u/swiftbursteli

Western Beef at 998 Myrtle Avenue has fresh ground chuck 80% lean at $4.99 a pound today. The ad calls it USDA Choice and save $2. That circular ends Wednesday.

Associated at 4121 Church Avenue is also $4.99 a pound on 80% lean ground beef, but only if you buy a family pack of 5 lb or more. Same dollar, different bag rule. That ad runs through Thursday.

Western Beef at 814 Jamaica Avenue shows the same chuck number through today.

Numbers are from the stores' published circulars. If another Brooklyn store has 80% chuck under $4.99 a pound today with no pack minimum, tell me.

I have a higher end Victus, I was cross shopping it with a Nitro. I had both PCs in front of me, chose the Victus despite the signs. It's worse than I anticipated it and I regret buying it.

As time goes on, the issues have only gotten worse. Here's my gripes:

- The touchpad collapsed randomly, it's now impossible to use. I now have to lug around a mouse everywhere I take the computer. Others had the same issue on the Victus, to fix it requires a teardown.
- The battery only holds about 40m to an hour's worth of normal usage. Sitting idly it eats battery too. This is a known issue on the Victus.
- Every time I put the computer to sleep now, it requires a manual restart because the mouse doesn't get recognized
- Randomly, the "c" key is depressed. I cleaned the key, removed it, cleaned it with compressed air, turned on filter key. The issue requires a restart to fix - it's software.
- The CPU cannot be used for high-intensity usage. As soon as you're running any load on it (I used it for transcribing text for videos) it overheats. Poor cooling for the CPU is a known issue on these.
- The speakers are very quiet.

The only saving grace my Victus has is the really good hardware baked in it. At this point it would be better for me to connect a wireless keyboard and mouse and convert it to a homelab. This is NOT a good laptop and I would NOT recommend anyone get it. The Nitro seems to be a better laptop, has better plastics, I just got a very good deal and more memory on this computer.

Breakstone's, 1 lb, $1.99 at four Met Food stores in Brooklyn, on Myrtle Ave, 3rd Ave and Tompkins Ave. Redeem 2,000 points, or pay the regular sale price of $3.99.

Bowl and Basket whipped unsalted, 8 oz, $1.99 at the ShopRite on Bruckner Blvd, down from $3.29, with no points or card mentioned. That is $3.99 a pound against $3.98 a pound. The 8 oz is the cheapest butter I found with no condition on it.

President 7 oz is 2 for $5 at about two dozen Ideal Food Basket and America's Food Basket stores, $5.71 a pound, and only if you buy two. The same 7 oz is $2.99 on its own at six Key Food stores, $6.83 a pound. Western Beef has Breakstone's 8 oz at 2 for $6, and that ad ends tonight.

I pulled these prices from this week's circulars, not shelves, so check in store.

I read 101 Manhattan weekly circulars, and all 22 Gristedes and D'Agostino stores showed exactly 50 items each. Four Fairways publish 1500 items, five Key Foods run 517 to 522, 15 Morton Williams stores run 166, theirs covering two weeks, 8/21 through 9/3.

Exactly 50 at all 22 stores is too round a number to be real. That is the shape of a ceiling on my end, not a decision by the stores.

Does the paper Gristedes or D'Agostino circular have more than about 50 items? How many pages?

Which Manhattan supermarkets run a weekly ad I am not reading? I have 164 stores, circulars for 101, nothing for 63.

I pulled from Gristedes: red and green seedless grapes $2.99 a pound, tomatoes on the vine $2.49 a pound, Grade A chicken breast tenderloins $3.49 a pound, blueberries $3.99 a dry pint. That ad runs through Thursday.

I read these off the printed circulars, not the shelf. Tell me what I have wrong.

I found 18 supermarkets in 11206, 11216, 11221 and 11233 with circulars today: 14 run Friday through Thursday, four Thursday through Wednesday. The four: Food Bazaars on Manhattan Ave, Myrtle Ave and St John's Place, plus Western Beef on Myrtle. Thursday the four are on next week's prices, the 14 on the old ad's last day.

I found no current ad for six: Associated and Fine Fare on Marcus Garvey, Foodtown on Fulton, Key Food at 643 Nostrand, Met Food at 739 Nostrand, and Shop Fair on Myrtle. They may still have sales. Union Market on Bedford: 15 items, too few to count.

The dates come off the date range printed on each store's own circular, so check the one in the store if you are planning around it.

I found green plantains at 20 cents each at the C-Town at 1016 St Nicholas, if you take all ten.

