Year End Reflection #1 Happy Feet

It's that time of year again and I'm always going to have something to reflect on. This looking glass reflected from the first of the year right up to about an hour before posting this one.

One of the Financial Pundits published an article on a hot topic with me. Kroger's!  I'm still peeved at K-Roger for insulting senior citizens the way that they did. And---I'm peeved at them for poor marketing and lying to customers. I've been shopping at Kroger's since I was 5 years old. That's a long and loyal customer, but loyalty does not mean anything today. Nothing!

My core shopping, as a result of their insult has dropped from $1000 annual saving  to a meer $73.00 through yesterday, 10th of December. In the article, the Pundit came down hard on Kroger's CEO Rodney MC Mullen. In fact, he predicted that MC Mullen was taking Kroger's down the same lane as Sears traveled.  He actually was on point about how Kroger was missing the message and that the share holders were a bit more than just  nervous about the future.

The big insult was that they announced about this time last year that they would be "Retiring"  their senior citizens program. Then, they mentioned that they were going to lower prices. Well, being an old marketing guy and also a very savvy shopper that knows prices on items not at just Kroger's but at the Wall, Aldis, Albertsons--including their purchase of Tom Thumb from Safeway and Randall's and others. I'm here to tell you that Kroger's prices have not decreased. In fact, they have increased. Now, I know why they wrapped their front doors like an ad on the side of the bus. Some, prices were substantially more. My Kroger's got the new remodel (again--they just had one a couple of years ago) but this one flipped the store upside down and rearranged the out side isles, leaving the core isle of groceries basically untouched except a bit squeezed where the outside isles were widened. The only wall that didn't get touched was the meat department where they sell the out of the ball park Nolan Ryan Beef!! Sorry for the pun. Even Nolan got out of Dallas and went back to Houston!

Every year, I buy myself a pair of new house slippers at Kroger's. That is, until this year. The price this year jumped $4.00 over what I normally pay. I liked the slippers that they sold because they are snug and warm and last a full year Then, I buy a new pair and toss the old ones. Well, The K-Roger changed up the supplier like so many other things that they cut out and replaced with brands like Psst! or some dinky slap-in-the-face  brand that not only taste terrible but was not even that cheap. I tried it one time and dumped it quick, never to pick up another package on anything that had that Psst! name on it.

So, I was in Kroger's on Monday. I saw the slippers and went home disappointed on the style change and the price increase. I've tried the ones from the Wall and ended up taking a pair back because they fell apart so when Kroger's had my slippers, I was a happy camper! Until Monday, that is.

Today, when the weekly mailers came. Aldi's (My favorite place to buy groceries since K-Roger started sailing toward the drain) had my slippers. Get this!!! $6.99  I've been paying $10-12  at Kroger's. They go on sale tomorrow!! I will have happy feet this Christmas, after all!

So, the bottom line on this mirror is that the Money Boys are now saying what I have been saying all year about Kroger's. They are headed down the tubes if they don't stop insulting customers, raising prices, trying to do something that isn't working anywhere but at Amazon.

Three Weeks Until 2019!! 

Blue Bell Is Back

Many years ago I tasted ice cream from the Franklin Dairy Stores.  Their brand was my favorite for many years. Then, I went East and tasted ice cream from the Friendly's chain in Boston . They had a double chocolate that was like fire works to the palate. When they expanded West, it caused me to defect from Franklin's and eating Friendly's for many more years became normal.  Then Braum's  became the taste bud's choice in Texas. My first trip to Braum's this year was in early March. Double dip of chocolate in a waffle cone was the standard fare. But the take- home choice was found at Kroger's. Their Death by Chocolate would jump into my cart every time I pushed the cart down the freezer section isle. So when the scandal at Blue Bell turned Texans upside down not knowing what they were going to do with no Blue Bell during the summer there was a report about what made ice cream really good in the first place. At Walmart, their SAM'S label sold at Walmart is made with all the natural ingrediants and I discovered it tasted just like the old Franklin's Ice Cream and Friendly's. Rich, creamy, and just plain old-fashioned to the 'T'.

