Growing up in a small town in Kentucky we did most of our shopping at one grocery store in town.  Here in Connecticut I tend to be quite a bit more eclectic but a lot of this is out of necessity - a lot of products at the big grocery chains like Price Chopper, Shaws, and Stop and Shop are just way too expensive for my wallet.  I especially balk every time I see limes and lemons on sale for nearly a dollar a piece, and (what are supposed to be cheap!) proteins in the meat coolers that seem to always hover over $5 a pound.  I actually like London Broil, for example, but sometimes I feel like I’m paying rib eye prices for shoe-leather quality products.

So you go elsewhere, and luckily there are lot of good elsewheres in and around Hartford.  For value I do like Aldi for snacks and canned goods, I like Whole Foods for seafood where the prices may be higher than other groceries but the quality is ten times better, and I’m more or less obsessed with Costco when it comes to paper goods, soda, roasted chickens, milk, and guilty pleasure, calorie packed pizza.

Oh and I like Arnold’s Meats.  I’m in the Enfield area often and Arnold’s is a little out of the way but worth it.  All of the meats are as good quality as the groceries, if not better, and things are much more reasonable in price.  Today I bought deli meats for sandwiches, a big piece of corned beef, some chicken thighs, and a big ol’ bag of ground beef I’m going to split up and freeze, and I’d wager a lot of it was at half the price you’d pay elsewhere.

Arnold’s also has a surprising amount of speciality goods, like frozen desserts, condiments, pickles, snacks, and breads.  Some of the bulk frozen items look a little scary and kinda freezer-burned on arrival, but it’s pretty easy to avoid what doesn’t look very good with a little common sense.  Overall Arnold’s makes for a very nice once a month or every other month supplement to regular grocery shopping, and for buying big hunks of cheap meat it’s always my first stop.

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