I do 99% of the shopping for my household, and have for almost the entire 6+ years that Jill and I have been married. (The exception is the brief window when she did quality checks for a grocery chain in metro DC during our first year of marriage. Then she did about 60%. But she hates grocery shopping, and I mostly like it.)
This is going to be a grocery store series, and will include to the best of my recollection (in no particular order): Wisconsin grocery stores: Woodmans, Pick n Save, Sentry, Sendick's, and Outpost Natural Foods; Atlanta area grocery stores: Publix, Kroger, and the Dekalb Farmer's Market; and standout grocery stores from other places, like the Wegman's in Dulles, Virginia. This list may grow.
But for today: Woodman's.
The cheap and dated look of the web site is, in some ways, a perfect reflection of the store itself. Woodman's is a small chain of employee-owned, super-cheap, megastores. They are enormous -- an employee once told my friend Madelaine that if you walked every aisle, it was a 3 mile walk. That seems high, but not entirely impossible.
Woodman's is not for the faint of heart. It is always busy. But there are great deals throughout the store.
When I went this week, I was astounded at some of the prices. Jill's preferred coffee creamer, Coffeemate Hazelnut liquid, was $0.90 less per quart bottle than I pay at PickNSave, and $0.40 less than the PickNSave house brand. Really good whole wheat sandwich bread was $0.75 less per loaf. Brand name cereals were $0.60-$1.00 less per box. The sale brand of tortilla chips were $.99 for the same size bag I normally buy for $2.59.
Selection at Woodman's is breathtaking. I could spend 30 min in the dairy aisle alone, looking at cheeses and yogurts. FAGE Greek yogurt was $1.00 less than at the co-op. The tubs of vanilla yogurt I use to make Noah's decaf coffee yogurt were only $1.39; not $2.39, or even $1.99 on sale.
I spent $191 in the grocery section of the store -- not chump change. But I have enough that I anticipate only buying milk, bread, meat, and a few fresh fruit or veg for the next 3-4 weeks. No cereals, frozen foods, snacks, cheese, yogurt, or other staples.
Then I went to the liquor store section. I don't buy enough alcohol to comment on the prices -- they seemed inexpensive, but I can't say for sure. I bought 3 bottles of wine, 2 of which were $5.99 each, and a 6 pack of a local microbrew, spending a total of about $25. The 3rd bottle of wine was called Mommy's Time Out, which was an irrisistible purchase at under $10/bottle.
Again, the selection was enormous. I've been in full scale grocery stores smaller than the liquor store section of Woodman's. Jill's preferred wine is Pino Grigio, and often the selection is limited to 10 or fewer bottles. At Woodman's, there was a whole section of Pino Grigio -- maybe five 30" shelves.
In short, I recommend Woodman's enthusiastically. But I also recommend going at an off-peak time, and going without your kids. Shopping there is a major undertaking, and trying to make it work with kids on a Saturday morning is a recipe for overwhelm and misery.