When I finished shooting fall scenes that some of my web designers like to use when they do web pages, I headed to Kroger's to get a couple of fill-in items. As I went past the freezer's,  people were lined up putting Blue Bell in their carts--and then going back to get a second half-gallon and some ever got three!! All I could do was to chuckle. I'm so ice-creamed out right now!

While people were having Blue Bell withdrawals this summer, I was content with Braum's and Kroger's Select Death by Chocolate or Sam's French Vanilla (which to me taste just like taking the crank off the cylinder and pulling out the blades so you could scoop that first big spoonful of home made ice cream.

Here's a few shots from this afternoon.

While this is most likely one of the old buzzards at the lake, it has some tell-tale signs of being a juvenile bald eagle with the white feathers beginning to show on the head, the wings and tail.

seed pods and leaves changing made for a nice contrast

That look of leather on this solo leaf  is just plain pretty.

07Nov2015: edit to correct a typo and misspell.

The First Shopping Trip of 2015--I Should Have Stayed in Bed

Thinking that the "worse" of the Christmas returns was over and that it was safe to venture out to shop now, I packed by hand-written, back-of-an-envelope list of errands into my front shirt pocket and headed out. First stop. Walgreen's. Now, this could be a story within itself and maybe down the line somewhere this year, I might get around to posting in.

My after shave isn't anything special. My grandfather used it. My father used it. It was always found on the back shelf behind each barber's chair in any barbershop, even if the chair in the shop didn't have a barber assigned to it at any given time. The company that makes the stuff  celebrated it's 200th anniversary in 2010. It's got those turn-of-the century phrases on the label that reads with sounds of the old-world like "Essence Imported from France" and "Blended in the USA".

My dad got the stuff for me for years until his supplier finally passed on. I searched the cosmetic supply places and Barber Supply places until I was blue in the face. Then one day, I decided that I would try one last time on line. Bingo! There it was. And, it also listed another old smell that I grew up with known to my age group simply as "body splash".  If you were taking a girl to a show or a dance, you splashed a little here and a little there and slicked the combed hair above the ears back on each side and were out the door.

As luck would have it. Walgreen's were out. The guy said that he would call the neighboring Walgreen's to see if they had stock. They did and were holding it at the front counter for me. I could order it from Drugstore.com but the shipping is not cheap--costing as much as a 6-ounce bottle of the stuff. On line the bottles are 12-ounces but you loose half in shipping so buying a 6-ounce locally generally is the better deal. Once or twice a year the 12-ounce bottles are much cheaper and I order the splash and the after shave. It usually last me most of the year after I receive it at the door. I checked out what I did find on my list, bought a couple of Russell Stover's chocolate-covered cream filled hearts. Yeah, mover over Christmas left overs--Valentine's here! Don't you just love the calendar for retail?

My route had to be re-worked as I try to plan out my stops so that the grocery stop is the last stop before home. In this case the drugstore and the grocery store are a half-block from each other and I'm going much farther to get the after shave. I can stop at my other Kroger's. Didn't think about one thing, however.

The next stop was to have a hot bowl of home-made chili at a local greasy spoon. From there, I had to make a return trip because there was no spoon i n the bag of chili. I got a lecture from Gus.  Gus is like that. You get a lecture if you are not ready to order when he arrives at your table to take your order. "No ready? You wait. I take more orders."  I can  remember years ago a greasy spoon with a name like "Rusty Lantern".  They had their Gus, too! He was Sicilian and more gruff! The food came on a sheet of wax paper--no plates. At lunch time, you could stand in line down the sidewalk for half your lunch hour but the food was out of this world.

The bowl of chili got eaten in my car in the parking lot of an alternate and friendly Kroger's. It was now getting close to peak travel time , I wanted to get the shopping done quickly and get home. That was not to be. Not this day. NOT this Kroger's.  

I know that some of you think I pick on Kroger's lately. From both angles, It has only been about the deli and the size of the fried chicken pieces--which now are pretty much uniform--all much smaller! At least it is uniform. And, in Kroger's defense today, it is a jurisdictional issue of Dallas passing a new law that  other suburban cities have not. Plastic Bags. Dallas has banned. My Kroger is in Richardson and it does not effect me. But, today, because of my 200 plus year old  after shave not being in stock at my Walgreen's, I'm at a Kroger in Dallas. Funny thing, I carry bags in my trunk. So, into the truck I went for the bags and headed for the front sliding doors.


