Harper Kingsley blog

COVIDscary.m4a
Someone on twitter was asking why a capitalist society wouldn’t be pushing the sale of masks, filters, protection gear. That’s a whole untapped market!

(The audio is me reading my Tweet-thread response.)

PrideAndPrejudiceWhoop.m4a
I never noticed, but I pronounce imaginary “Ts” when I’m reading things out loud.

I can’t attest to the healthiness of it, but I really enjoyed the Rana Mushroom Ravioli I bought. I had a coupon, so I thought why not.

On the bag, it suggests using a cheese-based sauce, but I use a marinara for everything because I’m a savage. So I cooked up the ravioli and I ate it covered in marinara and it was DELICIOUS.

You can taste the cheese. The ravioli was chewy. It was much nicer than other store bought raviolis I’ve gotten in the past.

I’m even thinking about making my own mushroom ravioli. It was just such a good combination of mushroom and cheese.

~Harper Kingsley

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I ordered groceries and once again it was a bit of a headache.

I had a budget of $250. That’s to buy groceries for the rest of the month (17 days) for 3 adults and 2 cats. (So that’s like $14 to live on per day.)

I ordered from Walmart and Safeway. Staples and such from Walmart, and taking advantage of the meat BOGO from Safeway.

The one thing I like about Walmart is that whatever the final bill is, that’s what I have to pay. I can pick out the substitutions and what-have-yous, then I agree to pay a set amount AND THAT’S IT. I know exactly what to expect because the amount I agree to is what gets paid.

Safeway though… Sigh.

Ordering from Safeway is very stressful. I agreed to pay $79.76, but got charged $91.04. That’s an $11.28 difference.

AND I’ve gotten VERY careful with making sure to set my substitutions or mark Do Not Substitute, as there was one time when they charged me $60 OVER what I agreed to because the grocery picker substituted like $50 meat and shrimp for what should have been a BOGO and $10 meat.

Every time I order from Safeway is a crapshoot. My budget is so tight, and it’s terrible that I can’t be sure whether I’m going to be forced over it. And like, they don’t allow changes or rejections, so once you order and the clock hits 11:59 p.m. on the day you order THAT’S IT.

So like, they pick out the groceries on delivery day, but you have no further say in anything. You can’t reject anything and if you call the Help Line the person will say they can’t do anything for you because the order is locked in.

All you can do is wait for the delivery guy to show up, then pick through the bags and find the items you want to reject.

As it is, I had to go back to my Walmart order and change the tip amount for the Walmart driver. I feel bad because George was a nice guy, but that $250 amount was a HARD limit. So while George still got a tip, it wasn’t what it would have been if Safeway was more upfront with their final amounts.

I agreed to $79. Why do I have to STRESS that they could charge me $10 or $20 or $60 or $100 more than what I agreed to? Why can’t they be completely transparent with their amounts?

It’s very frustrating.

And I know. Someone out there is like “If it matters so much, why don’t you go to the grocery store and shop for yourself???” Well, because whatever lies people tell themselves, we’re in the middle of a pandemic.

Me going to the store risks me being exposed to sickness, and if I’m sick, risks me exposing other people to sickness.

And also, me ordering from the store keeps the store people employed, and also provides jobs to the delivery people. I mean, Safeway uses their own trucks and employees to make home deliveries, but they get tips now so that’s extra money for the drivers and their families. Walmart outsources their deliveries, so that’s people that otherwise wouldn’t have a job being able to buy groceries and pay rent for themselves.

Me and my family need to eat. And I only have a finite amount of money to buy EVERYTHING for a whole month.

$500 for groceries and essentials for 3 adults and 2 cats for a WHOLE MONTH.

That’s food, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry soap, coffee, coffee filters, cat food, cat litter, bird seed, dish soap, shampoo, conditioner… EVERYTHING for an ENTIRE MONTH.

And this time I didn’t have enough to buy cat litter and I’m really regretting it because I’m going to have to figure something out as Lemon’s medication is making her pee an excessive amount.

Life is hard enough. Why can’t Safeway be more reasonable? It makes it so even when they have good deals, I don’t want to order from them because they could substitute for something ridiculous and end up with an overcharge. Boo.

~Harper Kingsley

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P.S. A few weeks ago I got offered a discount W+ offer and I took advantage of it. $70 for a year seems reasonable to me, as ordering from the store costs $7.95 for a delivery fee, and I was ordering twice a month. So within 4-8 months, the W+ membership will pay for itself. Reasonable.

I am a little bitter that when I was given the offer for a year membership at $50 I didn’t have money at the time, but c’est la vie.

Being poor costs more money on the whole than being rich. It’s having to pay-as-you-go rather than being able to buy in bulk or sign up for money saving memberships. It’s not having the spare cash when you need it, so you end up going into debt for essentials, then having less money overall as you have to pay off debts you never should have had in the first place.

A universal basic income, people. It would help the economy. (They spend MORE money oppressing homeless people than they would spend housing the unhoused. Like, those cops getting overtime pay for trashing “homeless shanty towns”… like, it would have been more cost effective for cities to provide housing and essentials for the people rather than lining the pockets of oppressors. It’s RIDICULOUS.)