# A trolley full of junk food..



## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

When we go to our local town our last stop is an Aldi supermarket.
We were heading to the checkout and I had a good look at what was in our trolley. A single layer in the bottom consisting almost entirely of JUNK FOOD. I was honestly delighted by this.......

We buy so little of our real food these days that the supermarket visit is really just to grab a few things that we could do without anyway. 

Hubby has a serious sweettooth so a bag or two of sweets gets thrown in. I like seaweed crackers so in they go, along with large bag of crisps (plain as I can't eat flavours etc). Hubbby picks up 2 packs of fruit mince pies, I give him a stern look as we have 50 jars of homemade fruitmince in the pantry. He counters with "Well will you have time to make pastry this week?" I shrug, fair enough and into the trolley they go. 
Past the freezers and I throw in 2 x boxes of yum cha, he looks at me and I reply "V8's are on Sunday." OH is all he says..... We'll stay in bed most of the day and do NOTHING. We do this 3 or 4 times a year...... Onto the fridges, lb of mushrooms to mix into salads and 5 whole celery to dehydrate as they are on sale and ours are still 6 weeks off (need to grow more next year!). Past the dairy section, we smile at each other, thank goodness for the cows, look at those prices! Hmmm past the icecream, throw in a quart of premium vanilla, I'm not making icecream and he'll want it with the fruit mince pies  .
At the checkout now, a well dressed woman looks in our trolley and tuts at us, leans over to her friend and says " Some people have no idea how to look after their health." Hahahaha if she only knew.  I've got no idea what she thought of all that celery...... :laugh:


----------



## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

I had to chuckle! As I grow and preserve more and more of my own food it does seem a trip to the grocery means buying crap. Hey, I can't make chocolate at home so why not indulge in a Toblerone or a package of peppermint patties. I bought a pound of Jelly Belly jelly beans almost two years ago and had a few today as a treat!

I think most folks look at your 'trolley', we call it a shopping cart here, and think that you make that trip every week or a few times a week. They do not realize that you are buying luxuries not necessities. Just smile at them. Folks hate when you smile.


----------



## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

In the past, and these days when we are off-track for some reason, groceries are the basics; milk, eggs, bread etc. 
But when things are going well we have all of that and of course veggies and meat so all we are left with is stuff like chocolate, spices, coffee, all the frills really. It makes grocery shopping a bit more fun and relaxing than when you have to bring home everything all of the time.


----------



## VoorTrekker (Oct 7, 2012)

A trolley is a shopping cart? Another "foreign" word to use when I am speaking to other people. ( A bonnet is also a beret.)


----------



## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Aldi has the absolute BEST of quality German chocolates and confectionary at reasonable prices.

I had to actively avoid the place in the last 2 years to prevent weight gain. 

The "starwberry yoghurt" 200g chocolate things are to-die for


----------



## Sentry18 (Aug 5, 2012)

My oldest used to work at the checkout of a grocery store, according to her most of what was loaded into grocery carts was junk food. She would talk all the time about $200-300's worth of food crossing the scanner and no fruits, veggies or the like to be found anywhere. Your rare treats are other peoples everyday diet.


----------



## Tirediron (Jul 12, 2010)

cowboyhermit said:


> In the past, and these days when we are off-track for some reason, groceries are the basics; milk, eggs, bread etc.
> But when things are going well we have all of that and of course veggies and meat so all we are left with is stuff like chocolate, spices, coffee, all the frills really. It makes grocery shopping a bit more fun and relaxing than when you have to bring home everything all of the time.


It is rare for a working farm or ranch to raise much of their own food in this part of the country any more, most people think that they are too busy


----------



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

What? No Vegemite?:laugh:


----------



## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Tirediron said:


> It is rare for a working farm or ranch to raise much of their own food in this part of the country any more, most people think that they are too busy


It can be tough to justify at times, when you can sell one calf for $1000 that buys a lot of eggs (even the free range organic ones). It takes a heck of a lot more work for me to keep a few chickens around than just one more cow so when things get crazy the "extra's" sometimes get dropped. This has been a good exercise in the past because it made clear which things we really wanted to do and which were not a really high priority. But, strange as it may sound, I don't really farm to make money, I farm because I love it. As long as the bills are paid and things aren't slipping backward that's all that matters to me. If I sit down and do a breakdown on all of our projects like bees, chickens, garden, brewing, etc many of them don't make money but neither does golf :dunno: at least this has the benefit of making us feel good and healthy.

