How do proper grown ups grocery shop?

maisie_cat

I have a pantry or two and always have shelf stable food in stock including home canned.
We mostly have the same 12 or so core meals, but different each time depending on what needs using or is on special veg wise. We try 3 meat free days a week but sometimes go for quite a few days without, I rotate the carbs so that we don't have rice, pasta, quinoa, potatoes two days running. I always batch cook so that when we have a busy week or I'm too tired we have home made ready meals. 
Before I met hubby I lived alone and had a freezer full of M&S ready meals and mostly empty cupboards because I had coffee for breakfast and a staff canteen at work so it really depends on household makeup and how cash/time poor you are. Before that I'd had periods of being quite skint and studying for finals so lived on baked beans and milk.

Effician

We tend to judge how well we've shopped by the amount of waste we create, the general black bin & plastics/cardboard etc blue bin average 5-6 weeks between needing collecting ( & then not always full), the green waste normally ends up in the compost heap.

We rarely buy sauces & never buy ready meals as these are normally 70+% water & prefer our own recipes made from a collection of herbs/spices & fresh ingredients which when buying from the right places are very cheap in comparison.

The freezer pays for itself buy buying when items are cheap / free or batch cooked but not necessarily when needed, these items then become the centre or supplements to meals when you can't think what you want to eat.

Like the freezer the pantry or store cupboard is for the cheap offers of tinned /jarred/boxed products with good shelf life, these are there for backup if all goes belly up or for dipping into to make up or add to a meal.

The main plus for us 2 is time , a luxury many don't have .

Katiehound

The pandemic certainly changed the way I shop- a main shop once a week early on Monday at Aldi & I have pretty much kept to that ever since. Now I probably go out again on a Thursday but that is for fruit & veg to last over the weekend.

I more or less know what is in the freezer & fridge and stick to the same meals- what is easy/ what I like. Sometimes YS appear but not often. free donated fruit and veg might change side dishes.

If I ever shopped on the 'off chance' it doesn't happen any more. I have also learnt that wonderful photos on the packaging rarely mean a delicious meal: better to HC.

newlywed

I work full time and order supermarket deliveries twice a month. 

So I currrently meal plan for just over 2 weeks at a time. I have previously done a four week meal plan that I just repeated, but we got bored of some meals after four months of it. 

I also used to shop about 3 times a week as I live in a city and used to go to different supermarkets on the way home from work… but I felt like all I did was work and food shop, so soon went back to once a week shops. Since covid it’s been 2 deliveries a month, with an occasional in person visit for lidl offers, Waitrose treats, or just something different.

Currently i plan specific meals each week so, Monday will be mince of some kind, tuesday chicken, Wednesday is a quick meal, Thursday is fish etc.  then when my meal planning goes astray I know what meat/fish I have in or need to add to my online shop, and then just pick a meal that fits round that. Makes it easier to know what to get out of the freezer each night too.

when I do a full meal plan, I note which ones are cooked in the slow cooker so I know when I need to get up a bit earlier or be more organised.

remember a meal plan doesn’t mean you can’t swap days and meals around too!

annieb64

I don't drive get the bus to Aldi once a week. The rest of the shopping comes from the local market,  Coop, farm shop and Tesco or M&S if I go into town. About every two months we drive to one of the larger supermarkets and stock up on toilet rolls, wine and other heavier groceries. 

Last week I got a voucher from the Coop. £2.50 off if I spent £15. I  didn't think I'd use it but had to go in for milk today and noticed they had Kenco coffee on offer for £5 so bought two jars and some tea as well as the milk.

Grabs39

Aldi once a week, usual staples, veg, plus stuff for a couple of planned meals but most meals are a repeat each week based on normal stuff we always have in, if that makes sense.

Iceland for fakeaway-type frozen food and Costco for loo roll, fizzy water and diesel periodically.

YoungBlueEyes

We used to do a main food shop on a Saturday, with me popping to Lidl if we ran out of milk or fruit or something. I used to meal plan and buy things for those meals but I was forever seeing different things reduced and messing up my plans ha haa! So now I see what's available and that's what we eat the next week. Offers on certain things like Aldi Super6, or yellow stickered things, it means our meals are varied because we never seem to get to eat the same things.

Which I guess means I'm not shopping like a proper adult now, and have actually gone backwards :

Pollycat

YoungBlueEyes said:

We used to do a main food shop on a Saturday, with me popping to Lidl if we ran out of milk or fruit or something. I used to meal plan and buy things for those meals but I was forever seeing different things reduced and messing up my plans ha haa! So now I see what's available and that's what we eat the next week. Offers on certain things like Aldi Super6, or yellow stickered things, it means our meals are varied because we never seem to get to eat the same things.

Which I guess means I'm not shopping like a proper adult now, and have actually gone backwards :

You're shopping in the way that suits you and hopefully is cost effective.
We don't all have to be the same. 

I used to keep a paper menu plan but, like you, was always seeing YS things so that's why I changed to Excel because it's easy to move things about.
The pasta dish planned for next day can be moved a few days down to allow for the YS belly pork I've just bought.

Wraithlady

For us, we do a weekly menu (Fri-Thurs) and make a list from that.

It's more of a guideline than a strict rota, so it's not 'it's Tuesday, it has to be sausages' type of thing but it does have 2 important plus points:

1. - I prioritise what we have in the freezer, or needs using up so waste less food - also, I check before we buy so we don't end up with 15 tins of baked beans, fr'ex.
2 - It's a reminder to get the xxx out of the freezer to defrost for the day's (or the next day's) meal, and ensure we have the stuff to make it.

#2 is the main reason we actually do this

YoungBlueEyes

Aye it's about flexibility really.

Himself said it's now stew weather and will I go get some beef.  I came back with 3 gammons and a load of salmon. The only way of getting it in the freezer was to have pizzas and garlic bread for dinner.

And so it continues....