Trying a different tactic to grocery shop ?

mumofthetwins

Hi guys

I have decided to try a new tactic to my shopping .. at the minute I do a large shop once a week then top up as and when during the week .. I end up loosing track of what I have spent and end up with loads of stuff I never really needed .. well that has made me think.

Today I have placed 2 large meat orders which should see us through a good 2-3 month if not longer and I am hoping to do a large online order and stock up on non perishables as I have a discount code ... minimum spend is £40 so hoping to mebbies get a couple of weeks worth.

Plan is to use as much Up this week as possible with no shopping trips this week as my freezer is pretty full .. I have now managed to last the full day with no spends .. and meat deliveries are due next Wednesday so going to try to get the supermarket delivery then as well

i am hoping to clear the cupboards a bit this weekend and donate some of the stuff I know we will never eat ...

Does anyone else do this and can you manage on mebbies 2-3 supermarket deliveries a week ? And when you do any fresh top ups how do you keep it to essentials .. I know this is somewhere I fail miserably

Thanks guys
Lisa x

lil_me

Join the grocery challenge
I find it hard to judge what I need far enough in advance for regular online shops
Have you tried aldi ?
Have you tried taking cash shopping only so you know you have a budget ?
You can guess by my budget not going well so far but I’ve been out of the groups for a long time so I’m trying my best again

Linda32

It seems to me that it is important to look at what you mean by 'fresh top ups' and can this be changed at all?

There are two adults here and I go to the supermarket on Wednesday night. Fresh things are a bag of apples, satsumas, grapes and tomatoes. Then for OH's supper one tub of sandwich filler or cooked chicken for wraps. If I can't buy both with a decent date on them then I buy just one and "if" I happen to need to go to the shops at another time I buy another pack of either, otherwise he has cheese which obviously keeps.

The vegetables are home grown and when that is gone I buy frozen and frozen berries to go with yogurts for his pudding.

I did go to the shops tonight for a top up shop to buy wine and snacky things but I doubt you mean that for top up shops :rotfl:

Luckly for us we still have a milk lady deliver but we only have three bottles a week so we pay for the pleasure of having it delivered and not having to go for milk.

suki1964

I don't do a top up shop

Last week I did, because DH wanted on a whim, a few items, my "top up shop" cost more then my normal weekly shop:eek:

This was because I was on my own, had time to spare, and I got seduced into buying stuff I didn't really need, just bought because I fancied them

One item, went straight in the bin !!

If I do need something like a loaf, I use the expensive petrol station shop. Yes I end up paying 30p more for the bread then I would in lidl, but that's all I do buy, nothing else creeps in the basket, that extra 30p can save me £20

pelirocco

Meal planning is the way forward, otherwise you end up with food thats missing an item you need to turn it into a meal.You then pop into a shop and buy a load of otherstuff that will probably need that one item ..etc etc
I have friends that meal plan and shop right down to the number of potatoes they will need for the week

CapricornLass

Well, I don't know about keeping it to essentials, but what I would recommend is that you use a basket - the sort you carry on your arm rather than one of the wheelie ones. A) the amount of space in the basket is small so you can't fit a huge amount in and its surprising what you decide you can do without when you have to lug it all round the supermarket before you get to the checkout!

JIL

I think the key here is a meal plan, using your large meat orders,list some meals. If you have 5lbs of mince for example and you will use 1lb of mince for each meal. Then write down what you will do for example, beefburgers, lasagne, cottage pie, chilli meatloaf. Then allocate it to a day. You now know what else you need. Look in your cupboards, do you have what else you need? If not put it on the list.

Look at breakfast, what can you use up, what do you need to buy. Can you make do by making pancakes or cereal bars or boiled eggs?
Lunches, plan these in, think about leftovers or making soups and scones.
Fruit and veg, can you use the more perishable at the beginning of the shopping period if at all, can you use tinned or frozen?
How much milk do you use, can you freeze some.

I think it's the top up shops that were my downfall when the children were small. I would have an idea in my head that I was going to do for tea. I would have everything that I needed at home. I worked until lunchtime then I would go for the bus home. I always had some time to kill and I would nip into the supermarket. Any ideas would go out of the window and I would buy a load more food that we didn't need and that would become tea instead.

Now there are three, sometimes four adults at home. I plan the menu in advance, I did the whole of January this month. I go shopping or get a delivery on a Friday. This is for fresh foods, fruit, veg, anything we need for the following week. There's no top ups. The freezer does have a lot of meat in it and I plan around that.

I also do some prep on a Sunday Evening for the week ahead. I sometimes make some bread rolls that I freeze, I also make soup and granola bars.
Packed lunches for the beginning of the week are likely to be Sunday meat sandwich, soup, cereal bars, Thursdays and Fridays will probably be wraps using ham or cheese.

