How often do you buy groceries?
What types of things do you consider “essential”?
Do you make a list when you go shopping, or just have an idea of what you need?
Do you do one big trip all at once, or do you pick up just enough to make what you’re eating that night/the next day?
I tend to buy groceries at least twice a month, sometimes it is more than that because of impulse. Otherwise, I operate on a 35 ~ 65 budget.
I consider my monster javas, rice, pasta, coffee/creamer, oatmeal, almond milk, water, bagels/waffles with cream cheese and things to mix the pasta and rice with as essentials. They’re always staples in all shopping trips.
My shopping lasts no more than 10 ~ 15 minutes, maybe less, because I always know what I’m after. I hate having to hop around stores to find things one other store doesn’t have because while I could find cheaper alternatives, I am sometimes met with more pricier options which may force me to go without one of my essentials for a while.
My goal with grocery shopping is to extend rations as much as possible while moderating how much I eat. I do shop for processed foods like frozen and canned stuff, but I find that it actually helps my rations. I don’t particularly pick up things like loaves of bread or produce because from my experience in the past, I always feel like I have to eat them sooner or they’ll spoil and I don’t really like having to feel like I got to wolf down something as soon as I buy it.
Longevity is key to me.
I tend to spend a weekend cooking and freezing loads, then not really cooking for weeks.
So it’s a massive targeted shop every few weeks to do that, then mostly small trips (often on foot/bike) to the local shops to get milk and any odd things I run out of, or if I feel like mixing dinner up with something else.
I go almost every day. It’s a good reason to get out and go for a walk.
What I buy mostly depends on prices/discounts. And only what I can carry in my backpack. Potatoes when affordable, otherwise rice; frozen veggies, ham/cheese, bubbly water, beer.
Potatoes are more expensive than rice in the Netherlands?
Edit: just did the math for my German prices and they seem about equal. I always thought rice was a bit more expensive.
Edit 2: just realized that it’s easier and cheaper to prepare a meal with potatoes for me. I’m cool with plain mashed potatoes or simple pan fried potatoes (about 50c of extra ingredients each) but for rice I need something to go with it, which is gonna be more expensive than what I need for potatoes
I’m not in the Netherlands. Where I live, potatoes were 1.20 eur per kilo last year so I don’t buy it. Normal price should be 40 cents.
Ah, I see. My bad for assuming. Yeah, 1,20€ is way too much.
When I notice my fridge fails to either 1) hold enough prepped stuff to microwave an entree, or 2) provide snacks or something-pie – it’s grocery shopping time. I mostly keep to the membership stores, so just one/two visits a month, maybe. I only buy as much as I can carry in one trip from car to fridge.
Until yogurt drinks are in season again. Then it’s worth getting delivered by the pallet.
Ayran 🤤
A mix of pre-planned list if we ran out of something or we want to cook something specific and in-shop decisions seeing what’s on promotion that week or what’s close to the expiration date and discounted a bit more.
We try to have like 3 servings of meat per week, and a constant stock of tomatoes, onions, garlic and lettuce and two other veggies (depending on what’s cheap that week: pepper, broccoli, zucchini, eggplant, potatoes).
For dinner we usually try to stock: Bread, 3 types of sliced cheese (a cheap “mix”, a cheddar and something fancy like a Camembert or Gorgonzola), and 3 types of cold cuts (prosciutto, krustenbraten, salami, chorizo, Mett, etc).
We keep a big stock of UHT Milk, pasta and rice, and restock when there’s a promo or we run below 2 weeks of supply. Some lazy food like frozen Pizzas or ramen always needs to be available.
We buy eggs every two weeks from a local farmer.
Usually one big trip a week with short visits on a need-to basis if run out of something mid week.
The butcher delivers meat once a week on a schedule
About every other week go to the local wet market for variety
Anything else is ordered about once week from the local western style market (free delivery)
Usually a head of lettuce, a couple bell peppers, an onion, a lb of ground beef, any other meat that is on sale, a gallon of milk, bread, maybe some frozen or canned items, a bag of chips or some other snack, any staple items I might be out of, and a fifth of WT 101 if it’s on sale.
You buy a fifth a week?..
I usually pick up enough stuff to last me a week or even two; mostly frozen pizzas, ingredients for curry, sweets, snacks, pantry staples like pasta sauce and pasta. Caffeinated beverages like soda or energy drinks are typically on my list too. I also get toiletries, cleaning supplies, and toilet paper every few weeks.
Two trips each week. One to the local farmers shop, for whatever is available there (mostly vegetables, eggs and bread, but sometimes fish, meat, ice cream, etc), and another to a supermarket for the common things (pasta for my gf and couscous for me, rice, flour, some dairy (fresh cream or cheese), sandwich bread and chocolate spread, sometimes stuff that needs to be refilled like oil, soap, toilet paper, etc and usually an extra meal : either rice and fish for sushi-like thingy, chickpea for nugetts-ich fried stuff, or a can of smthg like chili con carne).
