OK, so you might remember that last week I did a bit of a cross-border shopping spree in Colville, Washington, where there is a great dollar store and a humungous Wally World.With an OK-but-not-terrific Canadian dollar, is it still worth it? Well, let's take a little look with a smattering of price comparisons from my latest receipt.
Butter in USA: 2lbs/$4. Butter in Boonieland Canada: 1lb/$4 - if you're lucky; unsalted is more.
Eggs @ Colville Wally World: 18 for $2.38 (and they're nice, too). Eggs @ my local overpriced grocery store: $2.99/1 doz.
1kg brown sugar @ Colville WW: $1.82. Same here in Boonieland : $2.49 on sale.
4 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts @ Colville WW: $4.50. Same at my local overpriced grocery store: about twice that - if I'm lucky, which I'm not, so I don't buy them anymore.
1lb Tillamook medium cheddar: $5.58. Here @ home: unavailable in my local stores, so I buy whatever is on sale, and an equivalent amount is rarely under $7.
1kg icing sugar @ Colville WW: $1.38. Here: $2.49 on sale.
See where I'm going with this? Yeah.
The other thing is the sheer amount of variety unavailable to me here in my rural corner of Canada. I counted about 20 different flavours of Ben & Jerry's ice cream in the WW freezers; here, you might see five or six, if that - and they cost over twice the price. I saw about the same number of flavours of Dreyer's ice cream, which I've never seen in Canada, including a pumpkin one that I just had to have - and it was fan-frakking-tastic, too (BTW, the chocolate sauce you see in the picture adorning my pumpkin ice cream is Hershey's and it was about half of what I'd pay up here, too). 1.98L Island Farms premium ice cream goes for about $7.99 here and this Dreyer's was $3.50! And the varieties of Hershey's Kisses! We don't get all those up here. Nor do we get Chex mix! I don't get it!So, is it worth it? Yep, IMHO, it is - as long as the dollar doesn't slide any more.
