Shop Locally

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

There aren't local grocers around where we live - just have chains, except for a small Seabras that's near my bus stop.

Tons of them in Iselin. That's not too far from you

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

The best produce we've found hasn't been at the supermarkets or at the local asian/indian places or at the farmers market.

It's at Costco!

I'll agree with you there - Costco does have very good produce.

Though I haven't found anywhere in NJ that's close to the level of quality you get in CA. We were there at the start of the month and the quality is amazing - surprisingly also a heck of a lot cheaper than NJ.

All NJs good produce goes to other states - we're left with the #######. If the fruit and veg isn't beaten to ####### by the time it gets into the stores - you have idiot supermarket staff who use the cabbages for footballs.

There aren't local grocers around where we live - just have chains, except for a small Seabras that's near my bus stop.

Tons of them in Iselin. That's not too far from you

That's still too far away to drive for the essentials - its a half hour drive out there.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Well my area doesn't have decent grocery stores - so have to drive miles out of the way to get decent stuff.

I'm not supporting businesses that sell shite stuff.

Are talking about local grocers? There's a small Indian/British grocery market where we live. We've eaten lunch there, but neither one of us feels confident enough to know what we'd be buying and how to cook it.

There aren't local grocers around where we live - just have chains, except for a small Seabras that's near my bus stop.

I rarely go in there - the place smells like @ss.

That's not @ss...that's coriander.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

No - its cause the place has its own butchers on premises. They sell a lot of meat products that are delicacies to hispanic people. Doesn't do anything for me - and there's only so long you can hold your breath...

[NickD 203]

Learned the State of Wisconsin keeps track of internet purchases, so you better darn well pay sales tax to the state on any out of state purchases. No gain there, then there are shipping and HANDLING charges. And if an item has to be shipped by truck, the rates are astronomical. Then what happens if you received the wrong item or receive a defective unit. Can spend the rest of your life trying to dial a toll free number.

The net is great for learning prices, do that a lot, and use that to bargain with, especially on automotive parts, either told, buy it on the net, but far more frequently, I can meet that.

But the really advantage of buying locally, is you can take it back, show the item, what's wrong with it, and get a replacement or a refund, and if given a difficult time, you have a real live person directly in front of you, you can torture until you get your refund. It hasn't come to that, yet, but I have returned video games for my kids that were ####### tearing the manager apart in the store when he tells me it's against FCC rules. This works both ways, some kids buy games just to play them but this gives those software companies a good excuse to sell pure #######.

Wife from Venezuela is accustomed to their store policies of you can't return anything, even if it is defective. Took her five years of living here before she had courage to return something, but still hates to do it. I have fun with it, latest statement is do you want to simply give me a refund, or do you want me to give you an eight hour dissertation as to why I am returning this item? Ha, that works, get a refund instantly.

Returned a tool just yesterday, you should be ashamed of yourself for selling this piece of #######.

This is why I like buying locally, with one internet purchase, took me over three months to settle it writing volumes of data to my credit card company, keeping all correspondance, sending them copies, it's crazy. If the guy that sold me that piece of ####### was in front of me, he would have found it up his butt.

[dalegg 143]

I buy my produce at a nearby farmer's market - none of the supermarkets can compete on price or quality. For the meat, there's a little local Latino store where, again, none of the supermarkets can compete on quality and price. This gets tricky, though, when you're out to buy other household items - there you're local supermarket beats mom-and-pop hands down.

It's rare to find any local hardware stores anymore....everywhere I go, I see Home Depot. We have about 3 of them all within a 5 mile radius. Corporate pigs.

I literally drive by two of them on my way to the only plumbing store in Garden Grove. It frightens me to think one day this place will go out of business too because I buy hard to find replacement parts for my old house for like $1.00 that Home Depot doesn't carry and its courtesy clerks are clueless about.

Soon we won't even have the bipeds who kind of sort of know where things are at in Home Depot too because the check out clerks are being replaced with auto check out machines.

One day I'll need to replace a washer for my shower faucet and I will end up having to remodel my bathroom so I can have new plumbing installed. I guess that's better for the economy overall though.

[Heracles 417]

by Peter Rothberg, The Nation

According to the 3/50 Project, for every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that with a national chain, only $43 stays at home. Spend it online and nothing stays in the community.

So, shopping locally is one of the best means available to support an economy based on small businesses rather than large corporations, to maintain regional diversity, to help sustain local public schools, to increase community job creation, and to maintain the availability of a wide range of products, good, services, media and food based, not on a national sales plan, but on the interests, needs and peculiarities of local communities as determined by community members themselves. This blog post by Rieva Lesonsky, Consulting Editor at BizWomen.com, explains well why it's so important to support local businesses.

We're on the same page on this one.

Large stores killed off a big part of blue-collar America. But they are not to blame ultimately the consumer (no offense America) was too stupid to realize that while chasing cheap prices, they were shooting themselves in the foot. Supporting your local businesses is the key to supporting your community. IGA is actually doing extremely well in AUS.

Edited July 24, 2009 by haza

[NickD 203]

by Peter Rothberg, The Nation

According to the 3/50 Project, for every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that with a national chain, only $43 stays at home. Spend it online and nothing stays in the community.

So, shopping locally is one of the best means available to support an economy based on small businesses rather than large corporations, to maintain regional diversity, to help sustain local public schools, to increase community job creation, and to maintain the availability of a wide range of products, good, services, media and food based, not on a national sales plan, but on the interests, needs and peculiarities of local communities as determined by community members themselves. This blog post by Rieva Lesonsky, Consulting Editor at BizWomen.com, explains well why it's so important to support local businesses.

We're on the same page on this one.

Large stores killed off a big part of blue-collar America. But they are not to blame ultimately the consumer (no offense America) was too stupid to realize that while chasing cheap prices, they were shooting themselves in the foot. Supporting your local businesses is the key to supporting your community. IGA is actually doing extremely well in AUS.

Please don't bring up bubble packs, whoops, I just did.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

IGA is actually doing extremely well in AUS.

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[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

[pedroh 21]

well the latino grocery stores around here are cheaper, the arab deli ain't that cheap, but has some cool stuff..

[NickD 203]

Subject has switched to buying "groceries" and fresh produce locally? Does anyone really buy these items off the web? Or some mail order place? Real fussy on picking the correct produce.

Did have to order some of that Venezuelan P.A.N corn flour off the net, conned a local Mexican store to carry that for us, but they went out of business. Next nearest place is down in Madison, 260 mile round trip drive, so didn't mind paying an extra ten bucks for shipping for six packages. Girls still need their arepas.

[Heracles 417]

well the latino grocery stores around here are cheaper, the arab deli ain't that cheap, but has some cool stuff..

Arab delis have some great choice of nuts.

[pedroh 21]

and they add jalapeños to their shoarmas.. awesomeness

[HAL 9000 96]

and they add jalapeños to their shoarmas.. awesomeness

I like them on vietnamese sandwiches.