How do u shop for food?? - Page 2

[Chicky2]

One person mentioned it, but do any of you other ladies shop online? If so, where?

We go shopping weekly, and always, always w/dh along to help w/the kids. Sometimes they will go to a fast food place w/a playground and have a small snack (I know, I know--ick), while I shop at the Walmart on the other side of the parking lot. We live in a very small town, and there are only 2 stores. And the little one just cannot compete w/WM prices. My dh works 15 min. from WF (I MISS that store!!!-we use to live in that town), so if I need something from there, he picks it up on his lunch for me. I also have a neighbor who works in a town 40 min. from here and she frequents the HFS, so sometimes she'll call and ask me what I need.

I try to keep a good stockpile of staples such as rolled oats, ww flour, soy flour, yeast, nuts, brown rice, ww pasta, spices, etc....We have a HUGE (3,000 sq.ft) garden, so we are harvesting about 40 zucc./day, 60 toms/day, etc...Plus bell peppers, green beans, watermelons, cukes, lots of fresh herbs,kale, etc...I am freezing/canning as much as I possibly can for the winter. Plus we go to my mom's to pick blackberries and sandplums for jams and freezer stashes. I cook what I"m in the mood to cook.

I feed my family of 5 plus my MIL, and sometimes my neighbors and dh's coworkers, just 'cause I love to cook, lol. I still manage to spend WAY too much at WM, though. Usually $150-200. I really need to figure out how that keeps happening, lol.

[kalisis]

I go to the grocery every day. I like to buy fresh (I know, the apples were there yesterday, but I like eating them the day I buy them) and we go through milk like you wouldn't believe. For two adults, we drink prolly 4 or 5 gallons of milk a week. That means we're always 'almost out' of milk.

I usually do one or two big trips to a Whole Foods and/or Trader Joes each month b/c they're both about an hour away and DS just doesn't like the car seat. I try to stock up on as much as I'll need in case I don't get back for awhile. Then, there's a local market (it usually only has one or two choices for brands of everything, but they have the nicest produce) I go to daily. I get bread there too.

I also, in the summer, go to the local produce stands around. I like that I can ask them where the food has been, who picked it, when it was picked, etc.

I have a menu idea before I go to the store, or I end up buying more than we need. I also keep a good stock of canned goods, in case I don't make it for some reason. Then, when I use something out of the cupboard, I replace it right away so I'll have it for next time. If I do that, then I can always whip up something pretty decent, no matter the time of day or if I've gone to the store or not.
I figure it this way, if I'm careful, and only buy fresh stuff, the total each day isn't more than $10. That adds up to the same as one big shopping trip.

[Amys1st]

Originally Posted by JaysMama

I shop once a week during the day when it's not busy. My dd who is almost 3 sits in the back of the cart and 'helps' me by putting everything in. :LOL The past month I have started making a weekly menu of dinners and then I make a grocery list from that. I add on lunch stuff and snacks and I get a flyer from my fave store so I check for sales as I make my list. They have great prices on produce and normally I just wing it for fruits and veggies to snack on. If nonperishables are on sale I'll stock up but I don't have a special trip for that. I just go once a week and get what I need. The grocery store that I go to is not a big chain and they tend to serve a lot of cultures so I think that tends to keep some prices low. I can't go into Jewel and Dominicks and spend 80 dollars when I know I can go to Caputo's and only spend 50!

Wow another chicagoeon! Are you shopping at Caputos?? I LOOOVVVVEEEE that place! We also hit Mr Z's in my neighborhood too. Its so much nicer to go into these smaller chains then those big box groceries that are now owned by larger chains and they took whatever midwest values out of them they could.
But, I also shop Trader Joes for speciality items, Whole Foods when I am in that area, Fruitful Yield, and if all else fails Jewel. But since they stopped carrying fresh lettuce and only bagged, my trips there are getting fewer and fewer.
I think you have also posted in food grwoing mamas

[JaysMama]

Originally Posted by Amys1st

Wow another chicagoeon! Are you shopping at Caputos?? I LOOOVVVVEEEE that place! We also hit Mr Z's in my neighborhood too. Its so much nicer to go into these smaller chains then those big box groceries that are now owned by larger chains and they took whatever midwest values out of them they could.
But, I also shop Trader Joes for speciality items, Whole Foods when I am in that area, Fruitful Yield, and if all else fails Jewel. But since they stopped carrying fresh lettuce and only bagged, my trips there are getting fewer and fewer.
I think you have also posted in food grwoing mamas

Oh yeah! I love Caputos too! That's pretty much my main grocery store. I've been wanting to go to Mr. Z's and I just never seem to get there, their flyer has some great prices though. I know what you mean about the big chains taking out the midwest values. They don't need to charge such high prices they just know they can get away with it because people will always shop there. I have a Dominicks right by my house so if I'm out of something I'll run there and that's how they get ya! I love Wild Oats and I have a little Fuitful Yield by me too.
Yep, I'm at food growing mamas too! We are just starting to eat from our garden so that should cut down a little on the produce at the store.

