Where do you shop?

I know that regional differences will take some contextualization, but notwithstanding:

• First and foremost, we get a CSA box with fruit and vegetables, and ours provides add-ons (think local organic honey, local organic bread, local organic eggs) for additional cost.
• Trader Joe's (specialty grocery), for any specialty-er bread (e.g. pita), some of our meat (interesting thing, there is both beef and chicken available through our CSA; both are frozen, which is ok, but the chicken doesn't include the giblets!), incidental produce (for which menu-planning reduces the need), some spices, the big 1lb 73% dark chocolate bar, onions, olive oil, flour, cheap beer, etc. The thing about TJ's is I can never pin down where it ranks cost-wise. It is a specialty store, technically, but I'm fairly sure the prices are comparable as far as the quality is concerned. The thing about TJ's is there are few choices, just TJ's branded foods, mostly.
• Costco (bulk warehouse) for a few items, like our 2.5lb blocks of Tillamook cheddar, our Whole milk (milk is a really big cost/quality trade off for us, so we at least get whole, but I want to do better), Peanut Butter (Laura Scudder's), Preserves, Tortilla chips, chewing gum, and some supplements.

The big point I want to make is that we basically have cut out the ordinary "super"-market. I've heard it said "shop the outside" of the supermarket, meaning the produce, meat-dairy-eggs, and the breads (and booze, in our particular store!). Not much around the outside can't be met with higher quality (organic, what have you) and comparable price (I think) elsewhere for us.

Everything in the middle is cheaper at the so-called Big Box stores. Unfortunately, due to militant slow-growth, we don't really have any Big Boxers worth their salt (BOO KMART), so it can be tough. Also, TJ's doesn't have a very full range of spices, so the SUPERmarket has me on the hook whenever I need to buy something obscene (oops, meant obscure) like Turmeric. I've also been known to poke into Whole Foods (at least in this town, a place for either A. young successful professionals with money to burn or B. impoverished hipster-types already swimming in debt anyway to shop and make themselves feel good about "smart" choices) for the things that aren't elsewhere, such as Tahini paste.

That's all for now. I'm working on posting about "What Kefir Means to Me".