Grocery shopping for me is an undesirable chore. Moreso with this pandemic. It’s torture. As much as possible I try to minimize the time spent grocery shopping. Pre-COVID-19, I allot an hour for grocery shopping. But now…🤷🏻♀️ I’ll be lucky if I only stay in line to enter the supermarket for 30 mins, an hour to get what my household needs, and another 30 mins to queue up for the cashier.
I used to shop at Hi-Top Aurora Blvd in Project 4 because 1) there are so many choices there; 2) they have items on sale every week; 3) they have Monterey meat section; and 4) grocery items are cheaper compared to bigger chains. But because of the pandemic, the lines are now unbearably long there. I am forced to stick to the big chains like Save More which do not give me choices that much and grocery items are more expensive.
This is what my grocery cart looked like in Hi-Top:
But because my grocery shopping has gotten more expensive as I now do shopping closer to home, my cart now looks like this:
Let’s not forget the uncomfortable masks. Good thing that the masks I made are breathable and snug but my other masks that were bought from tiangges and street vendors are so thick that I may end up with carbon dioxide poisoning.
Now that the Monterey Community Market is open in my village, I can do now my weekly shopping for food in the nearby mini mart, vegetables at the vegetable stand infront of it if I’m not able to go to UPD (the fruit and vegetable stand in the old tennis court) then meat at Monterey. This way I can avoid the long lines at the bigger supermarket chains.
Grocery shopping these days requires more strategizing. Tedious. I want my weekends back.
