Drugstore/Grocery Chat Thread

Hi everybody! Happy New Year!

My tradition used to be to try to get things together for the new year. We would get our favorite foods for New Year's Eve, I'd try to straighten up a little, things like that.

This year I used some of my newly acquired hair dye late late at night (like 2 am) on the 31st. I had taken half a sleeping pill and some Benadryl and wasn't my best self. I wanted to go redder (inspired by Stephanie Ruhle's hair) but for some dumb reason I only did the roots, because they were gray. I have entered the new year with starkly two-tone hair.

Since RA closed, DH's meds are at CVS.
I have 15ecb expiring 1/4 so we went together. I had it all mapped out, found the stuff I needed and the Red Machine was actually printing CRTs!! Scanned my card until it said I didn't have any more and the one I needed never printed. This is MIL's card so I figured she'd shopped and it was on her receipt somewhere. I don't have her account info on my phone, so I had to wait until I got home. DH isn't exactly patient with this stuff anyway.

And there it was, ready to load. It was then I remembered that we can only print 3 times with the phone number. I have the barcode printed out and should have used that but it's been so long since I CVS's OR had enough CRTs to not all print by the 2nd time that I totally forgot :/

The CRTs all extended last week, none did this week so I guess I have to go back.
CVS wasn't bad but SW & Costco parking lots had no spaces!! On Jan 2??? I don't get it. We got gas at Costco & found a few spaces over by the station, but I just blew off SW.

Vons and CVS were empty here. Costco is always a zoo. At my local Costco, it's a 10 minute wait to get in the door and another 5 minutes to get to the toilet paper.

We had 2 within a reasonable distance but the just getting to them was inconvenient. I'd occasionally go to MIL's with her in her town, an upscale East Bay community that had a very full parking lot but wasn't bad for shopping.

Then they opened one in an area being developed, it didn't have much around it and we joined. Never a problem, or a line. The high density housing around it is just about complete but I think a lot of them walk so the parking lot was seldom very full. I have noticed the last 2 times that there is only one person at checkout. In years past, there were always 2. The cashier told us this was the "new Costco". I can't really understand it, it's not like they lost business. Maybe they chose fewer employees as a temp. fix in place of passing on tariffs? Or maybe there are fewer people willing to do low level jobs like that due to ICE not caring if the people they round up are legal or not?

Or maybe it's something else entirely that we wouldn't even guess at.

I woke up at 1:30am so either I'll be dead on my feet by 6am or I can try going out when SW opens. I don't think Target does until about 8am.

Local chain Lucky (Savemart) is giving away free Mexican crema this weekend F/S/S, but after the unexpected crowds yesterday I wonder if it's all gone. It's near Grocery Outlet so I could probably do a big circuit, starting with SW and ending at T by the time they open. And then collapse in a puddle of tired when I got home.

I don't do mornings well no matter if I've stayed up or gotten up.

There's no bus service to my local Costco and the walk is all uphill and too far. They have every register open with one person to unload the cart and the other to ring everything up. Checkout is very efficient and the line moves quickly. I've heard that Costco is a great place to work and they pay well. I have a friend who works there and he loves his job. It's very hard to beat Costco's prices no matter how well you coupon. It's certainly not worth the time and effort to try. I love Costco because I can get great prices without having to do anything digital. It's the alternative to how crazy couponing has become. I just walk in and buy stuff like in the old days when shopping used to be fun. There's a huge market for that especially with seniors.

Something I realized today, while I don't miss chasing the deals, and HAVING to shop to spend ecbs or other rewards by an expiration date, I do miss getting out there. I miss the employees and the feeling of accomplishment when I find a way to make a deal work at a low out of pocket cost or a high reward for what I've spent. I also miss being out there to see the markdowns that aren't necessarily getting discussed.

I'm not going back, but it is ok to miss something that made you feel good and rewarded.

Vons and CVS were empty here. Costco is always a zoo. At my local Costco, it's a 10 minute wait to get in the door and another 5 minutes to get to the toilet paper.

I keep saying that I will go to Costco. Right now there is only one near me and it's about 30 minutes away. They are supposed to be building one about 15 minutes from here but it's not expected to open until April 2028 and yes, I meant 28. They said it would take that long because the land has several hundred cubic yards of solid rock and they have to blast it before running water and sewer lines.

Looks like nobody is going t start a new CVS thread for this ad. I wonder if we should just have one CVS thread for the year like the Wags thread.