Yuca is $1.29 a pound, malanga coco $1.49 a pound; I found neither in the four other Washington Heights and Inwood ads I can read this week. Plum tomatoes are $1.49 a pound, corn 5 for $2.99, cantaloupes 2 for $5.

I counted eighty-eight of the 362 rows priced as multiples, so buying one costs more than the printed number. Twenty-one more need the store card, with the without-card price printed beside them.

Cafe Bustelo is $5.99 here and $3.99 at the C-Town at 4918 Broadway, same chain, same week. Neither ad prints a tin size, so I cannot confirm the packages match and would read the label first. Maseca is $3 here if you buy two, against $3.99 for one up there.

I got every price from the stores' August 21 to 27 circulars, not in person, so confirm at the shelf.

I found Coca-Cola 2 for $4 in this week's Food Universe ad on 43rd Ave, but it needs three things at once: the club card, a digital coupon clipped before you go, and two bottles. Miss one and you pay more.

Five other items in that ad work the same way. Ben & Jerry's pints and Breyers are 2 for $6 after a $2 digital coupon, two required. Philadelphia cream cheese is $2.99 after a $1 coupon, limit two. Tide, Gain and Downy are $7.99 after a $2 coupon, limit one.

99 of the 514 items say club card, and 127 are priced as multiples rather than singles.

The SuperFresh on Greenpoint Ave runs the same circular. I matched them and 500 of the 514 items are identical. Four differ, and all four are different sizes rather than better deals. Downy is 56 oz for $11.99 at Food Universe and 100 oz for $7.99 at SuperFresh after the coupon. Bounty is $21.99 and $9.99, but the packs are described differently in each ad, so they are not the same purchase.

Both ads run August 21 to 27. Every number here is copied off the circulars the two stores published, and what the register charges is the real answer, so look before you buy.

I found $1.99 a pound boneless skinless chicken breast at sixteen addresses, every borough, no club card and no minimum purchase. I found loose Vidalia onions at $0.99 a pound in all five too.

Bronx: Associated on Westchester Ave. Brooklyn: eight, seven Associated plus Ideal Food Basket on Washington Ave. Manhattan: three, Associated on West 100th St, Ideal Food Basket on Lexington Ave, Shop Fair. Queens: Associated on Roosevelt Ave and Met Food on Eliot Ave. Staten Island: Met Food on Victory Blvd and Met Food on Hylan Blvd.

I found red potatoes at $0.79 a pound in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, but no per pound potato on Staten Island this week.

Most ads run through 8/20. Shop Fair in Manhattan and the Staten Island onions run to 8/22.

Staten Island is two of the sixteen, and a week ago its cheapest breast was $2.19 with a store card. I only list stores whose circulars I can read. A blank is my gap, not a price. I am not counting bone-in split breast, cheaper in a few places.

Tell me if a borough's $1.99 is not real or a store beats it. All of this is transcribed from the stores' own weekly ads, and if the register says something else the register is right.

Boneless chicken breast is $1.99 a pound at the Associated at 59-15 Roosevelt Ave, through Thursday, no card, no minimum. The only other Queens address at $1.99 this week is the Met Food on Eliot Ave in Middle Village. After those two, Queens starts at $2.49.

Five more under a dollar a pound:

green cabbage $0.59

Vidalia onions $0.99

Idaho potatoes $0.99

eggplant or green and yellow squash $0.99

cut watermelon quarters $0.99

Three prices need a family pack:

whole chicken legs $1.29 a pound

shoulder steaks $7.99 a pound

48 ounce Nature's Pride ground turkey $12.99

I also found Springer Mountain whole chickens at $1.99 a pound, so a $1.99 sign at that case is not always the breast. Their bone-in split breast is $2.99 a pound, a dollar more than the boneless.

Whole pork shoulder $1.49 a pound, shank half $1.59, butt half $1.69.

I pulled 402 items out of the 8/14 to 8/20 ad with a tool I built. What is printed and what rings up can differ, so look at the shelf tag.

I found boneless chicken breast at $2.99 a pound at Foodtown on Queens Blvd, against the $1.99 citywide low at Associated, 3.6 miles away in Woodside.

Roma plum tomatoes: $1.49 at Foodtown against $0.99 at Food Bazaar, 1.6 miles away in Corona. Idaho potatoes $1.29 against $0.99. Yellow onions: 5 lb bag for $5.99 with the club card, so $1.20 a pound.

Both Key Foods on Queens Blvd run the same ad: one trip, not two. Neither advertises plain boneless breast, only organic at $7.99 a pound.

I could not read a current ad for the Key Food on 64th Ave. That gap is mine. Target and Trader Joe's are shelf prices, so I left them out.