[abbylotus]

We don't own a car so we walk to our nearby Co-op at least once a week, but sometimes more. We actually spend very little on groceries this way. We pretty much can only buy what we can carry. I am very lucky because my DH is a chef and does very well with making delicious dishes on whatever we have left in our pantry and fridge. Also, we are in walking distance to the local fish monger.

I must note, that my DH works evenings and so the kids and I are often at our family's cabin on Lake Superior (had to throw that in! :LOL ) and we eat dinner with my IL's...so that's one less meal in which to plan.

[abbylotus]

Oh, we pretty much only shop at our Organic/Natural food Co-op because we are members and we receive a discount and it's in walking distance.

[kavamamakava]

We have produce delivery once a week which keeps me out of the store for perishables. Since it's summer, I sometimes suspend that and get produce at the Farmer's Market. I go to the nearby grocery store 2-3 times a month for my WIC stuff (organic milk and cheese, mostly). Once a month, or less, I go to the grainery and get my bulk foods like pasta, oats, sugar, nut butters, flour, pancake mix, jarred and canned food. And then, every once in a while, I go to the Indian grocery for ghee and garbanzo flour and Indian pickle and basmati rice and spices.
When I'm at Larry's for WIC, I browse their sales. They often have Muir Glen tomato products and BioNaturae organic canned tomatoes, organic bread and organic maple syrup on sale. I stock up on things like organic bread and butter when they are on sale and keep them in my freezer.
Every once in a while, if I don't find good sales on my staples, I'll go to Trader Joe's.
I spend $150/month on produce, $100-$150 month on bulk (I don't buy a month's worth, I get whatever is on sale for a good price and stock up on that and then buy the other things I need next time I'm there) and then my WIC totals to around $100 of free stuff.

[7_is_heaven]

Hi, I'm new here and was reading how everyone shops for food. Several responses sound like my routine as well.

We have 7 children, so food shopping is a production sometimes LOL I go shopping every 2 weeks on paydays, usually spend around $250-$300 on everything we need each trip. I shop the commissary (we're military) as that has the best prices.

I also buy things in bulk as much as I can...bread is one of the bulk items as I freeze it until needed. WIC we get too, so that takes care of a lot of my milk buying (among other items) for the month, but with 1 yr old twin boys, milk goes quickly for sure!

Then of course we have our weekly "quick" trips to the store for fresh fruits and veggies that disappear in this house like vapor LOL I'm very thankful though my kids eat healthy most of the time and love fruit and veggies.

I have friends who's kids wouldnt touch a veggie to save their lives LOL
Anyway, just thought I'd post on this thread since it did spark my interest and hopefully I'll get to know everyone better soon.

[Jennisee]

Well, in my pre-baby, pre-MDC, pre-trying-to-be-more-NFL days, I went grocery shopping every 2 or 3 weeks after clipping all my coupons and matching them to various store ads. But that mostly resulted in a pantry full of processed boxed and canned foods.

Now, we try to keep big grocery store trips to a minimum. If I feel like I'm low on meat, eggs, or cheese, I'll drive over to the Amish community. I'm also in contact w/ a local organic farmer about purchasing either a 1/4 of a cow or 1/2 a hog. If we're running low on fruit and veggies that we don't grow ourselves, I'll go to one of the local orchards or vegetable patches--although I do have to supplement that w/ organic produce at the grocery store. And I'm making more and more of our toiletries and cleaners from scratch at home.

When we do make a big grocery trip, we try to stock up on things that are on sale and do without the things that aren't. The Kroger here has set up a nice natural/organic section, so I get a variety of organic produce, dairy products, cereals, sometimes eggs, a few snacks. While I'm there, I can also pick up some of our mainstream hold-outs like cat litter, Tide, and Doritos.

My mom lives in the Chicago suburbs, so we also do a Trader Joe's stock-up every couple months--fruit leathers, pizza dough (that we freeze), nut butters, jellies/jams, nuts, snacks.

[Chicky2]

Ahhhhhh....I feel so good! I did a huge stock-up at a salvage store in another town (CHEAP organic pastas, bottled organic salad dressings and marinades, etc). Then, since we were only 20 minutes away, we hit Whole Foods and got fish, nut butters, bulk brown basmati rice, short grain brown rice for sushi, granola, cheeses,fruit leathers, and yummy stuff like that (and I was thrilled to find that they increased their wine section! Yay for mommy!). Then we hit a little grocery store where I bought every single package (8 total!) of Nori they had in stock. Wayyyyy cheaper than WF, and I can't even find it in my tiny town! Our garden is still producing more tomatoes and squashes than we can even think of eating now, so I am freezing shredded zucc. for muffins later on. We do the best we can at eating all those yummy toms now while they are here, and the rest I oven dry for later. We probably each eat (well the big kid and the parents, lol) 4 fresh toms per day, at least. We had a hog roast for July 3 and still have LOTS of pig in the freezer from that, and dh will be dressing out roosters for the freezer sometime this week, and my hens had better start laying or they are soup, too!. After all that, we should be pretty much set for at least a month, except for a few things like fresh fruit and milk for my MIL, who lives in a little handicapped accessible house 9 ft from mine, lol. She insists on a kind of milk I won't give my kids so I always have to run to the store for that. Oh, and we'll be going to pick apples in a couple of weeks, so there's our apple sauces and apple leather, and apple butter, etc... for the year, lol. We did peaches 2 wks ago and I made jams, leather, pureed and frozen peaches, and of course alllllllll the juicy ones we could eat before I processed them, lol. So we are officially set! I can make just about anything I want now. Oh, and we've had our splurge on yummy fish (yellowfin tuna, fresh rainbow trout, and gooooood salmon) so now we'll stick to the cheap talapia, lol. My dh sooo needs to find a place to go fishing!

