Every Wednesday afternoon here is the grocery run. I'm involved as the taxi driver and as my manager says, "You eat here too." So that means that I participate in grocery shopping and I don't really have a problem with that. We do the one shopping trip and don't make little trips every time we run out of something.
At our place we eat three meals a day at almost fixed times. Our breakfast is a cereal, toast, coffee, juice type of breakfast. Lunch is some combination of soup and?or sandwiches . We also have raw veggies and fruit.
Dinner is a cooked meal. This meal usually lasts for a couple more days.
We eat well.
So if you eat like this you have to have the groceries on hand.
Now here's where things fall part. My manager looks through all the grocery fliers for the week and picks out all the specials and that's what's on the grocery list. So we get to the store. Oops, we can find the first special. After a while we find a staff member to ask about the product and wow, it didn't come in this week! The next item we look for and find that there's nothing on the shelf as they have run out of it. The next item we look for is not in this store but another store. Some more oops. The next product on special doesn't look too good so we won't buy it. So the manager gets about half the things on her list.
Then we look for the basics like bread, milk and fresh produce. Much the same thing happens here, but there's more to choose from.
I realize that there's more than one way to shop for groceries. I dislike my manager's method and every once in a while I whine about it. So I'm challenged by the comment, "Well, how would you do it?"
Well, this is my proposal. I would make a menu for the week. I would make a list of what is needed to produce this menu. There are some regulars like bread , milk and fresh produce. I would find these products and that's my shopping trip. Yes, I would have to pay attention to specials. Cold cereal is sometimes on sale and I can eat anything when it's cold cereal. There's usually some kind of jam on sale. My favorite soup goes on sale from time to time.
My key point is that the menu is where you should start your shopping trip rather than the grocery fliers that come in the paper.
Oh yes, I admit that I don't like shopping.
What do you think about grocery shopping? What method works for you?
