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My Top 5 Grocery Must-Haves: Inflation Can’t Keep These Off My List!

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List your top 5 grocery store items.



Every week, like clockwork, I sit down to order groceries. Because honestly, the thought of actually going to the store after a long week of work, school runs, and commuting is…well, let’s just say it’s a hard pass. So, I click through the app, add my usual suspects, and boom—done. My grocery cart has become a bit of a ritual, and despite inflation making everything feel like it costs the same as a small car, there are five items that always make the cut.

1. Pizzas
If you know me, you know pizza is a non-negotiable. We’re hardly home between work, school, and commuting, so frozen pizzas are my go-to for “what’s-for-dinner” moments. Easy, quick, and guaranteed to make everyone happy (especially my pizza-loving teen). I’ve given up on trying to make it from scratch—I’m all about those store-bought slices of joy.

2. Coffee Creamer
Listen, without coffee, I’d barely be functional, and without my favorite coffee creamer, I might as well just give up on mornings entirely. That little splash of hazelnut-flavored creaminess is my lifeline. Inflation can try, but it will not take away my coffee creamer. Priorities, people.

3. Hershey Bars
A little chocolate every week is my son’s version of self-care. Everyone deserves one treat a week.

4. Bagels 
Bagels are the breakfast of champions around here. Quick, versatile, and great for on-the-go mornings. Whether topped with cream cheese or turned into a sandwich, they are a staple that makes sure no one leaves the house starving. Plus, they remind me of those good ol’ NYC bagel shop runs—only with way less walking.

5. Cream Cheese
Of course, you can’t have bagels without cream cheese. That’s like…peanut butter without jelly, salt without pepper. Whether it’s plain, whipped, or flavored, this creamy goodness makes every bite feel like a tiny, carb-loaded hug. Bagels and cream cheese are just one of those timeless duos you don’t mess with.

Now, I’ll admit, my grocery list didn’t always look like this. There was a time when Coke Zero, gummies, chips, chicken, and eggs were regulars in the cart. But, rising prices and shifting tastes (plus, you know, trying not to eat chips for dinner every night) have pushed those out. I mean, at some point, you just have to choose between bagels and, well, everything else.

But in the grand scheme of things, my top five are my comfort food staples. They’re the essentials that make the chaos of life a little more bearable. So, every week, no matter how high prices go or how busy life gets, you’ll find pizzas, coffee creamer, Hershey bars, bagels, and cream cheese in my cart. Because, really, sometimes it’s the little things that keep you going.

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  2. We moved to a retirement community in 2018 – sold our cars in New Jersey before leaving, and haven’t bought one in California (pandemic happened, too) – so the husband had been doing our supplemental shopping on the facility’s bike-with-baskets.

    Long story choked off at the detour: I hadn’t had even the relatively meh low carb ice cream I had in NJ, but since we’ve been doing our shopping by app, some wonderful ice cream flavors come with each order, and I have been spoiling myself with a little bit often – in wonderful flavors like Salty Caramel.

    Can’t eat too much – and I know it: the sugar alcohols, etc., can kick my gut in any non-reasonable quantity (sugar never did that, but sugar is mostly a distant memory), so I eat my third of a cup slowly and satisfyingly as a little luxury.

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  4. While It’s True Inflation Has Skyrocketed
    Eating At ‘Fine’ Restaurants Walmart Still
    Sells Their Brand of Expanding Crust Supreme

    Pizza Dear
    Miriam for
    Around 5 Bucks

    Meal Enough for Two
    And If my Wife Only
    Eats One Piece

    Hehe Snack
    for me Tomorrow

    We Picked Up Two For
    Our Freezer Earlier in the

    Week Yet We Get Home So Late
    The Struggle Is For It to Get In and Out

    of Our Oven
    True We Could
    Circumvent the
    Situation With ‘Dominos’

    Yet i Learned Long Ago the
    Way to Stay ReTired is to Stay
    Afloat Forever to the Last Blink

    on the
    SS Frugal
    With SMiLes

    Yep A Dozen
    Corn Dogs
    For 2 Bucks
    or So From
    Walmart’s Brand
    too Made in America
    Sam Walton Would Still Be Proud…

    Yet i Ain’t Gonna Lie my Wife Pays
    For All the Exorbitant Fresh Fruit
    As She Can’t Drive and She Needs

    A Lifelong Volunteer
    to Drive Miss Daisy
    For the Rest of Her

    Life Which Means
    She Has to Keep me
    Alive and Keep the Pizza Out of the

    Oven While i Dream on With Corn
    Dogs

    And
    The Such
    Most Likely
    Not Even Getting
    into the MicroWave hehe

    Whatever She Serves me
    is Always The Best Yes Dear All

    The Way
    to a Full
    Stomach Indeed…:)

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