Let's do this! Grocery shopping is more of an art in this house. We used to make so many trips to the grocery store a week, they almost named an isle after us! I decided, enough is enough! I cannot keep bringing 4 kids to the grocery store to shop once a week or more. I sat down, figured out our most popular dinners, kids favorite snacks and breakfast and lunch necessities and of course gathered my coupons, and took a once a week shopping adventure and turned it into a twice a month shopping extravaganza! I made my dinner menu at least one week in advance, sometimes two, depending what was on the menu. Took inventory of what we had, and wrote down what we needed. A lot of our dinners were either boxed or easily frozen, so it made it easy to shop in advance for them! Buying fruits and veggies in bulk, freezing bread, buying a closet I can keep my boxed and canned goods in, really made the hassle of shopping for a bigger family so much easier! Are you a once a weeker like I was? Do you grab as you need daily? Have you tried to make a menu and take "inventory" like I do now? How do you shop?
I like to check during the week for the manager's specials, and those are usually on Tuesday/Thursday/and Sunday; so those are when I go shopping. I live fairly close to the grocery store, and have no children to take along; so I can just buzz down to Krogers whenever i feel like it. I might make more trips to the store; but i get fresh produce, meat and dairy all at about half price, and sometimes even less, so it is well worth the extra trips.
My family and I are more of a two-week shopper. We shop for groceries twice a month. Yes, we do inventories every now and then since we're constructing another home and have additional people to feed. For instance, we have to buy 20 sachets of powdered juice or iced tea and more than 30 sachets of coffee every two weeks. This consumption is good for 8 people.
My family usually shop for groceries once a week mostly Saturday. My mon who is the overall incharge for groceries has prepared budget list for entire week. I help her buy those that are in the list. We usually shop in malls but for vegetables and fruit we opt to buy them in the local public market. They are quite cheaper than those found in malls and in big supermarkets.
I prefer my groceries fresh so normally I shop weekly. However when there's an offer or something is on sale and I'm certain that we won't be buying anything for such low prices in a long item then that's the only time I'll buy whatever it is that is on sale in bulk and store it somewhere [that would save me a little bit of cash]. But for most of the other "stuff" whose prices tend to slightly change, I'd rather buy them weekly so I can enjoy them fresh.
I'm single and 'self-employed' (translation: "don't have- nor want a 9-to-5 (don't get me wrong; I WOULD want a 9-to-5 if I could have one, but there's no wisdom in wanting what you can't keep)"), so the only hassle for me (if I go to the store twice-a-week or more) is the hour-or-so walk from my house to the store-location. You might also join a shopping-pool (like a car-pool) and do the week's worth of shopping (for yourself AND several other people) once every month-or-two. Or take your kids to a babysitter/relative.
I don't have a car so I can only carry about a weeks worth of shopping at a time. There's just me and OH though, no kids, so it's no real hassle. In any case, if I did buy a fortnights worth of food at a time, it would all have been eaten by the end of week one.
I also like to plan the weeks menu so that I know what I have to purchase when I go to the store and not forget anything while I am there. It takes some planning to keep enough food in the house for two teenage boys.
Interesting approach. We don't have a car though, so we can't do that (it's not that uncommon to not have a car here, as the public transport system is affordable and pretty thorough). So we just go whenever we need some groceries, usually once per week to once per 14 days, on the way from work. The supermarket is about 4 minutes away from my house, so it's not really a bother.
