How to Cut Back on Grocery Trips

photo by: afullcup.com

We have a great, cheap grocery store about 20 minutes away and usually go once a week, spend less than $100, add half to food storage, with half going to the week's fresh produce. DOING THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY. I think the reason it drives me crazy is that my fridge doesn't work correctly so most of my fresh produce is frozen within 24 hours and ends up being wasted. So what have I done that has cut back on the hassle, the cost, and the trips you ask? Now I just buy all fresh produce frozen. If it's already frozen you can't freeze it any worse you nasty little fridge! I take it's power away and now it can't hurt me anymore! The only thing we keep in the fridge now is stuff that we use within 24 hours anyway or is not harmed by temperatures that freeze lettuce.

How does that help the budget and trips you might ask? Well it means that I can stick a lot more fresh produce in the freezer and there is more room in the fridge for less perishable food so I only have to go in about once a month. Because honestly, who loves to go in and fight for room in the aisle while all the time your kids are fighting with each other and the shelf-stockers are ignoring your questions about where half of the store was recently moved to. I HATE grocery stores. This didn't happen until I had children, I must admit, but having to wrangle two little girls, and the cart, and get it all home before it self-destructs is extremely stressful.

To preserve all of this frozen stuff I keep a cooler and several cooler bags in my car and as soon as things are bagged the most fragile things like frozen fruit and veggies go in the coolers for the 20 minute right home. Mere refrigerated objects like cheese, sour cream, and butter are kept out and can handle the ride without melting or being damaged in any way.

The second choice here is to buy a lot of canned good. However, I don't like that the food has been semi-cooked and has been in contact with metal, so while I do have a few cans on hand I don't really bulk up on canned goods. My favorite canned items are, in order of love going out to them: tomato paste, mushrooms, pineapple, peaches, pears. Not a very long list but they are things that really pay for themselves in a pinch and since we don't use a huge amount of them I don't feel like the nasty metal will affect us too terribly much.

If you watch my videos you know that there is already a lot of bulk storage that doesn't require refrigeration in my house so mostly I just buy a bag or two at 50 lbs of beans or corn meal when I go in just to top things off. Since our super busy grocery store specializes in these bulk bags it is worth it to go in and shop here. However, it is really hard to get around in this store and in my opinion the only way to go grocery shopping is with a partner who can coral the kids while you do the shopping, because seriously, it's like trying to herd cats while chained to a 300 lbs stroller with a wonky wheel!