But yeah, most farmers would be stuck eating grain, if they even had that. Mmmm, boiled canola:laugh:


----------



## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

I got some concerned looks at Costco today. My cart was loaded with extra canned veggies, eggs, milk and meat. Everyone around me had tvs, movies, toys etc.


----------



## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

Well, DUH. It is Black Friday weekend, what do you expect! How can you think about buying food when all the sales on stuff are going on. Grimm... You really need to get with the program.

Sorry, I forgot to use the sarcasm font!


----------



## Grimm (Sep 5, 2012)

Woody said:


> Well, DUH. It is Black Friday weekend, what do you expect! How can you think about buying food when all the sales on stuff are going on. Grimm... You really need to get with the program.
> 
> Sorry, I forgot to use the sarcasm font!


But how many flat screen high def tvs does one really need?!


----------



## Woody (Nov 11, 2008)

Grimm said:


> But how many flat screen high def tvs does one really need?!


At eighty-eight bucks a pop who cares! Get in line and throw a couple in the cart!!! Within a year or so they will all be crap and you will have to buy another anyway.

Back to reality now... I took the puppy to the puppy park this afternoon around 1:00, stopping off at the ABC (booze store) along the way. The Lowe's parking lot was absolutely FULL! Wally World the same!!! The 5 or so shopping... what are they called now... shopping mecas? Had FULL parking lots!!! The talk at the park was who got what deal at what store.

So, what did I buy? A liter of my brandy, asparagus (it was on sale for $1.99!), couple oranges, A Toblerone (only because of this thread, I hate you guys!), cranberry juice, canned tuna and some celery. Tonight I'll go online and buy a few of those $88 TV's, just to keep up appearances.


----------



## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

Davarm said:


> What? No Vegemite?:laugh:


Nah, Aldi only sells little jars. I get my Vegemite from the caterer supply in buckets


----------



## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

cowboyhermit said:


> It can be tough to justify at times, when you can sell one calf for $1000 that buys a lot of eggs (even the free range organic ones). It takes a heck of a lot more work for me to keep a few chickens around than just one more cow so when things get crazy the "extra's" sometimes get dropped. This has been a good exercise in the past because it made clear which things we really wanted to do and which were not a really high priority. But, strange as it may sound, I don't really farm to make money, I farm because I love it. As long as the bills are paid and things aren't slipping backward that's all that matters to me. If I sit down and do a breakdown on all of our projects like bees, chickens, garden, brewing, etc many of them don't make money but neither does golf :dunno: at least this has the benefit of making us feel good and healthy.
> 
> But yeah, most farmers would be stuck eating grain, if they even had that. Mmmm, boiled canola:laugh:


It can be tough to justify. We don't save money living like this but we do increase our wealth. If we sold all the pigs, sheep, cattle and poultry we slaughter in a year we'd have much more cash in hand than we would spend on meat at the butcher but we'd buy cheap cuts. Butchering our own means we can eat all the good cuts, feed plenty of extra people and give heaps away to family and friends. As well as eating clean healthy food, getting plenty of exercise (we call it hard work  ), keeping old skills alive and the immense satisfaction you get from doing it all yourself.
We spend almost all of our small income trying to improve the facilities here to make things easier to manage and to allow us to do more with our time. We'd probably have more money in the bank if we sat on the porch and watched the weeds grow and went grocery shopping every week.


----------



## VoorTrekker (Oct 7, 2012)

Wellrounded said:


> Nah, Aldi only sells little jars. I get my Vegemite from the caterer supply in buckets


I was in Australia in Queensland for Army exchange training program. We were trained by the 31st Reg. and we ate Aussie rations. Included in the rations were vegemite. No one knew how to use or eat the vegemite.

So how do we use/eat vegemite?

(Another Yank.)


----------