We try to do lists for the supermarket, otherwise we always forget something. For the local shop, what’s available varies greatly so there’s no sense making a list.
Yeah this is pretty much me.
I have unusual eating habits so not the same stuff.
I generally go to the green grocer (farmers shop?), then there’s a wholefoods shop for nuts and pulses and things, then the butcher, then at the supermarket it’s just bits and pieces.
We’ve gotten pretty good at getting things in bulk when they’re on special. Some items are way cheaper to buy on-line like toiletries and medications.
My groceries aren’t interesting, but I had a friend who only ate what went into a mug.
He carried around a ceramic mug, either collecting free stuff or telling people about his mug to see if they’d put food in it. Free samples, a few grapes, and occasional hand outs all went into the mug. I filled it with soup when he came by.
Was this wherever he went?
Did he take it when out to eat with friends or on a date?
How much did this mug effect his day to day life?
For the couple months I knew him the mug was either in his hand or clipped to his bag.
I didn’t see his dates and I didn’t ask, but he came by for dinner once and ate his portion from the mug.
As far as I saw, it was a great conversation starter, he made a lot of friends and ate reasonably well.
This would get old real quick.
I was a smoker in a past life.
Occasionally you encounter other smokers who are trying to cut down, or quitting, and limiting their intake by refusing to buy a pack of smokes and simply bumming smokes off the people they encounter.
Sounds nice in principle but obviously this very quickly deteriorates into a parasitic arrangement.
What I mean is, if I went to work every day and there was a guy there with a cup, obviously I’d happily give him whatever, but at any given lunch break if he was hungry he’d know he could search me out for a bite to eat.
I thought it was interesting and uplifting to see people come together to support this guy in a fairly simple way. He just told people about his mug if they asked and didn’t belabor it from there. Even shared candy when he got it.
I worked at a restaurant, where there’s a lot of food waste, so I was happy to help someone out while he found his footing. He didn’t come back on his own, I told him to see me when I’m working.
It’s weird to spin that into a “parasitic” relationship.
Sure ok. I’ll readily acknowledge that I’m a pretty weird guy.
I probably also have a lot of left over baggage from being a substance abuser of minimal socio-economic means. That is to say I just like to pay for my own stuff, and there’s a short list of people I might be very generous with but beyond that I’m not generous (with money) at all.
I guess it’s a bit different if the guy is interacting with a lot of different people every day.
I had envisaged a situation where I work in some kind of cubicle hell scape and every lunch time I need to sneak past old-mates cube in case he sees me and tries to swindle me into contributing some crisps or something.
We manage our “food inventory” with Grocy which calls itself “the ERP beyond your fridge”. It basically tracks every single purchase and consumption of food and also each items best before date. It needs a bit initial setup and you need to remind yourself to checkout stuff you consume but then it’s just great. Not a single item spoiled because it got pushed too far back on the shelf. And since Grocy knows how much of what item we want in stock, it automatically writes our shopping lists with stuff which is about to run out.
So the shopping is basically day to day as we return from work and pass the store just ticking things off the list. And we made a rule for ourselves to only buy the stuff on the list, nothing extra to avoid impulse purchases.
I go grocery shopping once a week, and I’m buying just for two adults. Most things I get at Aldi, and some things at Giant if I don’t like the Aldi version, or Aldi doesn’t sell it. I do make a list ahead of time, but I buy mostly the same things every week.
A typical aldi trip includes bananas, berries (rasp or blue usually), avocados, some kind of fresh green veg for dinner (typically spinach, asparagus, or green beans), bread, jaffa cakes, coffee, low-fat cheese, laundry detergent & fabric softener, windex, dishwasher pods, toilet paper, canned fire-roasted tomatoes (soooo many easy recipes with these!), sparkling water, eggs, egg whites, almond milk, yogurt, and pierogies. Then I typically get my meat at Giant (most of Aldi’s meat is pretty gnarly), plus things like toothpaste, evaporated milk, sugar packets, paper towels, canned lentils (my Aldi doesn’t carry these???), and a little bouquet of flowers. And then some random things I buy on Amazon, like my tea (yorkshire gold), farro, protein powder, low-fodmap ingredients, etc.
I spend about $150 a week unless I’m out of something expensive like paper towels.
A shopping list on Google Keep has been a game changer. We have a shared list with my wife. Whenever we run out of something essential or need something, we add it to the list. Whenever one of us is in a grocery store, it’s easy just to go through the list.
We use the “our groceries” app for this and can tell the smart speaker in the kitchen to add to it
I pretty much eat depression meals, with occasional cooking. Trying to be better, but I still eat a lot of food that isn’t the greatest for you, like frozen meals, that kind of thing. I really should be better, and I don’t know if I should be sad or motivated seeing everyone else’s food in this thread.
We spend around $200/week for 3 people and cook every meal. Comes to about $3/meal/person. Pretty much just some meat, beans, pasta, veggies, fruit and my kid’s snacks.
