How often do you visit the grocery store

[buildingmore]

Looking over our finances, I have found one of the leaks we have is multiple trips to the grocery store each week. I think this must be bad planning on are part and probably costs us money, but I wanted to check here to see if that is normal. How often do you visit the grocery store each week?

[cooliemae]

Generally, I make one shopping trip a week to pick-up groceries, however I live 30 miles from the closest grocery store and 50 miles from a town with reasonable prices. So I can't afford to go the grocery store everyday.

[disneysteve]

I go grocery shopping every Thursday. Other than that, we may pick up some items when we go to Target or WalMart to get things that are cheaper there or aren't sold at our grocery store. The only other time we will buy groceries is if we decide to make something for which we are lacking ingredients.

[phantom]

My husband and I go to the grocery store about 3 times a week. Part of the reason for that is that there are two grocery stores that have good sales every week, one of which is only convenient for us to hit on the way home from work, and hitting both stores on the way home from work gets us home too late. So, that's two grocery trips right there. Frequently, we add a third trip if run out of something (like milk), if we notice a good sale at another store, or if we happen to think "gee, it would be really nice to have bagels for lunch this week" and we're our near a grocery store.

We could certainly reduce the number of trips we make with better planning, which would save us time. But, money-wise the extra trips don't seem to cost much. We're pretty good about combining grocery trips with other excuses to be out of the house and about only buying things that we intended to buy going in or know we use regularly. For what it's worth, our grocery budget for 2 people is $250, and we have no trouble sticking to that despite the frequent trips.

[SuperSavingTips]

We do one well-planned regular shopping trip each week at a low-priced supermarket about 8 miles away, plus usually one small trip to a different supermarket(right around the corner) if we need to pick up any particular items for a recipe or we run out of something. We take advantage of the sales at the two different stores, but try to avoid going for more than those 2 trips or we find a lot of extras creeping into our cart and our budget.

[LittleMissSplendid]

Lol I was just thinking about this actually. It turns out I go to the store 4-6 times a week and I do try to plan ahead by making a list. The extra trips are me forgetting about things that should be on the list, suddenly developing a taste for something that I don't have in the house, or the store didn't have something on my list and I end up going back. So maybe 2-3 of my trips each month are me leaving with a bag or two of stuff and the other trips are me going for just one or two items. There's about 12 stores within 10 minutes of where I live so I just go on my way home from work or while running other errands.

[snafu]

When getting meals together after work got very stressful, I adopted the meal planning habit. It means reviewing the grocery ads for ideas and results in a shopping list. Armed with a list, you end up buying the items needed for the meals you've already chosen to make. If I see something preferred, I just update the plan. There are 3 major chains on my regularly travelled route and two ethnic stores I like if I'm nearby. I share a Costco card with DSIL and do a quick inventory of their products if I need to replenish one of their branded or bulk items. I don't buy dog food or non edibles as part of groceries because they're cheaper on sale at a discounter or liquidation outlet.

I do my best to limit grocery shopping to twice a month but make it a rule to never go without a shopping list. It really helps to use a free cell app instead of the Post-it note on the side of the fridge. If we run out of milk, salad ingredients or fresh fruit, I limit myself to the particular item needed. Having just reviewed my personal, shared and clipped recipes, I've resolved to only chose those that use common ingredients. Just before the holiday season I'd inventoried the pantry and pitched a lot of weird, tried it once stuff.

[kork13]

It depends, but typically, it's once every 8-10 days. Sometimes if we need something specific we'll make an extra grocery run. Bottom line, whenever the fresh fruit, bread, or milk runs out, we're going shipping. We keep a running grocery list on a smartphone app that we're able to share updates between ourselves. So or grocery trips are mostly just a matter of picking up whatever we've noticed that we're out of.