How To Reduce Your Grocery Bill in Ten Easy Steps

Step 1.

Purchase a brand new Samsung refrigerator during your home renovation three years ago.  Have it break down multiple times over the past 36 months.  Call the repairman to fix it multiple times.  Be incredibly thankful your husband bought the extended warranty when you are told that the fridge cannot be repaired and will have to be replaced.  Have your husband feel concerned when he learns that a free replacement fridge does not come with free delivery, nor removal of the old fridge or the carrying in of the new fridge.

Step 2.

In your spouse's bid to save the $150.00 door-to-door delivery charge, have a friend help move the somewhat working refrigerator downstairs to the furthest reaches of the garage.  This, you are told by your husband, is merely a stop gap measure as the appliance store in North Vancouver has agreed to drop off your new fridge (free of charge) as "soon as there is room for it on a delivery truck going up to Whistler".  This impending 'piggyback' delivery, your husband assures you, will happen very quickly.  If not quickly, at least at some point in January.

Step 3.

Tell your husband that this is the dumbest idea you have ever heard of.

Step 4.

Try to convince your husband to pay the god damn $150.00 delivery charge and get the new refrigerator asap.

Step 5.

Have your husband assure you that this cost saving measure is a good idea.

Step 6.

Have your husband tell you that the delivery will happen any day now.

Step 7.

Figure out, in short order, that having your refrigerator in a cold basement garage is a GIGANTIC PAIN IN THE BLOODY NECK.  Find out that you would rather not eat than go downstairs and get food from it.  Find out you are eating less and as a result your grocery bill is going down.

Step 8.

Borrow your son's beer fridge to pinch hit while waiting for the any-day-now delivery of your new appliance.  Have this baby fridge freeze whatever food you put in it.  And by 'food' I mean a small tub of yogurt and a tiny jar of jam.  That is all it will hold.  And also freeze solid.

Step 9.

Realize you must have another receptacle upstairs to hold some of your perishable foods because you refuse to go downstairs to the garage one more time.  Press your camping cooler into action.

Step 10.

Remind your husband that it is now the final day of January and the new fridge has not yet been dropped off.  Have your husband concede defeat.  Listen to him say, "Maybe this wasn't a good idea after all.  Let me see if I can find a friend with a truck."

Consider yourself warned truck-owning friends...


AND IN BREAKING SAUERKRAUT NEWS:

Joe's newest batch of fermenting cabbage (which resides in my bathroom due to the heated floor keeping the temperature at an even 20 degrees C) is infused with seaweed, kale, tarragon and pea shoots.  All I can say is "NUMMERS!"