Efficiency vs. Cost Cutting - The Produce Truck

In my frugal twenties, I could spend an entire day grocery shopping. I would go to the Pathmark in South Philly for generic items and dry goods, Whole Foods for a few impressive items, and - MY FAVORITE - the produce truck for inexpensive fruits and veggies. For the uninitiated, produce trucks can typically be found in middle to lower income parts of the city. Not totally sure where they get the stuff and it is certainly not organic, but what it lacks in squeaky clean niceness, it makes up for in price. 5 pounds of bananas for a dollar. Two pounds of lemons for a dollar. For ten bucks, you can buy all of the produce you might be able to dream of. In Philly and the surrounding area, you can also track down great deals on produce and flowers at Produce Junction.

So, how do you find a produce truck? Short of driving around and hoping to stumble upon one, you can ask on local blog such as www.phillyblog.com. Just google your neighborhood or city and the word blog. You should get something.

Ideally, you will find one near a decent grocery so that you do not spend your day buying food. We cheap mamas are as short on time as we are on money.

So, I wonder, can surfing the net take the place of driving all over Philly to find what I want and save money? Clearly, some things, like produce, need to be bought fresh - or kind of fresh. But, how about dry goods? It turns out that you can buy many dry goods at a discount at Amazon. If you analyze what you usually buy, and determine that it's a regular purchase, you can even "subscribe" to it and saze 15%. That's on top of the bulk discount and free shipping on many items...