Shopping went swiftly with only one isle traffic jam. Then I headed straight for the self-check outs.
Here's the thing. The self-check-outs now have a software add-on if you want to purchase a plastic bag or use you own and you are in the city of Dallas. If you use your own, then you have to clear the space on the counter where you can sit your items purchased because you can't put your items in your own bags until after you

Dallas Stores has the plastic bag ordinance...not the suburban stores like Richardson, Carrollton, Addison,Garland, Cedar Hill, Duncanville, etc.,etc.

check out. It's a weight issue.. No, it's a plastic bag ordinance issue that has unplanned consequences to the ordinance. Won't be using the self-check outs in Dallas Kroger's from now on. The lines now take three times as long to check out.In short--the new law has slowed down the self-checkout lines.

The Manager's Line Is The Same, But The Chicken Is Not

Shopping at the neighborhood grocery's deli can be a good thing as to time, cost and flavor. If I can take an item and enhance its flavor with gravies or sauces or some noodles or vegetables, I will choose the deli item at least once a week. I've been doing that since I've had to do my own cooking again for the past twenty-five years. I've gotten pretty good at it, I might add.

I'm geographically in the middle of four Kroger stores that I like to shop. They all are laid out a bit differently, too. Don't you just hate that when you go into a chain and the layout is backwards to the one you shop at the most?  Well, that should be your first clue that the store really doesn't give a hoot that you like them or not. The old numbers game has already indicated that they are going to get so much business from a location when they sign the lease. So, I really don't care about letting them know that they are not being very customer friendly when they are not.

The manager at my Kroger's last year said to me in the isle of the very store he managed that "Kroger's have given him two million dollars and said, 'now go [screw] the store up.'"  And, yelp! He did just that. Every since that conversation, I have noted a big change at Kroger's. First, like all others in the industry, their prices started going up. Two, they put in a new brand in between the name brands and the Kroger band products. My 50 calorie per slice smoked ham is now gone. My 50 calorie per slice wheat bread is now gone. My taste buds are screaming to my head, "don't buy this garbage again". The new brand has higher caloric counts, too! A noted higher caloric count.

In Kroger's defense, I do like their electronic coupons and free Fridays that they email me weekly The savings do add up. Once you learn the system and how it works, you just have to watch the receipt at check out to make sure that it records the savings and deducts from your total. I can do that.

Now, however, comes the part where Kroger's did me wrong. I don't lie and I take offense to others that do. It's just as easy to tell the truth in the beginning. Sometimes, it hurts. Sometimes, it feels it feels good, but in the end, it is just as easy to tell the truth. So, when a manager starts his spiel about,"we get  all our chicken from one vendor," or, I used to manage 23 stores in the region and I can tell you this....."
I've been there. I've heard the line before. And as they say here in Texas, "This ain't my first rodeo, either." What I'm referring to is the size, the rubberness, the unappealing look, the over cooked pieces of hot chicken in the Deli at my Kroger's. But mostly, it's the size of the pieces that have shrunk like a pair of Levi jeans!  I've gotten hot deli chicken pieces at all four of my geographical locations. The one to the north of me, the one to the east, the one to the south  and the one farther west than mine, which is west of me as one of the geographical four.

Yes, as a consumer, I have complained to the tall manager that is usually in the store when I shop. There is another manager that I see who is a little rotund and  almost as regularly in the store as the tall one. In fact, I have walked both of these managers over to the deli counter and pointed out to them my issue with the chicken. The tall one now, when he sees me just grins, waves and that's it. The rotund one gave me the line about the 23 stores Yesterday, he gave me the line about  the vendor is the same for all the deli chicken.

After I left the store, I drove over to one of the other geographical location stores. I went in to the deli and low and behold ( I saw the light) the chicken pieces were stacked up like a mountain and  it just said to me...... "come on and start shopping my store".  And so I did. But not before I got a picture of the big, juicy and plump deep fried chicken breast! As a bonus.....the price was lower for the two pieces at this Kroger than at my own Kroger that is driving their deli customers away.

No, excuses, the picture is a bit dark.

Hot Deli Chicken Pieces

21/11/2014. Updated dropped characters in piece.

