Not precisely food-oriented, Bargains-in-a-Box are popping up in the Chicago area. There are some food items there, though it is not their strength. I did buy a ten-pack of Mexican hot chocolate bars for $3.

I have found Wilton supplies of various types there. I don't usually buy decorating kits, but when it is cheap, I do. A friend has a son who loves Curious George, they had a cupcake kit knock-off suitable for a birthday party. Another friend loves frogs, I bought this kit to later learn it was a dinosaur. If you use the back scales for something else, the face certainly looked frog-like.

If a store is not located near a Costco, they are a repository of Costco returns. Their new store in Waukegan on 120 east of 41and west of Greenbay is one such location.

One of their idiosyncratic devices for shoppers: instead of a shopping cart there are boxes dragged by a rope by customers. I visited the store on North Avenue a few times before I saw this wonder of practicality.

Regards,

Duke's Mayonnaise 1 Quart jars on the shelf at Hammond,In Super Walmart $3.38 Expiration is 05/17. They also had 16oz jars expiration was 11/16.

Hammond Walmart Supercenter
7850 Cabela Dr
Hammond, IN 46324
(219) 989-0258

I recently used the Walmart grocery pickup where you select your items and your order is waiting to be picked up usually the next day. The good thing was that the service was free with a $30 minimum order. There was a few small things to nitpick about. A couple of items were substituted, one of sliced cheese and the other carpet cleaner. For the sliced cheese, they gave me a larger size for the same price. The carpet cleaner was the normal version instead of the pet version. The normal version was a $1 cheaper so that's the price they charged me. The nice thing was that you can always decline the substitution they give you or click on a box when ordering a product to say that you don't want a substitution for that product. Another thing was that I ordered a product that wasn't in stock and there was no substitution. It would have been nice to been offered the chance to change my order to something that was in stock. I did get some produce, five honeycrisp apples and one head of cabbage. The apples were pretty good quality except for one had a small bruise on it. The cabbage was fine. If you are picky about your produce and have quite a bit of it, this might not be the best service for you to use. Overall, I was pretty happy with the service and if you are pressed for time, it's probably worth it.

I just purchased a 5# bag of gorgonzola cheese at a 99 Only store for $1. We have used about 1/3 of the bag and it is quite excellent. At the time of purchase, it had about 30 days before the expiration date.