These come off the circulars the stores published this week, so check the shelf before you count on one.

Parmalat 32 oz is 3 for $10 ($3.33 each) at Cherry Valley on Pennsylvania Ave and the Food Bazaars. The same 32 oz is $2.99 with no minimum at Pioneer on 5th Ave and Fine Fare on Mermaid, so three cost $8.97.

Idaho potatoes 2 for $4 at Key Food Sutter Ave is a 5 lb bag, 40 cents a pound. Cherry Valley on Crescent St runs 2 for $5.99 on a 3 lb bag, a dollar a pound. Same "2 for" wording, two and a half times apart.

$1.99 a pound chicken breast is three different products: boneless skinless at the Ideal Food Baskets and the America's Food Baskets; Perdue split breast, bone-in, at Met Food and Lincoln Market; boneless at Associated on Church Ave, but only if you buy 5 pounds or more.

NatureSweet 10 oz tomatoes are 3 for $10 at Key Food on Atlantic Ave and $2.99 with a club card at Key Food on 7th Ave. Same chain, same week.

Every NetCost per-pound price needs a NetCost Club card, the $2.19 chicken breast included, and that ad ends tonight.

I built a free tool that reads these circulars; this sub does not allow links. All of it comes off the stores' own printed ads for the week of August 7, and the shelf tag is the final word.

I matched both Ridgewood C-Town circulars for 8/7 to 8/13 (3 miles apart): Cypress Ave runs 319 items, Fresh Pond Road 269, 221 matching exactly on name and price.

Fresh Pond only:

green plantains, 8 for $2

tomatillos and jalapenos, $1.29/lb

green limes, 12 for $2

papa criolla, $5.99

mote pelado, $8.99

choclo desgranado, $6.99

P.A.N. white corn meal, $4.99

Cypress Ave only:

Kretschmar black forest ham, $7.99/lb

Sabrett beef franks, $5.99

Oscar Mayer sliced bacon, $5.99

Buddig premium turkey breast, $7.49

Boar's Head counter, same at both:

deluxe ham, $11.99/lb

slicing muenster, $6.99/lb

maple glazed honey coat turkey, $12.99/lb

I also matched the two Stop & Shops, Myrtle Ave and Union Turnpike: 252 items each, all 252 match on name and price.

I read the printed circulars this morning. Shelf tags win over anything I typed here.

Something I worked out slowly and have not seen written down anywhere: Brooklyn supermarkets do not all start their weekly ad on the same day. I read these circulars every week and right now there are four different rollover days running side by side.

Of the 155 Brooklyn stores I have a live ad for, here is when each one started, taken off the date printed on the ad itself:

Friday, 7/31 to 8/6. 106 stores, about two thirds of the borough. All 24 C-Towns, 14 Key Foods, 13 Ideals, 11 Bravos, 7 Associateds, 7 Foodtowns, 5 Met Foods, 4 America's Food Baskets, 4 Lincoln Markets, 3 Brooklyn Harvests, 3 Food Universes, 2 SuperFreshes, 2 Cherry Valleys, 2 Stop & Shops, plus Food Dynasty, Gristedes, JMart and one Fine Fare.

Thursday, 7/30 to 8/5. 13 stores. Every Food Bazaar in the borough (10) and all 3 Western Beefs.

Wednesday, 7/29 to 8/4. 14 stores. The 3 Whole Foods, 4 ALDIs, 4 Lidls, Moisha's on Ave M, KRM on 39th St, and Circus Fruits on Fort Hamilton Pkwy.

Sunday, 8/2 to 8/8. 7 stores. This is the set that turned over this morning: Target Grocery on Albee Square West, the Shop Fair, the Fine Fare on Saratoga Ave, two Pioneers and two Met Foods.

And a handful that are not on a seven day cycle at all. Three Guys From Brooklyn runs Wednesday to Monday, six days, so on Tuesday it has no ad running. NetCost runs Friday to Wednesday, also six days, which leaves Thursday blank. Union Market and Meat Supreme are closer to two week cycles. Trader Joe's and Brooklyn Fare publish no weekly circular at all, so there is nothing to roll over.

The part I did not expect is that the chain does not tell you the day. The branch does.

Met Food is the clearest example. Five of the seven Met Foods in Brooklyn are on the Friday cycle. The one at 131 Driggs Ave in Greenpoint is on the Sunday cycle. Same name over the door, different week. Fine Fare splits the same way (Mermaid Ave is Friday, Saratoga Ave is Sunday) and so does Pioneer (Parkside Ave is Friday, the 5th Ave store is Sunday).