There's Big Money in Toilet Paper

Ask anyone at Walmart , Sam's Club or Costco's and they will tell you that their big money maker is paper goods (i.e., toilet paper and paper towels). Stacks and stacks of the stuff in the "big box" stores does not look like it takes up a lot of floor space. And, if you know anything about retail or wholesale, the ruling king inside four walls is square footage of space. Land is valuable but shelf space is even more valuable. In order to use that much space in a 75 to 125,000 sq. ft. building it must produce big sales dollars right down to every square inch.

Walmart has always promoted their price comparison scam. Bring in your receipt. They don't have to price check that way. You are doing it for them. And, you can bet that the info gets noted somewhere in the marketing department and/or General Manager's office for that daily conference call.

 What caught my eye the other day was the big comparison going on with Kroger's in the commercials aired. In that battle, Walmart has declared war on Kroger's. Why, because Walmart is loosing market shares in the grocery business. Walmart does not like to admit anything and will sometimes go to great lengths to try to turn the potentially damaging  situation in public relations into something less threatening or even try to make it a "golden goose" if it can.

Four years ago, I walked out of Walmart as a customer and began to really "shop" for bargains and savings. It took thirty days to break the Walmart habit. In the past two months, I have gone to Walmart twice. From my observations, I still made the best choice of not shopping at Walmart.

My brother and his wife had given me a gift card to Walmart as an e-gift. That is the reason why I ventured back into the store. I had purchased a pair of house shoes. The story behind that was that I had found the most wonderful and comfortable house shoes  at Kroger's three years ago. Every Christmas, I bought a new pair and tossed the old ones to the garbage. This past Christmas, I had missed out on getting a pair for a couple of reasons. One, the pair did not show the wear in one year as the other two pairs had done. Second, the supply didn't last as long as others had discovered that when they go one sale, you had better buy them right then. I failed to do that for reason one and I lost out. So, along came the gift card and to use it up, I went to  Walmart.  I bought a pair of slippers/house shoes at Walmart. Less than 90-days later, I took them back. They looked like they had come out of a dumpster. They had big clumps of fleece coming out and the plastic supports under the heal were cutting into my heal. When I took them back, the customer service person was so insulting and basically said that I could not have bought this pair in the last 90-days even with my receipt.

The customer service person then gave me a gift card for the amount of the receipt . I went to the paper isle and purchased toilet paper and paper towels. Now that opened up a whole new can of worms. When I was still shopping at Walmart. I regularly bought their 4-pack of tissue and a 3-pack of paper towels that were the cheapest price in the market. I don't put good money into paper goods. You flush one and you toss the other after use. Keeping the price down is a point of logic, not a point of personal comfort.

I started buying my paper products at Kroger's because Walmart ended stocking the sizes with the competitive price such as 4-rolls of tissue for 88-cents and a three pack of towels for $1.67 was the going price in the market before they packed it in a 6-pack.

So, when home, after putting the items into storage I continued to use my Kroger items until it was used up. But before tossing the wrappers, they got placed on a shelf. When the wrapper finally came off the Walmart tissue, it too, was placed on the shelf. Yesterday, I sat down to run the numbers as a comparison. There were several differences. Kroger was 1-ply at 198 sheets while the Walmart was 2-ply but only 150 sheets. The sheets sizes were Kroger's at 4.0 x 4.0 inches while the Walmart was 4.27 x 3.75 inches. The net was Kroger at 8.1 meters squared while the Walmart was  6.1 meters squared.

The bottom line is that Kroger was still the better price with 26.5748031 feet per roll while the Walmart tissue was 20.0131234 feet per roll. Some will argue that the Walmart was 2-ply. Come on!
with the Kroger difference of 6 feet extra per roll, use an extra sheet or two and fold it over.

Every thing that I have compared at Kroger's is still a better saving than Walmart. The paper towel thing is much the same as the toilet tissue issue. Kroger wins there, also.

I will take pictures of the wrappers later. I'm waiting for a sunny day. I want the sun to shine of this paper issue!


Edited for more detail.
Edited 04/28/14 to add pictures & edited to correct the price at per 4-pack.

Kroger wins with 6 feet more tissue per roll.

Walmart came in second
.Both products sell for $0.88 per 4-pack