No go shopping

Are you ready for no go shopping? What is no go shopping you ask? It’s when you live out in the boonies and there isn’t a place to go shopping within a reasonable distance. Where I live, it’s 20+ miles into the nearest town, takes about a half hour if everything is going right, of course there is the stopping to chat with a neighbor on the road, then the stopping to chat with a neighbor at the mailboxes… then when you get to town, you are likely to find someone to chat with, and at the store, no getting around the fact that you will most likely find someone to chat with there, so going to town for a quick trip to the grocery store isn’t going to be quick after all.

Where I live, if you want to go anywhere with real shopping, I’m talking malls, big chain grocery stores, WalMart, Sam’s Club, real restaurants and the such, it’s a good 3 hour drive at highway speeds. It’s something we don’t do very often, maybe a monthly thing at best, it’s usually more a quarterly thing, well planned and executed, it’s at least a day trip and sometimes requires an overnight stay.

What do we get in return for no go shopping? Well, living where there aren’t many other people for one, it’s nice to not hear or see your closer neighbors most of the time. It’s quiet, dark at night, and private.

We have come to rely on delivery services for many of our purchases, besides groceries (I wish we could order more grocery items) we can order just about anything we could want out here. I am an Amazon Prime member, it’s paid for itself many times over, it’s something I pay for each year without fail. I know my UPS delivery driver by name, I know the FedEx drivers too, though they seem to go through many more of them than the UPS company. Of course there is also USPS, we all know our postal workers, the only problem is our mailboxes are some 6 miles from my home, so for me, it’s more convenient to order things that will come UPS or FedEx so it gets delivered directly to my home.

I don’t even mind the few day wait, I know if I were to go to the closer town to buy what I would order, first if it was even available, it would be very expensive, taxed and I’d still have to wait a day or two before I’d be able to go there. If I planned to go to the bigger farther town, it might be a week or more before I could get out there, so it’s better for me to order through Amazon Prime and get it in 2 days, delivered to my door.

I just ordered a pair of boots, some socks (gotta have new socks to go with the new boots LOL), and some 200 clear plastic 5X7 sleeves. The boots and socks are obvious, but what’s up with 200 clear plastic sleeves? I’m finally getting my photos printed up to sell in one of the shops in town, actually several shops, I need to protect the prints, I can’t imagine where all I would have to go to pick up just those 3 things in a physical store.

So what do you prefer, shopping in a brick and mortar store or shopping online? Let me know below :)

Hate shopping?
Survivalist shopping list