Do you ever want to just kick yourself for letting your preconceived notions get in the way of discovering something new? I swear I could start a whole new blog category just for these types of forehead-smacking moments.
So recently I was reading Courtney’s advice for acquiring inexpensive fresh flowers on her beautiful blog, French Country Cottage. It’s seriously like she read my mind. I mean, her blog is FULL of fresh flowers all the time, and I had even considered asking her, where do you get all the amazing fresh flowers? And more importantly, how can you possibly afford them? And within a week of my wondering, this post pops up hinting that Trader Joe’s has a decent fresh-flower market.
Trader Joe’s??
Now I knew of Trader Joe’s before I read Courtney’s post… There’s one on my to-and-from-work route. It’s been there for at least two years, probably longer. One of those over-priced health food markets, is what I assumed it was, passing by it every day but never stopping in, because why on earth would I set foot in a health food market, the absolute least likely place to ever find Diet Coke on sale?
Well I decided to finally stop in solely to check out the flowers, and I’m so glad I did! Now I don’t pretend that I’m suddenly in “TJ’s” target market… Although they would love me if I was, it’s definitely a store for foodies and honestly that’s just not me.
But their fresh flower market is indeed wonderful – and inexpensive! I picked up two nice-sized bouquets of purple daisies, deep purple alstroemeria, and green mini-hydrangeas for just $3.99 each, plus two bunches of ready-to-bloom yellow daffodils for just $1.49 per bunch.
At my usual grocery store, the $3.99 bouquets would easily be $8.99 or more. I’ve never seen them have bunches of daffodils, so I can’t compare, but they were definitely a no-brainer.
As for the other groceries, the store is largely devoted to their own painstakingly sourced house brand, natural instead of artificial ingredients, and probably a weird vegetable or two. I promise to check it out more thoroughly on next week’s fresh flower run!
