The Consumerist, no longer publishing new stuff, used to have a regular feature about the grocery shrink ray. That was a good blog.
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We like buying 6oz cans of drinks when we can find them. Lately they have been more expensive than a larger box of 12oz cans. PMO
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Including bags of things that are more than half filled with nothing but air. 
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I always assumed that was to keep them from getting crushed during shipping. Did they actually used to be significantly more filled?
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My memory is that they used to be much fuller than they are now.
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Feeding a family of vegetarians as well, I am with you on how easy it is to save money by skipping flesh! As for Aldi, I can only attest to there being plenty of organic food available and some local suppliers (at the Aldi stores I visit in NY). I know this because a few of the items I buy there routinely are labeled as NY made.
From what little else I know about the company, they appear to be on the right track environmentally and in regards to their employees’ compensation and benefits. They’ve also gotten rid of tons of additives from their house brand products and have moved to mostly recyclable packaging, etc., but I am not sure how much of that is Greenwashing/marketing /other corporate BS.
I don’t trust them persee, but I have four people to feed and live/work in America, know what I’m sayin? It’s inexpensive and surprisingly high quality. “Trailer Joe’s”, lol.
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Seems like if the average cost of a meal literally billed as a “feast” only works out to a little over 5 bucks a person in a country where the Federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour (and is twice that in some places) then it’s still pretty cheap in the grand scheme of things. Historically speaking, if you can earn enough for a feast in less than an hour you’re doing pretty well for yourself.
The cost of traveling to the home of the person hosting that feast is another matter entirely, not to mention the crazed consumerist frenzy that has become an American tradition for the day following Thanksgiving.
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I’ve never been to a Thanksgiving dinner where people couldn’t have made and eaten 14% less and still been stuffed to the gills and still have tons of leftovers.
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throw in some Turkey Flavored Whisky and you’ve busted the budget!
Yeah, but then you tell your uncle that if he eats the turkey foot in the bottom of the bottle, he wins a free bottle. Best entertainment $65 can buy!
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On it!
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We are cheap to feed, usually. I’ve been a veg since 1980.
No matter my roommates’ or family members’ grocery bills, mine always comes in lowest per human fed, and that’s buying organics where possible and staples in bulk or when steeply discounted.
One hack ICYMI:
https://wholesale.frontiercoop.com/
That’s for splurge-y stuff like nice tea and coffee. Soaps. It’s a good stand-in for a Costco or a food co-op when you don’t live anywhere near one. Been buying wholesale from them for a few decades. It is a budget hack I rely on.
We grow some of what we eat. We try hard to eat very low on the food chain. Our one splurge is organic dairy (cheese, yogurt). We also don’t drink, smoke, buy gourmet or brand-name foods, so that’s more savings there on the ol’ budget of consumables.
Germans. Gobblessum.
(Trader Joe’s is a subsidiary of Aldi Nord.)
Aldi sucks less than many in The Greed Community. They have some sustainability reports posted here. You have to click around to get the ones in English.
As a nearly 30-year Austinite who almost never shops at Whole Foods uh I mean Whole Paycheck now it’s AmaWhole, I can tell you that no matter how highly touted the corporation’s Green Principles and Practices are, at some point, if you look around and feel coddled and curated and cocooned into a “we are so totally green, lookit!” mindset, start digging and GTFO of that store, stat. Bezos’ grocery beast is performatively green now, AFAICT.
Proof’s in the puddin’ and that’s all that counts.
Bon appetit.
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