When I used to live in the city, a supermarket was hard to get to but otherwise I was out walking every day and would often browse favorite stores. When I lived across the street from a commuter train, I used to impulsively take the short ride to the city quite often, at least weekly.
I don't drive and when I once remarked to my son that it would be kinda cool living on an island and letting the world come to me by mailboat, he observed that we more or less already have that. We're in a dangerous small city with lousy public transportation and if you would want to attend any evening event, you have to figure in a cab and they can be highly unreliable. I was listening to the radio the other day and the host had a crush on Lisa Loeb and interviewed her. She was appearing for free in a nearby small outdoor amphitheater. Well, two buses and a good hike into the park. I could have had my husband drop me off there but he works at night and I would be left struggling to get a cab back at night.
Both my husband and I hate grocery shopping. Son loves it, though. We live in what they like to term a food desert. The only full size supermarket in the entire city was in walking distance but they closed. Before we had a car, I or we used to walk up with a wheeled shopping cart. Then we got tired of that and used to take the gypsy cabs home. That was the best part of the trip because I used to love the old guys and their stories about life. After a couple of years they installed a cut price grocery in that location and we go once in a while. We don't like their merchandising. They have very little variety but seemingly hundreds of the same few things.
There is an okay fruit and vegetable stand not far away, about a mile. Husband hates it and it's risking getting your car dented to try to park there. We go very rarely. Some people recommended a long established similar stand in a nearby community and we tried it once and it was overly crowded and wasn't alluring to us.
Husband would be overjoyed to order groceries online but as yet we haven't resorted to this. We tend to have a little circuit we do about once a week. We may start at the far end, a few miles down the road, and hit the bakery for rolls and then on the return trip may stop at the liquor store. We probably do this no more than once a month because, remember, we hate shopping. We do go to a supermarket nearest home but we really hate it. Buy as little as possible there. I love Aldi's. The main reason is that I like the chocolate available plus they're on the smaller side and it feels like it's a quick affair. We used to go to one just on the outskirt of our city, that was a bit closer, but husband got fed up with the aggressive panhandlers. Now we go to one a bit further out and it's worth the extra few minutes to get there. However, each of them seems to have trouble keeping stocked and this is annoying to me. What market runs out of sugar? Why are there *no* oranges that day?
I was recently talking to my son about the idea that some people have that how you behave with food/eating is like what you do about clothing. He disagreed. He loves to watch cooking shows and eat out and experiment with new foods. But he points downward to himself and says I can see he only wants to wear essentially the same thing. I used to be a hobby cook but have long ago lost interest. Hubby is now the only one who both loves to cook and does. Most of my friends and acquaintances are foodies of one degree or another. They never tire of reciting to me the ingredients of every course they have. As I've aged, I've become like my parents. Even though they had a restaurant for some years when I was growing up, they liked fairly plain food and not much variety. I no longer want my food sauced or made "interesting" in any way. I have no interest in variety. I am too impatient and active to like to sit in restaurants and tend to be highly critical of what is found there. I have no interest in holidays focused around big meals.
Clothes, though, it's the exact opposite. There I like variety and new ideas and combinations. Colors and textures and experimentation. But I hate malls. There is one not so far away by car - about ten miles - and about 45 minutes by bus. I end up in a mall maybe once every year or two. I don't like the sameness of the ideas I find there. I also quickly tire of the music and the darkened or overly bright lighting.
There is a semi-outlet mall a few minutes away by car - we tend to go there for Home Depot hardware stuff or something from Joane's Fabrics, which is a lousy sewing store but may have a replacement separating zipper if my husband breaks one in his work jacket. They're on the same bus route as the mall but a little closer in, shorter ride. They tend to have stores like Talbots, whose merchandise I like when I thrift it. They're in a former racetrack and set up like a small outdoor city of shopping. The traffic is nightmarish within its "streets." They have a Wegman's there for those who are interested. I have *never* been inside any of the many clothing stores there. My reasoning is like some kind of inversion of Angie's rule about leaving no stone unturned. I always feel that no matter what store I enter, even a hardware store or a supermarket, I could potentially spot something to wear. I purposely keep to a very low clothing budget and shopping retail would soon blow my budget. I used to shop end of season clearance but no longer do. How do I know what I'll want to wear the next year? So I try to shop in season. Though I have a weakness for coats and have been known to pick up another one in June at the thrift store.
I purposely limit my thrifting, too. I won't do town wide yard sales and not yard sales, in general. I don't like how fierce people are about the stuff they're getting rid of and will end up at the curb for trash pickup after it's all over. I have one Goodwill I like that is small and is in the same town as the farther Aldi's. I can get there by bus easily. I don't go more than a time or two a year, though. I like the Goodwill by the pound outlet but there's no public transportation to it and I haven't been for over a year. I wouldn't want to spend more than an hour or so in any case.
Oh, I can easily go to Philadelphia to shop but I never want to. When my husband had regular physical therapy after having his hamstring reattached, I used to go in with him and would shop during his appointment. I had the same experience as with the mall. Just nothing interesting me. I stopped bothering to look.
Anyway, I also limit my regular thrift shopping. There are 3 main stores I go to with my friend. All are church thrift stores and exceedingly inexpensive. One we go about every week for an hour or so. Another is open only 2 mornings a month and not at all over the summer. Same with a third down the street from the second. That one's open one morning a week and not at all during the summer. I don't go to the 2d and 3d every time they are available. My friend and I tend to go to one of these for about 15 minutes and either one of our husbands will drive us up the street or we will walk. We spend about an hour in that one. My friend tends to shop for her and her husband's entire extended family and friends and is a very fast shopper and done in five or ten minutes. I need more time because I try on.
I like that each of these stores is pretty small and the stock doesn't change all that much. I find it easier to focus. Also, people tend to shop in a certain palette or style or brand. So they donate that way and it's almost like shopping a boutique. Plus I've been shopping these same stores for so many years that the volunteers will often say, "We were hoping you would come in because we had this gorgeous coat you would have liked." or "We knew you'd get that!" And one of the stores is really like a social outing because the regular customers and the volunteers have been sharing their lives for so long and my friend and I will help style things for others or pull things from the rack and hand it to someone whose taste and size it is. It also seems important to me that I can get to each of these same stores easily enough by bus if it turns out that way.
ETA: I have several Rainbow shops nearby and I only go sporadically but I often will find a favorite item there. And I do shop at Walmart because it's so close and we pick up household items there. I just got a chambray skirt in a beautiful almost iridescent shade there.
I don't shop online except for ebay occasionally. Ebay throws my budget off but I get about one item a month or so from there.
