ... and the road that we would take it is about a 30 minute drive ... (there is one 28.55 miles listed as our closest one but I would have to go on the beltway and it says 45 minutes without traffic so we picked the one 30 miles away) ...

We loaded up with supplies ... drinks ... snacks ... I mean it is a trek to get there ... and actually got the very front parking space ... I couldn't believe it ...

Well we wound up filling up a cart and a half ... you would think we had a family of 6 ... but for a 30 minute drive I wanted to make this trip count ...

Now I am so bummed ... I had saved my last two grocery receipts cause I wanted to compare stuff but I can not find them ... I did find one Giant receipt that includes items we bought today at Wal-Mart ... the difference is crazy ...

The ice cream we love 
$3.00 at Wal-Mart and $5.59 at Giant
12 packs of Coke
$4.28 at Wal-Mart and $5.29 at Giant
Hamburger Buns
$1.17 at Wal-Mart and $3.39 at Giant
Potato Bread
$2.87 at Wal-Mart and $3.19 at Giant
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup
$1.17 at Wal-Mart and $2.39 at Giant
Milk, whole and 2%
$3.48 at Wal-Mart and $3.99 at Giant

And when I look up stuff online everything is cheaper ... maybe not a huge difference but at least 50 cents on most things ... I just wish I had a full list to compare ... one biggie ... we love the Bertoli frozen skillet dishes ... but they are so expensive ... and we need two to make enough ... one 24 ounce package at Giant is $7.99 ... Wal-Mart had their own brand that was double the size in one bag and was only $4.37 ... we had the beef stir fry tonight and it was delicious ... filled with veggies and beef and soba noodles ... and it fed my family for $4.37 ...

OK I have gone on and on about this ... but it just goes to prove that where I live everything is so expensive ... I mean right now gas by my house is $.64 more per gallon than it is by my work ... that just isn't right ... at all ...

So I am going to make a twice monthly trek to Wal-Mart for our groceries ... and if we get another fridge/freezer for our basement then I might only have to go once every 3 weeks ...