Practically, if you shop on a Thursday you are on the last day of the ad at about two thirds of the borough, so anything you have been waiting on at a C-Town or a Key Food, that is your last shot. And a Sunday morning run to the Driggs Ave Met Food, either Pioneer or the Shop Fair is day one of a brand new ad, which is not true anywhere else in Brooklyn today.

A few things that came up this morning at those Sunday stores:

• Met Food, 131 Driggs Ave in Greenpoint: Hass avocados 79 cents each, red or green seedless grapes $1.99/lb.
• Pioneer, 5612 5th Ave in Sunset Park: Sunshine Farms eggs, 12 count, 2 for $5 medium or 2 for $7 jumbo. Both are must buy two.
• The other Pioneer, out in East New York: white peaches or nectarines $1.49/lb.

For scale on those grapes, the Associated at 802 Manhattan Ave and the C-Town at 953 Manhattan Ave are both running $3.99/lb this week. Lincoln Market at 1133 Manhattan Ave matches Met Food at $1.99/lb, but Lincoln's ad ends Thursday and Met Food's has six days left on it.

Prices are from the stores' published circulars, verify in store.

Disclosure up front: I build a free tool that reads NYC supermarket circulars (it is in my profile), and this post is just data, no link in it.

Two sites for the planned city-run grocery stores have been named so far: La Marqueta in East Harlem, and the Peninsula in Hunts Point in the Bronx. The Hunts Point store is set to open first, in 2027. So here is a baseline of what the supermarkets already near each site are advertising this week.

Cheapest advertised price on five staples. Nearest stores within about a mile of La Marqueta, and about a mile and a half of the Hunts Point site:

Item	Near La Marqueta	Near Hunts Point	Cheapest in an NYC ad this week
Chicken thighs (Perdue, bone-in), lb	$1.99	$1.99	$1.69 (Staten Island)
Ground beef, 80% lean, lb	$6.99	$3.99	$3.99
Granny Smith apples, lb	$1.49	$1.49	$0.79 (Brooklyn)
White sandwich bread, loaf	$1.99	$1.99	$1.99
Barilla pasta, 1 lb box	$1.67 (3/$5)	$1.33 (3/$4)	about $1.25

A couple of items that only showed up on one side this week: yellow bananas at $0.69/lb near La Marqueta, and Idaho potatoes at $0.79/lb near the Hunts Point site.

Whatever you think of the plan, this is the price bar those new stores will have to beat, and I plan to keep publishing it here each week.

Prices are from the stores' published circulars, verify in store.

Disclosure first: I run a free NYC grocery-deal site (no signup), and I read the Bronx circulars every morning. A few this week are genuinely good, so I figured they were worth sharing.

Best Bronx deals I'm seeing this week (valid through 7/16 unless noted):

Eggs, $0.98 a dozen (medium) at C-Town on Hugh J Grant Circle. That is about as low as eggs get in the city right now.

Bananas, $0.69/lb at Fine Fare (Dole yellow on Grand Concourse; green bananas same price at the White Plains Rd Fine Fare).

Organic 85% grass-fed ground beef, $5.99/lb at ALDI (3rd Ave, Broadway, White Plains Rd). Heads up, this one ends today, Tue 7/14.

Seedless watermelon quarter cuts, $0.79 each at C-Town and Bravo (Associated on Westchester has it cut at $0.79/lb).

Galbani string cheese, $4.49 at Bravo. Stonyfield organic milk, $4.99 at C-Town.

Honestly the Bronx holds up well against Manhattan on the basics this week, especially eggs and produce. If it helps, the full map and a search across every Bronx store's ad is on my site, swiftburst.org, and I'm glad to look up a specific item for anyone in the comments. If a store you shop isn't covered, name it and I'll add it. Prices are from the stores' published circulars, verify in store.

The experience as an end user for CC has been bumpy to say the least. When opus 4.7 launched it felt like both the model and claude's infra was not up to the task for keeping a dependable workflow in CC. Many here complained - rightfully so - and others swore off claude to go to codex.

I feel like criticism is necessary when a company worsens a product, but so is praise when it does well.

For the past few weeks I have had nothing but stellar outputs in both Cowork and Code. 4.8 is an awesome model, the CC quirks which used to drive me insane seem all but resolved now and the usage is finally in a place where it doesn't feel prohibitive.

I hope this helps undo a little bit of the sting the community left a month or two ago, because the Claude Code team has done a fantastic job lately and it seems like has done a honest job to address the community concerns. Thank you for listening and improving the user experience.

Signed,

- A happy claude code user