How often do you go to the grocery store?
Everyone has their own method for hitting up the grocery store, and some are more efficient than others! I have a method of madness, but it seems to work for our family.
I start with meal planning two weeks at a time. Depending on the length of the pay period, I leave a few nights for leftovers (nights hubs works late I do NOT cook), and a night or two for eating out/ordering pizza. The rest, I cook. It might not be extremely healthy, but it’s homemade and something my family will eat: protein, carb, veggie, and sometimes fruit and/or a dessert.
Next, I check the cabinet for ingredients we have and list out what we don’t. Produce and cabinet staples are picked up at Aldi; meat from the small butcher shop down the road (we usually buy extra once a month and put in the deep freeze so it’s fewer stops). Then everything else gets a Wal-Mart pick up. (If we lived within delivery radius, I would do that too!)
And if that didn’t sound complicated enough, there’s also “snack stop,” where I go to Sam’s to get snacks and drinks. This is another once a month stop. (By alternating meat/snack runs I can stick to one grocery trip a week.) Our staples here are juice/Gatorade, fruit leather, pretzels and popcorn, mixed nuts, etc. So much cheaper to buy in bulk.
Shopping this way requires extra planning and so many lists (luckily I’m a list lover), but it helps us save, and it keeps me from making last-minute runs to the store, which always tack on extra ingredients, and therefore, extra dollars!
What’s your favorite way to grocery shop? Do you have a go-to method?