The My Vibe Thread

[Southieinnc]

We do Publix and Kroger. And Sam's Club. God I wish there was a Costco nearby.

I do Publix and order from Walmart online.
Only time I ever go into Walmart is if I have a return. Delivery is "free"
Kroger here in Lagrange is crappy, old and poor quality.
I miss the grocery stores in California. Great quality and very cheap!
Foods Co was a Kroger affiliate and everything was high quality and cheap!
It was warehouse style shopping and they went through goods very quickly.....
Boneless skinless chicken was routinely $1/pound

 

[YankeeRebel]

I do Publix and order from Walmart online.
Only time I ever go into Walmart is if I have a return. Delivery is "free"
Kroger here in Lagrange is crappy, old and poor quality.
I miss the grocery stores in California. Great quality and very cheap!
Foods Co was a Kroger affiliate and everything was high quality and cheap!
It was warehouse style shopping and they went through goods very quickly.....
Boneless skinless chicken was routinely $1/pound

I never like Kroger or Food Line, in California I use to shop at a store called Stater Brothers not sure they are still around. Publix is the best run grocery store I have experienced, with Hannaford a close second.

 

[BigKen]

I never like Kroger or Food Line, in California I use to shop at a store called Stater Brothers not sure they are still around. Publix is the best run grocery store I have experienced, with Hannaford a close second.

Up north in ME, NH and MA, Shaw's was the biggest grocer, followed by Hannafor'd and then cam Market Basket who's put Shaw's and Hannaford's back in second place.

Market Basket caters to every foreign nationality as well as the locals. They constantly dump products that will not sell them items at a discount and replace them with an equal product. That and don't give anyone more than 6-8 feet of shelf space ecept Nabisco because they have so many different crackers and cookies. BUT, Nabisco gives MB discounts because of their huge volume. I had price shock when I moved to Florida because the eact same products at Publix and Winn-Dixie were three times more expensive than MB. The perfect example was Diet Coke at MB was $2.59 for a 6 pack of 16.7 oz bottles. Down here they're $5.99. WTF? A party sized bag of Lays potato chips is $3.59 at MB and $4.99 down here. I can get freshly made ham and cheese sub at MB for $2.99 and it's $5.99 or $6.99 down here.

That's why it's so important for consumers to have more choices to compete against the biggies down south and have that competition be national like BJs or Costco. Only problem is that everything they sell is oversized and elderly people can't use a 64 oz. box of Kraft macaroni and cheese constantly like a mother with two or three kids.

 

[YankeeRebel]

Up north in ME, NH and MA, Shaw's was the biggest grocer, followed by Hannafor'd and then cam Market Basket who's put Shaw's and Hannaford's back in second place.

Market Basket caters to every foreign nationality as well as the locals. They constantly dump products that will not sell them items at a discount and replace them with an equal product. That and don't give anyone more than 6-8 feet of shelf space ecept Nabisco because they have so many different crackers and cookies. BUT, Nabisco gives MB discounts because of their huge volume. I had price shock when I moved to Florida because the eact same products at Publix and Winn-Dixie were three times more expensive than MB. The perfect example was Diet Coke at MB was $2.59 for a 6 pack of 16.7 oz bottles. Down here they're $5.99. WTF? A party sized bag of Lays potato chips is $3.59 at MB and $4.99 down here. I can get freshly made ham and cheese sub at MB for $2.99 and it's $5.99 or $6.99 down here.

That's why it's so important for consumers to have more choices to compete against the biggies down south and have that competition be national like BJs or Costco. Only problem is that everything they sell is oversized and elderly people can't use a 64 oz. box of Kraft macaroni and cheese constantly like a mother with two or three kids.

Ohh I hated Market Basket and so does all my family. Shaws has gone down hill, I think they still run the roost in southern NH and mass.

 

[Southieinnc]

I never like Kroger or Food Line, in California I use to shop at a store called Stater Brothers not sure they are still around. Publix is the best run grocery store I have experienced, with Hannaford a close second.

Stater brothers is still around. I shopped there when farmers were having to sell off their cows during covid.
Could not sell milk while kids were not in school.
The ribeyes were $5.99 / pound. They were cows not steers but they were very good steaks.
Quality overall of their meat was great and the prices were good.

 

[BigKen]

Shaws has gone down hill,

My wife's mother worked for Shaw's as corporate secretary and did the the company payroll manually until they had fifteen supermarkets. She worked there for forty five years. She was also George C. Shaw's secretary. My wife work as a maganer for over twenty years and her sister worked for them for thiry nine years. She was sixteen when she started, worked through high school and college and promoted through the ranks to a a Deli Manager and became a corporate deli specialist until she died of cancer in 2015 at the age of 55. Great company to work for if you made it your career.

 

[YankeeRebel]

My wife's mother worked for Shaw's as corporate secretary and did the the company payroll manually until they had fifteen supermarkets. She worked there for forty five years. She was also George C. Shaw's secretary. My wife work as a maganer for over twenty years and her sister worked for them for thiry nine years. She was sixteen when she started, worked through high school and college and promoted through the ranks to a a Deli Manager and became a corporate deli specialist until she died of cancer in 2015 at the age of 55. Great company to work for if you made it your career.

