New York State's Bag Ban

Plastic bags are banned starting March 1. Paper bags will cost 5 cents each.

I always bring my own bag. I started doing so because I was sick of plastic bags taking up my whole garbage can, then I was sick of plastic bags accumulating under my sink. They still accumulate, but now my roommates and friends wont' be able to do that.

I am also looking forward to this to watch people freak out. People who will pay any amount of money for something on the shelves are going to have a conniption over having to pay 5 cents to get something from a store instead of getting something for free from the store. People who would never bend over to pick a nickel up off the ground will suddenly become very concerned about 5 cents.

The psychological principle at work here is "loss aversion." People react much more strongly to losing something they had (free bags) than the actual value of what they're losing or what they could gain (5 cents, like if they picked up a nickel). And that's why the bag ban will work. People don't want to pay 5 cents so badly, even though it is objectively very small, that they will bring their own bags.

Grocery Sales for the First Friday of Lent!

I hope I see some fish! I have been stocking up on canned fishes. Which will also be good if coronavirus wipes out food supply chains. I will already have lots of canned food.

Green Corner: They didn't update their circular, but they are celebrating. This is the top of last week's circular.

Food Bazaar: Instant mashed potatoes are on sale. I am going to make gnocchi tomorrow, so maybe I'll go get them. I don't really know what a good price is for them, but they're on sale so it must be better than normal. I was hoping for a good sale on fish sticks but there is only a bad sale. Potatoes are $1.5 for 5 lbs, so maybe I'll go today and get whole potatoes and instant mashed potatoes.

Western Beef: Barilla pasta is $1/box. Barilla has more of the interesting shapes so it might be worth it to go for orzo or ditalini. The mashed potatoes are on sale here too but I don't even know if they are cheaper than Food Bazaar because I forgot how much they were there. $2 for 13.5 ounces here. Grapefruit is 3/$2. It's not on sale, but they have big jars of pickled hot cherry peppers and regular red peppers that are $4 for 2 lbs or so, which is a great price and I will get those if I go.

Bravo: I haven't shopped here in quite a while. It got gentrified like C-Town, but is always worse than C-Town. There's not really anything on sale there this week.

C-Town: I went there yesterday and the cashier tried to ring up my romaine ($0.99/lb) as green leaf lettuce ($2.49/lb) and then I spent more money than I expected so I thought it was still on my receipt. It wasn't, but it was still stressful so I'm unhappy. Anyway, the sales:

Asparagus is $2/lb. Galbani mozzarella is $4/lb. A fennel is $2.

Key Food: Polly-o mozzarella is $4 here. A pound of mushrooms is $3. I still have a pound of mushrooms from a week ago, but maybe I'll eat them so I can buy more. Here, 26.7 oz of mashed potatoes are $3, which seems better than Food Bazaar and Western Beef.

The Sales

Whole Foods keeps emailing me about parmigiano reggiano being on sale, and I am just about out of my parmesan, but I am not going to go because I'm not a Prime member anymore. I do need to go for olive oil soon.

Bravo:  nothing

C-Town: Romaine lettuce is 99 cents/lb. Palmolive dish soap is 79 cents. Coke products are 4/$5.

Key Food: Gorton's fish is 50% off. For Lent.

Doug and Coral just brought me canned salmon and anchovies. That will be nice for Lent.

Official Song and Video of This Blog

I was reading about Italo Disco on Wikipedia again and I learned the official song and video of this blog.

Weekly Sales

I'm only going to look at 3 stores. I glanced over Food Bazaar's yesterday and nothing caught my eye. Green Corner doesn't have anything in winter anyway, and I'm not going all the way to Western Beef.

Bravo: Iceberg lettuce is $1. That's it. I'm unlikely to go to Bravo just for $1 of lettuce.

C-Town: Luigi Vitelli canned tomatoes are $1. I am running low on those. It's not my favorite brand, but I can survive it. Ocean spray cranberry juice is $2.50. Luigi Vitelli pasta is $0.88, and it's a perfectly good brand of pasta. I think I already own every major shape though.

Key Food: Iceberg lettuce is $1 here too. Baby bella mushrooms are $3/lb. Last week, I bought white button mushrooms for $2.50 for a pound, which I haven't eaten yet. Maybe I will eat those today so I can buy more mushrooms.

Well, that's all. I guess I'll eat from my cupboards this week. Which I need to do anyway.

What's on sale this week

I went to grocery stores 3 times this week and have too much stuff, so I doubt I'll be enthralled by anything I see in these ads.

Green Corner: Nothing I want to type about.

Bravo: Nothing.

C-Town: Broccoli rabe is $1.99/lb. Barilla pasta is $1/lb. I can get some good shapes. Starkist tuna is $1.

Key Food: A pound of mushrooms is $2.5. Broccoli rabe is also $1.99 here. Cafe Bustelo is $2.50 for 10 oz bricks. I wonder if I need any.