grocery shopping in rural Alaska

I have had it on my mind to do a post on my grocery shopping experience in Alaska.

 This is a picture of the co-op.  It is a small, community owned "grocery store".  It carries cereal, crackers & canned good quite regularly.  Things like milk & cream are never in the store, whereas ice cream or yogurt will sometimes (excitedly!) make an appearance.  At the beginning of the month is the best time to shop and we always stock up on eggs ($6.99/18), cheese ($14/1lb.) and any dairy products they happen to have (sour cream, cream cheese...) and Josh also splurges on a bag of chips, usually Doritos, that cost a little over $9.  We also buy soda at the co-op, and that costs us about $15 for a 12-pack.  This is particularly painful because I know at Winco in Vancouver, I could get a 12-pack on sale for $3.99!  We have bought diapers there occasionally, and they are not too expensive, which is nice, but sometimes they are out of Wyatt's size.

The last two weeks we have been waiting and waiting for eggs and carrots. Eggs for general cooking, but the carrots are for a chicken & dumplings recipe I want to make.  Luckily, since the store still doesn't have either item, Joe called Josh from Anchorage to see if we needed anything, and he graciously agreed to bring us back eggs & carrots! Hip hip hooray!

Fresh fruit and vegetables will also randomly show up at the co-op.  We have had cabbage, carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, oranges, apples, lettuce and tomatoes.  Tomatoes probably get me the most excited!  Right now I am really craving a grapefruit. I think just knowing I can't have one makes it seem that much more desirable!

Obviously, shopping at the co-op is uber-expensive.  So we try to  limit what we purchase there to what we can't get shipped. (Soda, eggs, cheese, fresh produce...)

For the rest of our grocery shopping, we turn to Amazon and Walmart.  As I said before, I think of Amazon as my Costco.  If I need a lot of something, like toilet paper or dish soap, I order it on Amazon in bulk, using Amazon Prime (a fellow blogger signed me onto her own prime account out of the goodness of her heart!) so the shipping is always FREE.  For the rest of the things I need I use the Walmart in Fairbanks.  I have e-mailed my order once, and we faxed our most recent order.  When one of us is actually in Anchorage, the Walmart there has a Bush Department and you can fill your cart with non-perishable items and leave it there, and the store will box and ship everything in your cart (even a large rug!) to you for a minimal fee, plus the shipping costs from the post office.  We do this COD so when it arrives at the post office, Josh just writes a check.

Ordering on Amazon is, hands down, a million times easier than ordering from Walmart. On Amazon I can just click what I want. It's that simple. To order from Walmart, my list looks something like this:

6 cans Campbell's Tomato Soup 10 oz.

3 Ragu Spaghetti Sauce Garden Combination 24 oz.

6 cans sliced olives 3.8 oz or smaller

It's somewhat easier if I still have one left of what I want. Then I can find the name brand, flavor and size I desire.  But if I am completely out, then it's hard!  And if I am not specific (Like this time, I wrote: 3 Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip bags, 12 oz.) And so I got MILK chocolate, when what I wanted was SEMI-SWEET... Live & learn!

For other home items (batteries, candles, etc.) I use Target. I have a RedCard, which is just a Target card that pulls from my debit/checking account.  But by using the RedCard, I get 5% off my entire purchase, plus FREE SHIPPING. 

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In addition to writing about our shopping experience, 

I wanted to post this picture of where we are on a map of Alaska.

For those who don't know, Bethel is our hub.

Alakanuk & Hooper Bay (both on the map) are villages in our district and Josh has been to both.
Upriver of us is Russian Mission, & downriver is Pilot Station.

We are 400 miles west of Anchorage, 100 miles inland from the Bering Sea.

I am literally closer to Russia than my hometown of Vancouver, Washington.

This is a great post from Josh of Marshall from the air!