I may have more to scribe later; but for now, I relate I was out-&-about at the Diversey | Knox strip mall. I had to pick up my wristband for my Aldercritter (Felix Cardona, Jr.) 's Holiday Gala for senior citizens. His public office is in it.
I shopped the Walmart and bought nothing. The only items bought were @ Aldi across Diversey: more Benner tea for $1.69 (x3), and what I needed, two 20-oz. loaves of white bread. ($1.39 | other 20-oz. grained breads were 1.85, 1.95, 2.09, & 2.49)
Some intriguing beers were on the shelves at Aldi. A peanut butter porter, and a holiday ale with cinnamon (12-oz. six-packs $8.99, 7.99). I did not buy them because I did not want to have to lug them back here to the abode, and I have a lot of other beers to go through also. The Chicago distributor for the Aldi beers is Breakthru Beverage IL.
Haven't delved into the Jewel-Osco pamphlet yet. There is the Latinx glossy flyer in here this week.
I shall shop Tony's Fresh Market this week. I am reduced to two boxes of Smart Ones frozen entrees. I shall purchase more for $1.99 this week. (Walmart wants $2.08.) Also, just how many cans of Chunky Soup can I buy for $1.49? The ad text seems to imply one.
There are coupons this week for KFC and Culver's.

One last item which I kept forgetting to mention. A few weeks back, I had a Jazz Institute of Chicago event at an edifice south of Grand Ave. and west of Ashland {the name obviously escapes me}. So I was riding the #65 Grand bus eastbound. When we got to the intersection of Grand | North | Kostner, the Checkers @ 4320 W. North Ave was completely dim at 5:25 pm on a Saturday. But I won't declare it officially closed.

Yup, that Tony's Chunky Soup coupon is limit 1. Pretty cheezy for Tony's which usually has higher limits, sometimes "must buy x"s. Speaking of cheezy, the 99¢ little blocks of cheese are a really good deal, must buy 5. So are the 99¢ cereals and granola bars, must buy 3. Also $2.99 jumbo eggs. And a Thursday only 5 avocado bag for 99¢. Plus an odd duck: buy a case of Riunite Lambrusco or Campo Viejo Cava for 11.88 with rebate. Don't do it in Chicago, though, the wine tax'll kill ya!

Butera: If you don't get avocados on Thurs at Tony's, 2/$1 here.Some quasi-Italian deals: Food Club pasta 79¢ (the rotini, at least, is fine), Chef Boyardee 99¢, Lefas oil $19.99/3L, Provo-Nello $4.99. Also Pearl Valley Swiss $4.99, boneless skinless thighs $1.99. And the return of the 96oz "gallon" of milk

Breakthru Beverage is just the new name for the Wirtz Beverage Company. One thing that has me curious is why Aldi doesn't have a low cost beer option. About 15 to 20 years ago, they used to carry a brand called North Star that was a generic American lager. It was made by the now defunct Huber brewing company. It cost $5 for a twelve pack. Since it was discontinued, all they have are the quasi craft beers that they now sell.

Jim-Bob wrote:It was made by the now defunct Huber brewing company.

Huber isn't exactly defunct. It was taken over and rebranded as Minhas Brewery — the second oldest brewery in the US. They're still known as a very
low-cost producer, selling much of their product in Western Canada.

Sure looks like if Aldi wanted to sell a cheap beer, Minhas could make it for them. Wonder how many of Aldi's faux-craft beers are already made there?

http://minhasbrewery.com/private-white- ... -liqueurs/

Last I checked, several of Trader Joe's beer were made at Minhas. I haven't been to Aldi in a long time. But if the label says it was made in Monroe, WI, it's from Minhas. And likely not very good.

nr706 wrote: Last I checked, several of Trader Joe's beer were made at Minhas. I haven't been to Aldi in a long time. But if the label says it was made in Monroe, WI, it's from Minhas. And likely not very good.

The beers brewed at Minhas might not be very good. But they're still brewing. They could, one of these days, produce a really good beer. (I have seen [and bought] Rhinelander beer at Binny's.)
Compare its beer to the current brews available from 5 Rabbit, Argus, Lo-Rez, Temperance, and Ørkenoy.
What's that? They were better; but they're out of business? Well then, they were not good enough.

