Food - what's fair
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Anonymous
| How do you spend $50 on two days' worth of produce? |
Anonymous
| Suggest Instacart or Peapod to them. |
Anonymous
It can be super easy to do, especially at a place like Whole Foods. |
Anonymous
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Classic - they feel on vacation, and while they would never pay that much in fruit for themselves, they gloss over the fact that it's costing you a small fortune and think of it as a treat for the whole family. Except they're eating most of it. So you just say pleasantly: "Wow, you guys ate so much fresh organic berries! We can't afford any more for next week, unfortunately." And then maybe YOU do the shopping, WITHOUT them, and buy exactly what you want. |
Anonymous
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So you're complaining because you choose to buy expensive organic berries and your house guests actually eat them?
This reminds me of a friend of mine who always opens two bottles of wine when she has people over. One for the guests and a second (much better) one for her. She's a wine snob and she truly believes the good stuff is wasted on her guests, so why serve it? Buy apples and oranges and bananas and watermelon. You could make $50 worth of those last till Thanksgiving. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
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Leave them the car and tell them to go by themselves.
Go at night or during the day and bring home bananas and watermelon. |
Anonymous
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If they are parents or other elders I'd let it go,
Siblings or similar peers I'd stop the trips. An easier less confrontational approach is to buy cheaper fruit. |
Anonymous
Life is not hard. |
Anonymous
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Op here. it is a set of grandparents, they are retired and like fresh food, cooking, and several grocery shopping trips a week.
I just stay out of it but I have told my husband that they need to start paying for some grocery shops, we're not even around for breakfast, lunch and snack times. it is behavior I would never impose on anyone, including my adult childrens' families. In a lot of ways it is grating, especially since when we go to their house with our family of four we do our own grocery shopping and take everyone out to dinner. No quid pro quo whatsoever. And we'd certainly replenish things we used up! Grandpa eats everything in sight, big snacker. So in their house there are no snacks. Staying with us is like a big free food festival for grandpa and grandma tries to restrict it to healthy things - 3 types of nuts, 8 types of fruit (cherries, apricots, peaches, plums, apples, granola, blueberries, oranges, bananas), 8 types of vegetables, 3 exotic cheeses, "real bread" and one carton of fresh OJ a day. Every three days. And they won't get a rental car. And the kicker is they both turn around and say "oh we better hurry up and eat this all or it will go bad". And the other kicker is when we take them to visit more family in the area for a meal, they'll ask to go grocery shopping and drop their money on fancy foods to bring there (to impress other people)! They have OK money, we have OK money, it is the principle. My husband doesn't help either since he plays both sides trying to please everyone, except I'm getting disgusted. |
Anonymous
If it was a financial hardship for you, I would be understanding. But, you can afford it, and these are your beloved elders, and they eat too much fruit? Can we all chip in to send you to charity/hospitality/being a decent person bootcamp? |
Anonymous
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p.s. Just to be clear, we both work fulltime, have two young children, and are hosting for three weeks. I do not have time to go grocery shopping 3-4 times a week for particular eaters. It is my husband, taking grandpa to the grocery store , letting grandpa pick whatever (not meals, just the whole Produce department), and then my husbands puts down the credit card.
Weekly, I buy the proteins for the week and all the kid foods - milk, yogurt, baby food, pure stuff, etc. |
Anonymous
| Don't keep them in your house if it's a hardship. Keep enough food to sustain them, but stock bananas instead of blueberries and raspberries. I hide that stuff from my own kids because they are crazy expensive. |
Anonymous
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Since these are elderly people, I would just accept the situation. Also, since money is not tight, I would re-frame it and try to feel proud that I could provide.
They won't be around forever. |
Anonymous
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This is not a house guest problem, it is a DH problem. As always.
He needs to cut it off at the pass. "$5.99 for raspberries? You taught me better than that, Dad! Let's get more of those bananas..." |