Whole Foods purchase tonight.. and tough ecconomic times....

Got a funny story to post? Just want to talk? This would be a good place for that.
User avatar
Jeff T.
Posts: 421
Joined: Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:28 am
Location: Blueberry Hill

Whole Foods purchase tonight.. and tough ecconomic times....

Postby Jeff T. » Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:36 am

Ok, I'm a little bit totally bored right now so I just thought I would post a bunch of junk.

I want to my local grocery store tonight to get one of those plastic containers of cut honeydew fruit and a box of tea bags. I was at Pavilion's in Beverly Hills which also owns "Vons" stores around LA.

The box of tea from Traditional Medicinals is an organic brand, a well known good one, was priced at $6.39, and the fruit was $5.99. I thought that was outrageously high. So I got the other few things I wanted and got the hell outta there.

Then over at Whole Foods which we all know is way high, and I found the same box of tea priced much lower at $4.69, and the fruit also priced lower at $2.69.

I mean this Beverly Hills Pavilion's location could be higher than other locations but this was just pure theft at those prices.

The bottom line here is that Whole Foods markets are not really that bad when you look at the big picture. I don't know if you all know Whole Foods, and have it in your area. But it is a large natural wholesome type food store with some prepared stuff, a large salad bar take out section, and tons of organic produce. It's known as being hip and trendy and expensive. If you are a single guy and look ok, you would want to shop here cause the woman are all here and shopping alone and they look pretty great. But if you are burned out from bars, beers, and burgers, you might feel out of place. It might be slightly snooty.

It's fine if you don't mind the prices being a tad high on certain items. But I don't go there that much because I am looking for the best prices on most everything these days. But I was really surprised that Whole Foods which is sometimes known as "Whole Paycheck" would have anything lower than Pavilion's.

But the way, have you all noticed how gas prices dropped down to one half what they were this summer? After bankrupting the auto industry and airlines while making billions in record profits, the oil companies decided lower prices temporarily. Can you believe that?

See I think during bad ecconimic times all companies should try and lower prices. But most decide to raise prices to make up for any lost business. I got rid of some features from my phone service that I no longer feel I need like wire/jack insurance, and unlisted in directory number. This lowered my phone bill by about $13 a month. But then the next month the bill went up by $10. Ain't that funny! So I am saving only $3 after all.

It's a bitch out there. And I have enough cash to get through the next 15 to 18 months no matter what happens. But what about after that?

User avatar
Rspaight
Posts: 4386
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2003 10:48 am
Location: The Reality-Based Community
Contact:

Re: Whole Foods purchase tonight.. and tough ecconomic times....

Postby Rspaight » Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:05 am

Gas prices going down is two things, I think.

First, demand has gone down a lot due to both the economic downturn and the reduced driving people did over the summer. The latter is probably reversing a bit now that gas is cheap again, but the former will continue to be a factor for some time.

Second, the speculative bubble in oil prices burst along with the financial markets. This is probably the larger of the two factors. Oil prices are less than half their recent highs, and the stock market is about half, depending on the daily 1000 point swing. :shock:

We've got a Whole Foods near us (they recently bought out the local Wild Oats franchise), but we generally go to the local co-op. They've got a lot of locally produced food along with the sort of hippie-freak (said with affection) products Whole Foods carries, and we'd rather our dollars support the local business rather than the big chain. We'll grab stuff from Whole Foods out of convenience occasionally, though, since it's closer. And for basic stuff, we'll go to a normal grocery store.
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney

User avatar
Xenu
Sellout
Posts: 2209
Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2003 8:15 pm

Re: Whole Foods purchase tonight.. and tough ecconomic times....

Postby Xenu » Fri Dec 05, 2008 11:17 am

One of the terrible things about living in Manhattan is that Whole Foods is actually sort of reasonably priced compared to local monstrosities like Food Emporium and (vomit) Gristedes (/vomit). Additionally, for "dry" hippie goods--i.e. not produce--it's hard to beat their basic prices.
-------------
"Fuckin' Koreans" - Reno 911