I started doing this because I honestly have a strong dislike of shopping. Now I hit all of the stores (Sam's Club, Kroger, Target, health food store) once every three months, and may not be inside them again till next quarter. We get almost all of our fruits and veggies and sometimes milk and eggs at the farmer's market - which is a pleasurable outing - so really, I rarely even hit the grocery store during the quarter. It definitely saves me time. It takes a HUGE majority of the Saturday that I do it, but then it is DONE. And honestly, I've done it twice now, and the second time was quicker and more efficient that the first, so I expect to see that result again. Going to the Farmer's Market is, as I said, a pleasurable outing, and usually gets folded into date time, so I don't even count it. The rare trips to the grocery take, seriously, 20 minutes - and that includes our drive time!
My hope with starting it was that it would also be a money saver too. Honestly? It's hard to tell. I'm not saving money... compared to last year. Which is what I had hoped to do. But *everyone* I talk to says that the costs of groceries is just soaring, and I see that in my own comparisons too. I still have all the spreadsheets from the groceries that I bought last year and there really is a huge difference in many things. Am I saving money over what I *would* have been spending this year doing it the old way? I dunno, it is a tough comparison for me to make. But I know, for example, the bigger amount of bulk goods I buy at my health food store, the bigger the discount I get. So I think I am probably saving money there.
Also, I do quite a bit of shopping - all of our 7th Generation things, among others - online. That saves time, and it saves money b/c I buy huge quantities. But it would be harder to put in that much upfront on a regular monthly or weekly budget. I have all these things set up on a rotating buying schedule, so I never get hit with, for example, laundry and dishwasher detergent at the same time.
More to come!!
4 comments:
I find this concept very intriguing, but I don't think it would work for us. We've had to change the way we shop because of the prices. It ends up costing us substantially more to shop at the farm stands and the egg farm than it does at the grocery store. We've even stopped buying all of the organic food we were because it's just so much more expensive. The majority of the foods we eat are fresh fruits and vegetables, with some chicken, fish, dairy, and cereal thrown in. We don't eat much frozen food or processed food anymore, so it ends up being expensive to be healthy. Perhaps someday when the prices aren't so ridiculous we'll be able to go back to it, but not now. The closest warehouse store (Costco) to us is close to 40 min. away, so the savings would need to be substantial to balance off the cost of gas. They don't have the brands of paper goods that we like, so other than coffee and Prilosec, there's not much there we buy, unless we're having a big party.
Jeez this must take mad organizational skills! Not to mention storage space.
When I had more room to store things, I found out that I could order cases of things through our local one stop shopping place for an addtl 10% off and when coupled with a sale month on that item, it was a deal. It was great for organic staples (chicken broth, canned tomatoes etc).
Rock on lady!
We have a Sam's membership, but only to buy my prescriptions. My insurance does not cover prescriptions and Sam's is the cheapest in town. Bing steadfastly refuses to let me buy anything else there, she detests Wal-Mart's practice of going into small towns and running the other family run stores out of business, so we don't buy anything there.
The majority of our food is purchased weekly at Whole Foods or farmer's markets. It is much more expensive, but when Bing is home, we eat almost totally organic and she doesn't mind paying more for fruits and vegetables produced locally. Even our honey is bought from a bee farmer here in Nebraska...
When Bing is out of town (like this week), Liv and I eat what I think of as "naughty foods." Things like campbell's soup, cold cuts and Cap'n Crunch.
Bing knows that we do this and of course, claims to be totally disgusted by my lack of culinary skills....
Sassy - prices are definitely getting ridiculous! It can be so frustrating. We still find it much cheaper to buy our produce at the farmer's market than at the grocery, but I have a lot of trouble finding what we need there. I would probably wean off our Sam's Club if we had to drive as far as you do, but it is literally no more than 10 minutes from our house... so very convenient. And there are some things, like batteries and water filters I just cannot imagine buying elsewhere... the savings is SO huge for those things. We still eat primarily organic/hormone-antibiotic free, b/c it is important enough to us to make the cuts elsewhere in the budget to accommodate for it. But it is very frustrating that it costs that much to do so.
Jen - it *does* take a ton of organization... I say not to brag, but because I genuinely LOVE things like this. I am *such* a planner/list-maker at heart. Kim sometimes gives me things to plan, just to get out of her hair for a little while. ;)We have NO storage space - none that the house came with anyway. I have CREATED storage space like crazy though. I've got a pics post coming up soon, so you can actually see it in action.
Maria - I absolutely hate wal-mart and sam's club... I really do. But doing a small amount of our shopping at sams, is how we can fit more organics and natural foods into our budget. It is a trade-off I am not altogether pleased with, but the few things we do buy there have such a drastic price difference from anywhere else I could buy them. We do most of our shopping at the regular grocery store. I wish we could do more shopping at the health food store, but it is very tiny and doesn't carry much. We don't have a Whole Foods/Wild Oats/Trader Joe's or the like anywhere nearby. Bummer. :(
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