My first legit you gotta pay taxes job was with Shaws in Derry

 

[BigKen]

My first legit you gotta pay taxes job was with Shaws in Derry

When? My wife the Ass't Deli Mgr from 1988 to around 1994 in the Derry store.

 

[YankeeRebel]

When? My wife the Ass't Deli Mgr from 1988 to around 1994 in the Derry store.

This was early 80s

 

[Yankee Traveler]

My first legit you gotta pay taxes job was with Shaws in Derry

Mine was a Grand Union.

 

[BigKen]

Mine was a Grand Union.

Mine was picking beans for $.02 a lb. and being promoted to shoveling the milking barn for $.25 an hour. Jordans' Farm Summer of 1958. Got my first tax return in February 1959. I'll never forget seeing that first green U.S. Treasury check for a massive $22.00.

 

[Southieinnc]

Mine was picking beans for $.02 a lb. and being promoted to shoveling the milking barn for $.25 an hour. Jordans' Farm Summer of 1958. Got my first tax return in February 1959. I'll never forget seeing that first green U.S. Treasury check for a massive $22.00.

My 1st real job was at 16.
I worked for AT&T in an underground, military switching system for their international phone service.
I had a clearance at 16.
When I went in the Army, I got recruited for all the intelligence agencies.
They kept grilling me abount how I gor a clearance at 16 - said it wasn't possible.
I gleefully told them "I can't tell you!"

 

[Yankee Traveler]

Mine was picking beans for $.02 a lb. and being promoted to shoveling the milking barn for $.25 an hour. Jordans' Farm Summer of 1958. Got my first tax return in February 1959. I'll never forget seeing that first green U.S. Treasury check for a massive $22.00.

Yeah, I threw hay bales every weekend and delivered papers before Grand Union. Even had a jub pumping gas and filling beer coolers at a convenience store ...before they were called convenience stores...but that was all cash. GU was the first one that withheld taxes.

 

[BigKen]

My 1st real job was at 16.

I was 8, shoveling cow manure and believe me, that was a real job.

Just got my Social Security lifetime pay-ins to SS and Medicare.

1958 was year one and pay-ins were continuous until 2013 when I retired at 63.
I laughed at 1968-72 when I was in Vietnam and the combat zone was "Tax Free" and "Social Security Exempt".

 

[Yankee Traveler]

I was 8, shoveling cow manure and believe me, that was a real job.

Been there too.

Circle of Angels Farm gutter cleaner broke.
100+ Head. All by shovel and wheel barrow.
About 6 months, good money for the time. $25 for two hours every week day in 1983.

I was rolling in cash for a 17 year old.

 

[Southieinnc]

I was 8, shoveling cow manure and believe me, that was a real job.

Just got my Social Security lifetime pay-ins to SS and Medicare.

1958 was year one and pay-ins were continuous until 2013 when I retired at 63.
I laughed at 1968-72 when I was in Vietnam and the combat zone was "Tax Free" and "Social Security Exempt".

I worked full time since I was 10.
Unfortuneately, I learned many ways to avoid SS - causing a lot of "zero's" in my SS history.

 

[Southieinnc]

Been there too.

Circle of Angels Farm gutter cleaner broke.
100+ Head. All by shovel and wheel barrow.
About 6 months, good money for the time. $25 for two hours every week day in 1983.

I was rolling in cash for a 17 year old.

I made the most money as a child by scams.
My favorite was selling mistletoe to girls in the college dorms.
I also sold bicycles to Arab college students. Sometimes I sold the same bicycles several times.

 

[BigKen]

Think about all of the things we all did and 95% of boys today would never do it.

My uncle built wood dorys. I learned how to build them from and expert.
I learned how to build oak lobster traps
I lost my first boat, a 14' steel life boat in a hurricane along with two strings of my own lobster traps.
I junked. Picked up copper, brass and aluminum junk and sold it by the pound.

If I needed money, I always found one way or another to make it.

Washing dishes or short order cooking in a restaurant or shoveling old folks snow or mowing someone's lawn.

Never see kids doing anything today but playing with a Nintendo or a cell phone.

 

[Southieinnc]

Think about all of the things we all did and 95% of boys today would never do it.

My uncle built wood dorys. I learned how to build them from and expert.
I learned how to build oak lobster traps
I lost my first boat, a 14' steel life boat in a hurricane along with two strings of my own lobster traps.
I junked. Picked up copper, brass and aluminum junk and sold it by the pound.

If I needed money, I always found one way or another to make it.

Washing dishes or short order cooking in a restaurant or shoveling old folks snow or mowing someone's lawn.

Never see kids doing anything today but playing with a Nintendo or a cell phone.

My worst job? JCPennys. Picking up shit and rags from women's bathroom floors!
No young man should ever have to enter a women's bathroom!

 

[Yankee Traveler]

Washing dishes or short order cooking in a restaurant or shoveling old folks snow or mowing someone's lawn.

I got a job washing dishes at Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe VT.
Yes, the "Sound of Music Von Trapps"
There was 19 people working the kitchen between cooks, chefs, bus boys and dishwaher.
18 were gay.



The 19th one never went back for day 2 or even to get his paycheck.