But anyhow, before getting sidetracked: The flyers arrived this week. The deals @ Jewel-Osco are the 'Buy 2, get 3 free' items such as the 12-packs of 12-oz. soda [reg. price being $9.99], and the Campbell's Chunky Soup [IIRC, they were $1.99 each , which would be ten for $8.00]. I do not need any more soda, I do not need any more snack crackers.

Off the chart this week: Go to Jimenez. Even if the Maruchan 3.49-oz. bowls [supposedly six varieties, but I wonder how many it'll stock] were not ten cents cheaper than Jewel @ 89¢; the Jimenez calendar is the most astounding FREE calendar I have glimpsed. It has Julian dates. Which is quite handy when confronting the packaging code for Keurig Dr. Pepper cans. It has the names of each day's saint. The free calendar I could get from Community Savings Bank is nowhere as valuable as this. I do not see anything else there - maybe you want to try its taqueria - but get its calendar.

You may already have seen what I scribed about Jewel in that thread {$3.99 for an item usually selling for 2.49?! }. I went to Carnicerias Jimenez on W. Belmont on Tuesday. It did not have the Maruchan 3.49-oz. bowls at all. The shelf area for instant ramen had other brands' ramen bowls, but not a slot for the Maruchan. (It had a vast variety of Maruchan's Instant Ramen cups though.) I prevailed upon the store clerk to give me the calendar.
89¢ for a bowl of that size is still a good sale price, so I am going out today to another Jimenez to try and buy it there. It will be the store @ 4204 W. North Ave. because I can eat at Jimmy's Red Hots, shop the Family Dollar across Grand Ave. for discounted Xmas chocolates, and walk from there to Jimenez. Yes, I will request another calendar from the check-out clerk. I hope I succeed.

I am pleased to announce everything went down in order today.
The Family Dollar on W. Grand Ave. across from LTHF GNR Jimmy's Red Hots had several items at 50% off. I stuck with two Hershey's chocolates: the milk chocolate Kisses, and the 2.8-oz. bag of Miniatures. I bought four of each @ $2.00. https://dso8.raed.net:455/files/family-dollar002.jpg
There was a sufficient amount of these, as well as other bakers' Xmas releases on the 'reduced' shelves that I won't worry about directing you to a store which sold out in two hours.
Walking on to Carniceria Jimenez [#3 - that is my assigned number for it], I found the row with the Maruchan ramen bowls. There were three varieties. https://dso8.raed.net:455/files/jimenez3-01.jpg
The Spicy Beef was in a different position and different height than the Chicken and Shrimp, but each was 89¢. I bought a total of six bowls.
I did get another 2025 calendar.
The Checkers @ 4520 W. North Ave. is still closed. I wonder why the Checkers stands on Chicago's north side do not survive. [Recall there was one at Ashland, Division, & Milwaukee which ran for mere weeks.] Perhaps the reason for this one dying is the McDonald's it borders on.

Pudgy,

I stopped by Carnicerias Jimenez in Wheeling this evening to pick up two calendars. I did not have to ask the cashier, they were stacked by the manager's office.

I am passing them on to relatives who do follow the daily saints, thank you for highlighting this feature.

Regards,
Cathy2

At Angelo Caputo's: The Nissin ramen cups c.v. $1.00 each
Nissin is the more flavorful of the two usually exported instant ramen brands [v. Maruchan]. The snag is it never exports the intriguing styles. That is, to the metropolitan Chicago marketplace. (Pudgy, you should check HMart and Joong Boo stores. I checked. Its adverts did not mention it.) Nonetheless, I can recommend this.
I do not typically buy OX brand sriracha chili sauce, but 99¢ for a 16¼-oz. container seems cheap.
The cheap price for the Stouffer's 9⅝-oz. frozen entrees is 2.50, not 3.00.
The cheap price for the SunMaid raisin bread 16-oz. is 2.49, not 2.99.

At Food4Less, in the herd of buy at least three, the Nongshim shin ramen four-pack for $4.99 could be worth it because it is a larger size [4.58-oz.] than the 3.5-oz. cups I bought for 99¢ at Jimenez a few weeks ago. I'm always open to letting you try the Kroger store-brand soda 12-packs 12-oz. cans for $3.99.