Perhaps not what you asked but hope it gives you some ideas to adapt for your own circumstances.

Linda32

pelirocco wrote: »

I have friends that meal plan and shop right down to the number of potatoes they will need for the week

l do that, why do I need a bag full when portion control says two will do.

[Deleted User]

Capricorn lass I noticed before Christmas that the local Aldis seemed to have taken away all the smaller sized wheeled baskets and replaced them with only bigger ones ,no doubt so people could buy more tat than they needed Yesterday the smaller ones were back in place again I only noticed because not being very tall and using a stick to walk with I find the big baskets on wheels a bit hard to push and really deep so I have a bit of a job bending to get stuff out :)As I live alone and am very careful with what I buy I never use the bigger ones.

I too would recommend menu planning Because my shopping needs are far less than a person with a family I only need to shop twice a month Yesterday I did my first shop of January and now have more than enough fresh fruit and veg to get me through the next 7-10 days.I can't imagine buying something just to throw in the bin !!!! Just as well through the money straight in there and save the shoe leather
Although my meals are roughly the same give or take a few variations I still menu plan on a Sunday morning and have done for the past 50 plus years I asl prep the veg potatoes, carrots, etc in water in the fridge at the same time. Save a lot of peeling the veg during the week when I get home a bit later than I expect from my DDs where I look after my DGS after school. I also batch cook on a Sunday morning for the freezer and usually make the soup for the weeks lunches as well. But I have always been a fairly organised person and run my kitchen and budgets like a business :)

JackieO xx

warby68

My system has evolved for a variety of reasons.

We are a family of 4 plus a cat. My sons are effectively adults for food quantities.

I have a Tesco Delivery Saver (other supermarkets are available )

Minimum shop £40

I do a £40 ish shop every 3-4 days. That means I do menu plan but not too far ahead as we have very fluid timetables. Its an inbuilt budgeting tool so as long at its not more frequent or materially over £40 I know I'll stay on target without having to track too closely. Also lets me take advantage of offers and avoid waste and its never very long to wait on the odd occasion we run out or someone wants something in particular. Its also handy with teenagers not having vast quantities of the treat stuff at one time as it just goes faster that way.

Some weeks we buy absolutely nothing elsewhere - others I will top up but usually if going somewhere nice like the butchers or farm shop or M&S/Waitrose on occasion.

Freezer always has a good few standby meals and the odd nice joint or fish but I don't stockpile massively.

I also use Amazon Subscribe & Save for about 6 things once a month that are cheaper.

I'm pretty busy and don't have the opportunity to physically shop multiple times, go YS hunting or massive freezers so this has evolved as a good compromise. It must be working as I generally stick to £100 a week for everything including toiletries/household items and we eat pretty well.

If I don't need much on one shop I'll buy some beer or look for offers on branded store cupboard stuff. As long as we have a couple of everything, I never have to pay full price - I mean stuff like coffee, tea, cereals, beans, spices, cooking ingredients, laundry & cleaning where we don't want to do own brand.

Sorry, that ended up a bit long winded but I know mine is not the usual system of full week plans and loads in the freezer and avoiding top ups but it does work without being too much like hard work.

trailingspouse

I agree that living a complicated life can make meal planning difficult - there are only 2 of us, but OH works away some of the time (and sometimes will come home on a night when he's planned to stay over, or will stay over on a night he's planned to come home). And a variety of grown up offsprung will turn up looking hungry from time to time.

I do a weekly shop, from a list. I rarely deviate from the list. The list sits on the side in the kitchen all the time, and if I (or anyone else) notices that something is running low it gets written on the list. Then just before I go to the supermarket I have a look through the cupboards and add anything else that might be needed. And of course there are things that we just need every week. Finally I get the diary out and decide what we're going to have each evening (checking what's already in the freezer of course).

But I don't decide in any great detail - for example I might decide that Monday night will be 'mince', but what I make will depend on how many folk I'm feeding, how hungry we are, how much time we have and what we actually fancy having. It could be spag bol, it could be savoury mince, it could be burgers, it could be chilli. But it will definitely be mince.

That works well for me. I don't do top-up shops very often. Milk will last a week in the fridge, bread lasts well (Aldi wholemeal) or can be frozen. With veg I buy green veg and root veg, and tend to use the green veg up first - but things like white cabbage keep for ages anyway! Ditto fruit - we'll eat the grapes and blueberries first, and keep the apples and oranges until later in the week.

And if I realise that something isn't going to get eaten (eg I'd bought pork chops but OH is staying over and I'm just going to have beans on toast...) then it goes into the freezer.

I've never ordered online - I prefer to pick the fresh stuff myself.

Since switching to Aldi I rarely spend more than £50 on the weekly shop (compared to £75 at Sainsbury's).