Grocery food shopping as a "hobby."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Buy things and give to pantries

Ha! I’m the poster who’s throwing away close to $1,000 in food a month.

If I did this after one of my husband’s hoarding grocery runs he would freak out and buy even more the next day. I’m already angry at wasting nearly 1K a month AND having the kitchen be unusable because it’s too full. Hoarding is truly revolting. No easy solutions.

[Anonymous]

Ha, this one got me, my kids were just teasing me that I go to the grocery store because I'm bored. I work from home so the only time I left the house today was to take out the trash. Tomorrow I'm envisioning a trip to the store to stock up before the rush before the store. I can't hardly wait.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who loves grocery shopping so much that she got a Walmart Spark job and also does Instacart for grocery orders too. I mean, I guess if you love it as much as she does, it's a fun way to make some extra cash.

I order my groceries using Harris Teeter pick up, Target drive up, or Walmart+ delivery as much as possible because I hate grocery shopping.

[Anonymous]

My FIL was like this, somewhat earlier in life but it really ramped up in retirement because he didn’t have a lot else to do. My MIL is still using Tide that he bought and he died five years ago. Totally a product of going hungry during the Depression. My DH has some of this and I have to tell him the things NOT to buy when he grocery shops because we already have a Costco level amount in the house already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha, this one got me, my kids were just teasing me that I go to the grocery store because I'm bored. I work from home so the only time I left the house today was to take out the trash. Tomorrow I'm envisioning a trip to the store to stock up before the rush before the store. I can't hardly wait.

I should add, I don't hoard, I don't buy stuff I already have, I just run to the store every time I need something. Lots of runs to grab just a couple items instead of waiting a week and filling up a cart.

[Anonymous]

That's my husband's main activity to get out of the house. Beats his main in house activity, drinking.

[Anonymous]

My dad but it's a social experience for him: he lives in a charming smallish town and loves going to various stores and chatting with people. He also gets very enthusiastic about new products at the larger supermarket, finding the best fruit, best cheeses...

[Anonymous]

My mom does this and ends up throwing most of it out because she can't eat it all before its expires.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm realizing I know a few people who shop too much for groceries go to many different stores to shop to "get out of the house" as ones person tells me. Then they can't eat all the said food and it goes to waste. I don't know how much money they're wasting but all of them are on a fixed budget and shouldn't be wasting it on food they can't eat. Do you know anyone like this or are you like this?

Are you sure that food goes to waste? They don’t freeze it or utilize some other way? The fact that someone on fixed budget would go to many different stores makes sense, since they can get cheapest prices for different products.

[Anonymous]

I didn't think you were going in a wasteful/hoarding direction. My family is not like that, but we all enjoy grocery shopping. As others have described, my parents were very thrifty and shopping sales and menu planning around inexpensive food was the norm growing up. My brother sister and I still like to check out the sale flyers, go to the store, check out the merchandise, meal plan. It's a whole thing.

Even when i travel internationally if it's easy and right there I will definitely check out markets. It's fun.

When I was a kid I hated it. We'd get out of church and my parent would want to stop by the store to see what meats had been marked down or what pastries were just past or reaching their sell by.

[Anonymous]

I used to enjoy it before the pandemic. Now it feels like a chore.

[Anonymous]

Sounds awful. I think you need a new hobby.

[Anonymous]

I’m a little like this, but wish it wasn’t my hobby. I hit a circuit of stores for various items/best prices. Tjs, Aldi, Wegmans, Costco, specialty ethnic stores. Everything is super close by, but still it can get really annoying. We eat almost every meal at home and have older kids so we actually churn through a ton of food on a regular basis and do not waste food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to enjoy it before the pandemic. Now it feels like a chore.

+1 now I go as little as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha, this one got me, my kids were just teasing me that I go to the grocery store because I'm bored. I work from home so the only time I left the house today was to take out the trash. Tomorrow I'm envisioning a trip to the store to stock up before the rush before the store. I can't hardly wait.

I should add, I don't hoard, I don't buy stuff I already have, I just run to the store every time I need something. Lots of runs to grab just a couple items instead of waiting a week and filling up a cart.

My parents do this. They'll run to the store literally every day, sometimes multiple trips a day, because they don't actually coordinate lists and meal plans so they're always running out for some random thing that they just used up or want for dinner.

The other key info here is that they're both retired and their children are grown. I wouldn't say they enjoy shopping as a hobby, they just feel no pressure to be efficient with their time. They can let running out of yogurt be an immediate issue in a way my DH and I can't, we'll wait 3 days for the next weekend shopping trip or make due with a substitute. I think they feel like we're lazy, or rigid, or overcomplicate things by meal planning, but we just don't have the time to go shop for random items every day after work!