[HydeParkB]

In addition to Costco, regular grocery store and farmers' markets, we signed up for a pick-your-own farm subscription. We are in the city, but this is a small 7 acre farm a couple of minutes off the highway. (The farmer was in construction, and was going to build houses on the land. But the city wouldn't run water & sewer there.)

Anyway, it's $125 for a year's subscription, which he estimates at 400 lbs of organic produce. What I really like is that we won't get stuff we won't use, like a CSA I participated in several years ago. The subscription will go up to $200 next year, but I think that's still a great price for organic veggies.

Plus the farmer felt bad that we missed out on the spring season and loaded me up with extras from his freezer! I've got enough greens to last through winter. A couple pounds of okra and zucchini. I think we'll be set!

[Chicky2]

Bridget, that is sooo cool! When I lived in the city I looked an looked for a good CSA or something like you're in. Never could find anything good. Now I can grow anything and everything I want, but it sure is alot of work! We are about to plant all our fall/winter crops. I am so glad you found such a great deal! I may look into setting up a small produce stand in front of our house or something or letting ppl come and pick their own next year. This year was mostly trial to see what grows well here and stuff like that. Considering that i am harvesting around 75 toms a day and that many squash and cukes (rain came and production is UP!), I imagine I could spare a few, lol!

[cjr]

I would love to find something like that here. Unfortunately we live in a place where the growing season is very short.

My IL's are trying to get a piece of land for us. We are planning on building our dream home where dh's parents live and work. It's beautiful and so peacefull. With the land paid for we will be able to build exactly what we want. One of the things I really want is a heated greenhouse. I would love to grow our own produce. We get a lot of sunshine in the winter so a heated greenhouse would let me grow some things through the winter as well. It's my dream.

I am changing the way I shop. I have decided to meal plan and shop only for what I need to fix the meals. Once every two weeks I do a big one that covers all the non-parishables I need. Then I do another big produce shop inbetween. I am spending a whole lot less. I also find that if I buy too much in bulk then I go way over budget.

[Bearsmama]

I'm trying to come up with a better way to do the food shopping around here, so thanks for this thread. I find that we do about 1-2 warehouse shopping trips a month to buy some paper products and canned good (and yes, even veggies and fruits!). Then, I end up being at the grocery store about 1x/week. I also do what some others have said here-there's a very close farmers market where I buy produce. I also buy cheese at a local cheese shop. I do a lot of running around! Seriously, though, I like a little running around. I just wish we could cut costs a little bit. I write down what I spent on food on the calendar and then I add it up at the end of the month.

[flapjack]

We get a pint of organic milk delivered to our doorstep daily, and eggs twice weekly. A vegetable and fruit box, with added bananas and apples, comes once a week. Meat is bought from the butchers once a month, and delivered ready for the freezer, cheese comes from the grocer when we have both time and money- maybe once a week? If that? Our vegetable box doesn't include potatoes, but we buy by the sackful, as we run out. Rice, chickpeas and lentils come from the indian grocers, as do all of our spices, and everything else comes from the local supermarket monthly- normally the co-op, sometimes home delivery from Tesco. (Walmart for Brits, essentially.) In total, I reckon I spend around 140-50 GBP on feeding a family of 4 for a month.

[Donna7273]

How I Shop!

HI Everyone,
I have 4 kids 7-16! so running out of fruit I can understand!
I shop every 3 months for soaps,shampoos,bathroom ideas like toothpaste,Q-tips, personal idea, face washes etc.
I shop at all 5 Store in town with coupon and sale ideas once a month. I ask when they are going to have a special on meat also when they are going to put meat that are going to need to cook now or froze!
I only buy what vegs that are in season
I shop once a week in 1 store for fruit ,bread and milk. it take 15 min and can be worked to your outting.
I keep a box of Powder Milk just incase we run out! so that I can just mix it up and chill for the morning!
I also cut up all my carrots,onions, green pappers and freeze in zip bags to save time on cooking.
TRy looking up Freezer recipes.Thay have menus for the month and you only have to cook for 2 days. works great for busy Mommies
Have a nice day,Donna