There are deals at Tony's Fresh Market. {Insane thought: What if we charged a supplement of so-many-cents for each foodstuff item labeled in the store's weekly flyer as "fresh"? Would that end its overuse?} If you do not want to allocate 3.99 for the 14-oz. Nathan's beef franks @ Jewel-Osco, but aren't willing to slum when the Bar S brand 15-oz. goes down to $1.00, the 15-oz. Ball Park franks are $1.99. The Banquet frozen entrees are $1.67; the Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches 8-packs are 9.99.
The Delicje cookies 5.18-oz. are 99¢ (must buy 5).
Miller High Life 12-pack 12-oz. cans are 7.99 (must buy 2).
The Stouffer's frozen entrees are not a value at 3.00.

At Jewel-Osco, the only items I would contemplate are the Entenmann's donuts B1G1F, and the Nathan's beef franks 14-oz. $3.99 (digital - limit 4). But the Entenmann's donuts could be supplanted if the JJ's pies are on sale for 79¢ or less.

That is pretty much it for now. I do not anticipating going outside anywhere anyhow until it starts getting reasonably temperate.

HI,

I agree with your opinion of Nissin products.

In general, my favorite flavor in ramen soup was once referred to as 'Oriental.' It appears to have been renamed 'Soy Sauce.' The flavor to avoid in ramen soup in my experience is labeled 'Shrimp,' the flavor is just too light.

Regards,
Cathy2

An holder post for now, as I have not yet read the grocery store adverts. The outside sheath is given over to the Family Dollar advert.
Inside we have a bunch of coupons. A Subway advert valid through 22 Feb. 2025; a Popeye chicken advert valid through 22 June 2025 ; and a Kentucky Fried Chicken advert valid through 7 April 2025.
There is also the glossy Jewel-Osco Latinx flyer valid through 1 April 2025.
I may revisit this slightly later.

There's a bar code in the Jewel ad that leads to Jewel's Black History Month events: https://www.atjewelosco.com/blackhistory/
Also a booklet with a vendor list for the events: https://www.atjewelosco.com/blackhistor ... t-2025.pdf

Just got 'round to reading the Butera ad that ends today. Strangest stale charcuterie ever: Cinnamon Toast Crunch Flavored Hormel Thick-Cut Bacon, frozen, fresh expiration Xmas 2024, $1.99.

Next week: Fruity Pebbles mortadella?

The good news on the Avocado front is that there is no 25% tariff on products from Mexico for now. Jewel has Hass Avocados for .69 cents, a limit of 6 in their "Just for U" program. And Butera has Avocados 2 for $1.

I was hoping otherwise (weather is looking appalling - could someone send me an alert the next time the Chicago temperature goes above 32°F?); but this does appear to be a week when you can buy foodstuffs at their lowest prices.

The deals I received are clustered around Food4Less and Tony's. At Food4Less, that is the price to buy the Cheez-It crackers 12.4-oz. ($1.99 digital - limit 5). Tony's charges 2.50 (digital - must buy 2 - limit 2). Note the Scott Pete smoked sausage 20-oz. for $3.99 with no limit. The beef smoked sausage is 4.99. Tony's wants 3.99, in quantities of two - but for the beef smoked sausage, it commands 6.99. However, should you want to buy the Vienna Beef franks 12-oz., the 3.99 is a good price. (At Jewel-Osco, it "loves local", but it will charge you another dollar for the exact same item. Talk about tormented love.)

Tony's has Chunky Soup for $1.25 (digital - must buy 4 - limit 4). The Maruchan ramen cups are 49¢ - recall that Maruchan is not Nissin, and Tony's doesn't typically have all the varieties of Maruchan [Do you know who usually does? Cook Bros. on Grand Ave. @ North & Kostner - but it charges more.]. {If you shop the Food4Less @ North & Cicero, it's a short jaunt to Cook Bros., and there is an Aldi across North Ave. from it. PLUS, you'll glimpse the closed Checkers fast food restaurant.}
$4.49 for 12-packs of 12-oz. soda is not 3.99 (@ both Food4Less and Jewel-Osco).
The Little Debbie snack cakes at $2.50 is a deal. (It is also 2.50 @ Family Dollar; if you need something to get you to $25.00 on Saturday.) The Stouffer's frozen entrees for $2.00 each (must buy at least 5) is solid, but beware that some varieties of this size are not included. Inspect the shelf tag (if it has not fallen off). [I honestly do not need any more currently.]
With Food4Less, there is a herd of items you can buy digitally (limit 5), but the advert only reveals a handful of them. The full list is only available in-store.

