We have a few young men who adopted us. They are/were friends of our DNA sons, and over the years, they joke about my wife and I being their adopted parents.
One of those young men has been a sheriff’s deputy in a good size city for 25 years.
We have no B&B stores in our area and had 2 about 12 miles away. This “adopted” son advised us not to shop at one as it was right on a county line with other stores and not really protected.
So we never shopped there, and they closed that store just before Covid due to robberies.
This adopted son warned us to be alert if we went to the other store. We stopped going there and got on their blue sale mailing list. Rumors were/are that it will be closed soon.
Meanwhile we have Amazon to deliver and lately Costco has stepped up to that plate with 2 great options.
#1. Delivery in 2 hours (works great for our monthly grocery order. We order at about 10 am and get delivery by noonish.
#2. Free delivery and often discounts on bulky orders or ones that fit into a mailbox. Their prices often beat Amazon, and we get free delivery in a couple days.
We finally got a Costco within driving distance; about 30 minutes away. I bought Beau a membership for his birthday this fall - and I get to use it, too.
Anyhow, there’s so much stuff in that store that I DON’T need, but with the economy tanking, we decided to do a major stock-up on everyday things that it seems we’re always running short of - shampoo, toothpaste, dish soap, razors, laundry supplies, trash bags, vitamins & OTC pain meds, honey, EVOO, tissues, etc.
Granted, it was a $500 layout, but it’s really nice not having to buy those things in with the groceries each week. Beau brought his calculator and did all the ‘maths’ for me as to what was the best overall deal on any given item. He enjoys that stuff. ;)
I always thought stocking up was silly (other than for emergency supplies/Prepper stuff) and it tied up too much money, but these days you really need to plan ahead for every bloody thing!
Also - great price on eggs. I bought 6 dozen (limit) and got them for 26 cents each, versus the 42 cents each I’d been paying by the dozen, locally.
I missed getting that ‘Shopping Gene’ that most women have, so I’m not shedding any tears over any stores or restaurants that are going out of business these days, other than the fact that I 100% specifically blame the CovidBS-19 SCAM, as well as Mother Government, in general. ;)