Cottage Cheese

I bought cottage cheese for the first time in my life. It was $1.99 for 16 oz at Key Food. I should go eat it or put it away instead of spreading the news.

If you have any advice on what I should do with it, let me know.

Dwolla - The Inconvenient Alternative to Paypal

(Sometimes this blog veers from groceries to talk about how to pay for things. This is such a time.)

I was shopping for a cast iron skillet because I've wanted one for a while. My roommate recently moved out and took a lot of things, so I m in a buying mode. He owned a cast iron pan, but it had grill ridges on it, so I rarely used it. I used Google shopping to find a pan that was very cheap. I'm getting a 12" skillet for under $9. As soon as I paid, I realized this seller ONLY accept Dwolla, which I never heard of before. So I signed up, was annoyed for several days, and then tweeted this this morning.

I accidentally bought something online that requires me to pay with Dwolla. If you aren't familiar, Dwolla is the inconvenient Paypal.
— Mike Cherepko (@mikecherepko) April 9, 2013

To their credit, they emailed me to ask if something was wrong.

Dwolla Support
APR 09, 2013  |  11:36AM CDT
Mike,
Noticed your tweet that you were maybe having some issues with the Dwolla account. Any feedback you can provide us?
Sincerely,
Dwolla Support

And so I went to town.

Since you asked: 

You tout that you're the most secure payment network. I wrote that you are the inconvenient alternative to paypal. Those are two sides of the same coin. Dwolla made me make a password that is so secure I can barely remember it (though if I write it down, it becomes much less secure.) On top of remembering the password, I have to enter a PIN. The PIN gets away with only being 4 characters. I haven't used Dwolla enough to know if I will always have to enter a password and a PIN. If I do, that's just another level of inconvenience. If I don't, 4 digits seems markedly less secure than a password I can make up of whatever digits and numbers I want. 

This reminds me of the time I closed my ING account because their system was just too annoying to log into. 

I came to Dwolla against my will. I bought something online and only noticed after I agreed to purchase it that the seller only accept Dwolla. After verifying that you aren't a scam, I signed up. Then I found I had to link a bank account. Then I found I had to wait for deposit verifications. That took days. (I signed up Saturday. I finally got the deposits today.) I realize that financial institutions don't move very quickly over weekends. I just don't care about that because every other method of me paying this seller would have been faster. In between finding out I needed to enter the deposit verifications and them actually showing up, I received an email from Dwolla reminding me to verify my account. That added insult to injury because I was already checking 3-4 times a day. This morning when I finally did verify it, I was happy that I could finally add less than $9 to my account to pay for that item I bought Saturday. Now it will take 3-4 days before that money is available! Again, I understand that banks don't like to move money very quickly. And again, I don't care. This is so far just an extremely slow and extremely inconvenient alternative to Paypal or to emailing money to people directly from my bank, which I also do.
I do have suggestions to make Dwolla better. I'm not all complaints.

1. Loosen the password security. There's no reason Dwolla needs to be more secure than my accounts with PNC, Ally, Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citi, Discover, Paypal, or Etrade. 

2. Speed up the time from sign-up to first payment. I don't know how to do this, but in a modern economy, it should not take a week to move $9.

I just noticed that they have a link to send someone free money on them to entice me to get people to sign up for Dwolla. I'm not going to do that. I think you should run away from Dwolla. But I'm also annoyed that if they will just give people free money, why can't they front me $9 while they're making me do all the stupid verifications?

Update: Dwolla just did give me $9. I feel bad for their customer service people who seem good at what they do because they still have to back up an annoying product.

Shopping Hiatus

My roommate of almost 6 years just moved out and there are so many things in this apartment that were his that he left or that were mine the whole time and I didn't know about. So I'm trying to purge. I'm particularly focusing on food because my new roommate likes to cook (and I let him move in anyway) and will want space in the kitchen. I don't want to waste food, so I am eating.

Right now I am making a stew that has frozen corn, canned corn, kielbasa, a jar of pasta sauce, a can of butter beans, a can of spinach, and maybe some other things.

I am sodium.

Notes on Grocery Circulars 3/22 - 3/29

I only was able to wake up today because I thought of perusing the grocery circulars.

Key Food has a 101 oz can of Filippo Berio extra virgin olive oil for $14.99. That's a good price and a good brand. When you buy it in the can, it doesn't go bad as quickly because light doesn't get to it. Key Food also has white mushrooms for $1 for 8 oz, which is pretty good. Nothing else is that good a deal. Maybe pork shoulder for $1/lb. A 32 oz Powerade is $1. That's helpful for hangovers.

C-Town has bananas for $0.49/lb and Diet Mug root beer, among other Pepsi products, for 4/$3. A 32 oz container of ricotta is $2.50. You can also get a pound of mozzarella for that price. Must be lasagna season, because they have that on sale too.

Western Beef has 2 liter bottles of Pepsi products for 4/$5. But I dont' think they consider Mug a Pepsi product. It's also harder to bike up the hill with a ton of liquid. Pecorino romano is $4.99/lb, which is pretty good. You can buy a whole or half lamb or kid for $4.99/lb. A whole or half pig is $3.99/lb, which is the same as leg of lamb. It's the Easter sale over there. I don't know if these prices are even good, but you don't see this stuff in circulars that often. Powerade is only $0.79 at Western Beef.