If you have to buy 12-oz. soda this week, the deal is for Pepsi-Cola products at Family Dollar $3.67 (digital - must buy 3 - limit 12). [N.B.: There seems to be a separate digital coupon for $4.00 off a 14.00 purchase of Pepsi. Which conceivably would accept four 12-packs, but would certainly apply if you bought six.]
I would not be going out this Sunday even if the weather was better. I will be doing something else online. But if you are going to watch the cavalcade of commercials, the N.F.L. will not admit it, but it has a favorite in the game. Should you ever go to Canton, OH. {OMG - no - never again - too many painful memories.} and tour the Pro Football Hall of Fame, find the wing where it mentions the "All-American Football Conference", a competitor to the NFL circa 1946-1949. I will not spoil what the plaque reads. It is pertinent.

What caught my eye at Aldi is the Summit craft soda. Aldi has been accused of playing footsies with other corporations' trade names and styles, but Summit is an actual brewery in St. Paul, MN. (I've toured there.) which pulled out of the Illinois market pre-COVID. If this is its, I wonder if there is a scheme for its beer brands returning. (If it is not it, Aldi really should expect a cease-and-desist letter from the brewery.) Breweries doing soda is certainly known [Sprecher root beer]. {This is conceivable. Asahi (Japan) has bought the Octopi Brwg. plant in Waunakee, WI. to provide Asahi Super Dry for the U.S.A. and Canada. Other contract brewers at Octopi could be sidelined, and Aldi might have to find another venue for its contract beers. Summit could be on its list. As should Cold Spring.}

The Carnicerias Jimenez advert was so prodigious it forgot to submit it to the weekly flyer.

No Japan-only ramen flavors espied at Joong Boo. No H-Mart advert this week. Flipp has the Butera advert, but not the Angelo Caputo one.
There is a Doordash code for up to $10.00 off your first order of 15.00+ from it: 4l8t87

There was some copy this week for stores advertising their el-cheapo Valentine's Day products. I am not in any relationships with significant others, but I wonder what would be their reaction if they detected that my Valentine's Day gift to them cost only $1.25. Maybe it would be the end of the relationship - which if it was, would be a relief at learning the other cared more about the money expended than any gracious gesture.

Finally, in another example of burying the lead: I managed to remember what e-mail account I used to sign up for Mastodon. Mastodon works better if people are NOT all on the same federation. If you moused over the link, you'll view I chose a general topic federation mostly orbiting around metropolitan Chicago. There, I shall make pithy statements and share some of the thousands of photographs I have lensed over the years [since 2009]. I will not be posting every day, but there should be enough entries to keep me in your consciousness.

@pudgym29
Thursday is supposed to be a high of 41. And Saturday a high of 32. And those are the two highs for the next week. Also Butera has frozen pizza on sale; Home run in and Gino's East deep dish for $4.99; limit 4. The Gino's East Cheese and Spinach is quite good.

Actually, the best deal on soda might be at Tony's. Their ad contains a QR code link to https://www.molsoncoorsrebates.com/subm ... 7696227835 where a $10 rebate is available for 2 cases of Miller-Coors products or for 2 twelvers of Coca-Cola products. Pandering to the dry January crowd perhaps? Oh, yeah, it's February. Anyhoo, case of Miller Lite is $9.99, twelve Cokes $2.99 net.

Pauly wrote:@pudgym29
Thursday is supposed to be a high of 41. And Saturday a high of 32. And those are the two highs for the next week. Also Butera has frozen pizza on sale; Home run in and Gino's East deep dish for $4.99; limit 4. The Gino's East Cheese and Spinach is quite good.

Are Home Run Inn and Gino's East made or distributed by the same folk?I've noticed that they tend to go on sale in synch at Jewel and Tony's, and apparently Butera too.

