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Crackers

As I was writing this post, I was thinking . . has desperation set in? I’m writing a post about crackers!

My friends in Texas have been telling me they’re having a hard time finding crackers. One of my friends told me that she finally found some at one of the fresh food markets and they were $5. Ouch!

I’m still baffled by foods that are in short supply in one place and not in another. I’ve seen the shelves not totally stocked full of crackers but I don’t remember seeing NO crackers in the stores here.

Yesterday when we were at Aldi, I snapped this photo.

One pound of the brand Aldi carries for 79 cents. These are the only crackers we use and I’d be surprised if anyone could tell the difference in these and the name brand.

From the Walmart app . .

The Great Value crackers are 98 cents. I don’t have a problem with these either, except they’re 19 cents more than the Aldi brand.

But . . the Nabisco brand ..

No way! Most of us may buy 5 or 6 packages of crackers per year. I have no idea how many we buy but we do eat a good bit of crackers. So, say you buy 6 packages of crackers per year and the prices stayed the same the entire year, you’d save $13.14 by purchasing the Aldi brand.

That amount of money isn’t going to make much difference in anyone’s budget over a period of a year but, in our experience, everything we buy is a huge savings at Aldi and it does add up.

We’re pretty lucky to have three Aldi stores within 10 or 12 miles of us and a fourth store about 30 miles from us.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Here in west Texas, we are having trouble finding Fritos! Who would have thought …. Fritos.

    • I had heard that too. The one time I looked for them, they only had one size bag and it was not the size I wanted – like it was the big dipping chips and I wanted regular Fritos or vice versa. I haven’t checked here lately.

  2. Awhile back they were out of the Nabisco brand at the military commissary where I get most of my groceries. I will have to check out the Walmart brand next time I go there. Lately I’ve been buying my canned tuna fish there as it’s been out at the commissary. Pasta is something that’s been out too. Guess I better stock up on it when I find it.

    • Pasta has been out at our Walmart every time I’ve been in there, though I don’t go very often.

  3. We don’t shop at Aldi as often as when we lived in Florida as it is not really convenient here. I will say that the Aldi saltines are the absolute best.

    Our Walmarts here have struggled with having crackers for over a year. Very hit or miss.

  4. We’ve had odd items missing from stores too. Most of the winter, the grocery store close to us wasn’t getting Honey Nut Cheerios – or if they had them, only in small boxes. Lots of other Cheerios flavors were fully stocked however. And if I went to Walmart, they had plenty of HN Cheerios, and in big family style boxes.

    • That’s why the shortages strike me as so odd. If it was a problem with making the HN Cheerios, or a problem with packaging, why would one store have them and others not? Why are saltines everywhere here and hard to find in central Texas?

      The last few times we were in Aldi, they had almost no chicken – like one package of legs and one package of thighs. Yesterday, their chicken selection looked normal. I stood there looking at it feeling like I should buy something because it was there but not having chicken on my menu for the next two weeks so I walked away. At least I struck up a conversation with an interesting 3 year old girl.

      • i sometimes think they are playing with our minds ;0) i get tha same urge when something hasn’t been available and then suddenly it’s back! i’m on the west side of the country and have wished for an aldi’s for quite some time. i’m sure it’ll happen someday…

        • You hear that it’s supply chain issues, employee issues and then everything shows up again; the a few months later, it’s hard to find again. I have no idea but it makes no sense and things that make no sense lead to crazy theories.

  6. We haven’t been able to find regular size vanilla wafers. Our Publix has the mini vanilla wafers but my husband doesn’t like those. Very odd.

    • If it was a supply chain issue, why have the mini version? Now you’re going to have me looking for vanilla wafers. By the way, I just checked our Walmart online and they have both regular and minis. $3.28 for a box of regular. I have no idea if that’s a crazy price because I don’t often buy them.

  7. My daughter is only able to shop after work hours and weekends. She has seen no crackers in any of our local stores since Christmas. I found some Zesta yesterday morning for 3.78.

  8. We do not have an Aldi anywhere near us. None in the state that I am aware of.
    I heard that this month at least 3 million chickens were destroyed because of avian flu in Wisconsin and Iowa. I understand it started on the east coast and is moving west. Factory farms are being hit hard. If one bird is found sick the entire flock is culled. We have not seen any shortages here yet but I am betting it will happen nation wide. Luckily chickens mature quickly so once they can clean facilities they can start new flocks.
    This was not on my Doomsday Bingo Card.

    • Yes and that will no doubt reduce the amount of chicken we see in the stores but these chicken shortages in the stores have been ongoing. It started even before Thanksgiving but wasn’t terribly widespread. We’ve had a hard time getting chicken since probably January and that’s what I use in Rita’s dog food.

  9. My daughter was just complaining about this, too. She lives in north Idaho. Strange, strange, strange.

    • So, why can Texas and Idaho not get crackers but they’re not in short supply in SW MO?

  10. Now, we don’t have a lettuce shortage in our local store, but on Saturday lettuce was $3.95 for a smaller than usual head. I had two in my cart when I noticed the price sticker on the bin. I put them both back. The week I wanted pretzels for making the strawberry dessert with the pretzel crust for my Quilt Club refreshments there wasn’t a single pretzel in this town. I even checked the bar to see if they had any in the little snack size bags. I drove 25 mi. and back to check in the next larger town. Dollar General had three large bags. Hooray! I took the opportunity to also pick up some things that I use that just aren’t available in the small local store so it wasn’t a totally insane trip to just get a bag of pretzels. Crazy times we live in!

    • That’s why I used to make my meal plan, then buy anything I needed for it. Now, I look in my pantry first, then make my meal plan based on what I have here. There are always those times like your Quilt Club meeting, when there’s something I really want to make and one ingredient I can’t find anywhere.

      Yesterday in Aldi, they had chicken wings. We used to make wings almost every Sunday evening. I stood there and looked at them . . $24 for a package of wings! I used to pay $8 or $9 for that. I said no . . maybe once a month . . or maybe never. I’m just not doing it.

  12. My friend in Cassville couldn’t find saltines last month. All of the stores were out.

    At Christmas, I had to go to three stores to find sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream.

    If we can find chicken wings, they’re about $4 per pound. Nope. Not paying that.

    • Crazy! I have been watching the crackers in our stores because my friends in Texas have reported not finding them and we haven’t seen a shortage at all.

  13. I haven’t seen Nabisco crackers in the Rock Island IL Commissary in 2 months now. It is one of the smallest stores they have and they have had supply issues for over a year now. Our daughter works InstaCart so have her look for items for me. Sometimes she can find them, sometimes not. I can’t find Ivory Liquid dishwashing soap anywhere. So many of the others dry my hands so badly.

  14. …The only crackers Donnie could find last week were with unsalted tops. There were no other crackers to be found at WalMart!

  15. Here in NC I couldn’t find Better Cheddar crackers for months. The big chain store that I used to work at even pulled the tag. They weren’t even trying to order them anymore. It seemed like a lot of cheese-flavored snacks were in short supply. I finally found a box or two at another store. Crazy!

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