Associated doesn't really have anything this week. Maybe a can of black olives for $1.50, but you can usually get that price at Key Food everyday.

At Western Beef, Braunschweiger is on sale for $2.50 for 8 oz. That's pretty good for around these parts, but nothing like what it goes for in Pittsburgh. You shouldn't eat too much of that though anyway, especially if you like to drink. Vitamin A does a number on your liver. Medium shrimp are $5/lb and mussels are still $2 for 2 lbs, which is the best price. I recommend eating mussels.

Buying Sardines at Western Beef's Fishmonger

I bought some. It was annoying. The guy wanted me to pay him instead of at the cash register when I checked out. And then he wanted me to pay cash. I'm sticking to Food Bazaar for my fish.

I haven't cooked them yet. I should.

Cheesed Off

 Even though yesterday I complained about the price of cheese at Key Food, I might have to make huevos rancheros soon, so when I was at C-Town, I remembered to look. This nice block of Monterey Jack had a big $1.99 sticker on it, so I bought it. But look at my receipt! They charged me $2.59, 30% more!

I shouldn't be too mad though. I had just bought a pair of red shoes. Shoes are the one thing I'm not supposed to buy. Also, they carry Old Bay now for Ridgely. I asked them to via Tumblr.

Pop Sale

I had an exciting day today that required a trip to Manhattan. Afterward I decided to celebrate with some Diet Mug Root Beer* and the Key Food circular told me it was on sale 4 for $5.

Lo and behold, all the Pepsi 2 liters had tags on them that said if you buy 3 bottles, you get a dollar off! So I got 2 Diet Mug Root Beers and 1 Diet Pepsi for $2.75, or $0.92 each. That's a Pittsburgh price there.

I also got 2 cans of chick peas because I am going to try to eat beans until my clothes fit again. And a can of olives. I didn't care for the price of cheese, so no huevos rancheros for a while. All that for $6.33.

*Diet Mug Root Beer is the best kind. Dr. Brown's is good. And Diet Faygo might be as good as Diet Mug. Barq's and A&W are ok if you are in a desert. And no non-diet pop is good at all because it's too thick.

Playwright

The other day after I went to Trader Joe's, some guy asked me "are you a playwright?" out of the blue. Then if I was an artist. Then said "well, you're a good dresser."

Powerade

The sign at Associated said $0.99, but they charged me $1.19!

Olive Oil

I'm eagerly awaiting the grocery circulars for next week. I need to find out who is finally going to put a big can of extra virgin olive oil on sale for me. I'm out! I'm starving! I don't really care what brand, but it should be $15-16.

Key Food lets you see its circular a day early. They don't have it. I'd like an excuse to visit the Foodtown over on North 3rd and Bedford. I've never been there. (Their website is suspiciously like Key Food's, but I don't think they're related.)

I might have to buy a regular sized bottle from Trader Joe's to hold me over. I need a bunch of other things from there anyway.

Coffee and Inflation Measures

I bought my instant coffee today. I haven't had any since the end of December. I like Café Bustelo and I like paying $4.99 or $5.49, but places only had it for $6.39, so I quit drinking coffee. I had some at my parents' house over Christmas, but I never had any around here. I drank tea or pop instead.

About a month ago, there was a lot of talk about whether social security benefits (and tax brackets) should be changed. They're both tied to inflation, but the question was whether to change to a different way of measuring inflation. The current way is that if the price of my instant coffee goes up, inflation goes up. This is the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The other way to measure it is to take into account that when the price of coffee went up, I started drinking less of it and drank more tea. Since my expenditures didn't go up as much, this measure would show less inflation. It's called the Chained Consumer Price Index (C-CPI). Detractors of it like to exaggerate and say this method lets you substitute cat food for beef. (Changing to C-CPI is just a way to cut social security benefits and the longer you live, the more they're cut. And social security is basically the most solvent government program we have, so tell anyone who wants to cut benefits either directly or sneakily to go pound salt).

Anyway, back to groceries. I got some ham for the first time this year. Gideon gave me a ham for my birthday, so I couldn't buy more ham. I got some eggs so I can make quiches and omelettes to use up all my dumpling filling leftovers. I was surprised by how hard it was to find chick peas. I want to make hummus, but I need to buy olive oil first. And I got some red pepper flakes.

Shrimp

Last Friday I was invited +Margot over for dinner before we went to see +Eric be Miriam. Ridgely and Kevin came too. I wasn't sure what to make, but the Food Bazaar weekly circular told me shrimp were on sale, so I made shrimp tacos.

The shrimp were 2 lbs for $10, or if you got less than 2 lbs, $6/lb. They didn't have a scale, so my first guess was low by a quarter of a pound and I had to go get more. I over guessed and wended up with 2.5 lbs of shrimp. (I also got 2 lbs of mussels for $2 and they were great.)

For the tacos, I peeled the shrimp and kept the shells to make stock with later. Then I steamed them and seasoned them. But I got sick of peeling shrimp and we had enough for our tacos. So I had all these leftover shrimp. I decided to just steam them with the shells on. I figured we could peel them later.

Peeling the cooked shrimp was so annoying and hard. And I had been drinking, so I just ate the shell too. What a revelation! You can eat the shell. And that's where all the shrimp flavor is. If you buy shrimp flavored snacks in Chinatown, they never taste like what you expect shrimp to taste like. That's because they taste like the shell!