Here is a terse addendum to what I posted earlier this week.
From browsing Flipp, the store of interest switched from Tony's to Food4Less.
I sent myself there (on the CTA route #54 Cicero bus) to try to learn what other items were in the herd of weekly digital deals.
I ate beforehand [two for $7.00 @ Wendy's] to remove that potential budget-buster. But I still went over what I anticipated because of other items encountered there. The largest being items in the reduced rack. This is an 8-inch cherry pie. I can't remember the last time the abode here had a round cherry pie. It was marked down to $1.80. There was also a box of twelve glazed donuts, which used to sell for $3.99, but has increased to 5.00; remaindered for 2.53.
I did not learn what was in the digital herd. That flyer was not available in the store.
I scribed I did not need any more frozen entrees; but that changed upon learning that the sale on Stouffer's also included Lean Cuisine entrees. That went from zero to ten. Further, buying the Stouffer's also triggered a check-out coupon for $2.50 off a subsequent purchase of eight Stouffer's entrees [valid until 3 April].
After remarking about the perceived difference between Maruchan and Nissin noodle cups; noted that Maruchan was 59¢, but Nissin was 49¢ [unpublicized]. Also, Nissin has phased out its unrecyclable polystyrene cup for a recyclable plastic cup. Unfortunately, we still get only the top 4 sellers here - not the varieties it offers in Japan. I bought four.
There were breakfast burritos here. I had to guess if Dollar-Quarter Tree would have had these. Judging by the varieties, I punted 'no'. So I bought six @ 3/$4.00.
Finally, since the Celestial Seasonings teas previously purchased are quite flavorful, I bought two more boxes [20 bags each] for $6.00.
For what was not bought here; the Chunky soup is 1.49 - must buy at least 8. That is more than what Tony's wants, but Tony's has a digital hard limit of four. I am down to one remaining can of Chunky soup, but I might not go to Tony's to get this [horrible cold weather].

Jewel has Healthy Choice and Marie Callender frozen dinners B1G1F. The $3.99 ones are on sale. A few weeks ago, Jewel had Progresso soup for 99 cents, and I had a $1 off coupon for four, and so I got the soup for 80 cents a piece. You had to buy five to get it for that price.

A few good deals and a bad one from Tony's ad: 12 packs of Bud or Bud Light for $3.99 with rebate. That's as cheap as soda - unless you picked up the Coke with rebate last week at Tony's. Beef shanks $2.99 and pork shoulder 99¢. Their packages of shoulder tend to be large. Only one coupon item this week, that seems odd.

But beware the 79¢ pineapple - unlike almost all other Chicagoland supermarkets, Tony's sells pineapple by weight, so that's 79¢/lb. And even a small size 7 pineapple weighs around 3 to 4 pounds.

Cheapo charcuterie returns to Butera: Hillshire thin honey ham in 9oz tubs for 99¢. That special was on last week too. At the Lindenhurst store where I bought a bunch, the expiration date was Feb 19. And a strange note: South of the border Tbones are $4.99 while porterhouses are $6.99. The porterhouse premium used to be around 30¢. And it was normally possible to find some Tbones with more tenderloin than some of the porterhouses anyway, although the family packs tended to be mixed with one good one and one bad one.

I went to Jewel (Evanston) today (Thursday) for a seafood item that was in the weekly flyer (sales starting Wednesday), but there was none. I thought maybe it had sold out quickly and asked if there would be any more stocked. The seafood counter guy told me that the person who delivers that product hadn't shown up yet. He made a note of what I was looking for so he could ask the delivery person about it, and he offered me a rain check. I said I'd check back in a day or two instead. This was the fifth or sixth time in the last month that this Jewel has either (a) not had any of something advertised as on sale or (b) had no price shown for an item in stock. To their credit, the employees have always been helpful about tracking down items or prices. There is also a bar code scanner in the store, which I have had to use several times.

For those wondering why I have not been posting in this thread recently; I was catching up on some other online actions, and that I really do not need all that many foodstuffs {I know I mentioned being down to one can of Chunky Soup.}.
Here are photos of the items inside the back porch freezer.

It is more full than is typical. I am dwindling the items in the refrigerator freezer to be able to defrost it.

This week's Flyer has coupons for both White Castle and Burger King.
I was also surprised by an advert for Food4Less. It has a 'sale' price for Stouffer's frozen meals for $2.50 (must buy at least 4). But when I bought it {and I suspect it's also valid for Lean Cuisine}, it was $2.00 each. However, buying it also triggered a checkout coupon for $2.50 off eight entrees, which is still valid.
So if you spent the $20.00 for this price, the cost would drop to 17.50 [$2.19 each]. Else, the digital sale of 24-packs of soda is 9.99 (limit 5) - you should pay 7.99 or maybe 8.49; the Scott Pete 20-oz. sausage (pork) should be 3.99 - perhaps the beef sausage could be bought for 4.99.

Silly me, when you go silent I assume you are in Japan.

Regards,
Cathy2