Anonymous wrote:My grocery shopping is out of control. I make so many stops and get so many deliveries. How many stores do you shop at and how often. Here is my breakdown.
Costco: once per week. Trying to reduce to every other.
Farm stands: at least one per week. I have two regulars.
Butcher: every other week.
Bread store: there are two but I average probably six stops per month total.
$$$ grocery store: there are two that I frequent, 1-2 stops per week.
$ grocery store: three total, I think 1-2 stops per week.
Pet food store: I really need to get this one sorted but I go every week.
I cannot bring myself to spend the same amount of money on bad bread at the grocery store when I can get delicious fancy bread at the bread store. I’m not willing to spend three times as much on canned beans at the $$$ store so I have to stop at the $ store. I cannot bring myself to buy imported tasteless produce when the farm is 20 minutes away.
I have two kids, a husband, two cats with different diets, a dog and a full time job. How do I get this under control? Is everyone like this?
Do delivery for the pet food at least. I have two cats with different diets, one of whom needs prescription food. I can get all their food and litter from Chewy.
Aside from that, I shop at one farmers market once a week (eggs, meat, fish, bread, fruit, veggies), and Trader Joe's once a week (dairy, nuts, coffee) but Trader Joe's is also close enough (5 min walk) to quickly go to if I'm missing an ingredient for dinner. We go to Giant once a month for staples like tissues, toilet paper, regular old cereal that Trader Joe is too fancy to carry; and Whole Foods once a month for items that are too fancy for Trader Joe's, such as the chocolate I like.
That's it. Family of four, two full-time jobs with downtown DC commutes, two pets. So less shopping than you do, but probably more expensive since we buy about 75% of our weekly food intake at the farmer's market. Time and money are a trade off in my experience, unfortunately. A Lidl is about to open near us so we'll see if that changes our shopping habits ...