I used to hate grocery shopping. Absolutely hate it. I never knew what to buy, what to look for or how expensive things should be. At one point my roommate and I lived off of bulk bagels, cheese and those gigantic chocolate muffins that we would eat with ice cream. Needless to say, not incredibly healthy. If I wasn’t eating something prepackaged, we were eating out. It is pretty easy to pay someone to cook you something, and way more satisfying than having to actually do it myself. In an attempt to save my waistline and my bank account I knew I needed to learn how to grocery shop. Not only did I want to learn how to do it reasonable healthily ( that damn chip isle calls my name) but I wanted to do it efficiently. Now I still am learning how to do this, but I have gotten a lot better.
Shopping once a week helps me keep the freshest produce I can in the house. I like looking for produce to buy to make smoothies, stir-frys and just munching on. I try to buy fresh and I try to shop seasonal. Raspberries may be available, but they suck in the middle of winter. Frozen fruit is a staple in my freezer. I try and keep a mix of berries, a bag of blueberries and sometimes some whole frozen strawberries in there. I have learned what I need staples of and what I can mix up.
Here is an example of what I picked up last week.
- grapes
- pears (4)
- tomatoes
- avocados (3)
- pomegranate
- mushrooms
- spinach
- hummus
- cous cous
- quinoa
- greek yogurt
- olives
- lentils
- chocolate almond milk
- english muffins
- natural peanut butter (2 – a good deal)
This is pretty typical. I eat tomatoes and mushrooms in omelettes for breakfast all the time. Smoothies tend to be packed full of spinach and I always try to keep an avocado in the house, they just taste so damn good. I tend to buy yogurt every other week and usually I will buy 2 if they expiry dates are good. There were a couple of staples purchased in this haul. The cous-cous, quinoa and lentils all had to be replenished. I also keep stocked with eggs, some type of cheese, oatmeal and a high fibre cereal. I buy the Uncle Ben’s microwavable rice bags and keep both 3 or 4 in my cupboard. It makes cooking dinner a lot faster. This pretty much gets me through the week. There is also always potatoes, broccoli or cauliflower to eat as well.
Typically I spend $50-$60 a week on groceries for myself. In a household full of people I am not the only one that eats from all of this, which probably means I end up spending more than what I would actually need. When I get home from the grocery store I separate any meat I may have boughten ( I don’t buy a lot of meat, the odd piece of fish or some chicken- super boring), and I try and rinse all of my fruit that needs to be rinsed ( especially grapes – I have a bad habit of eating them without washing, yuck). Lately I have been trying to cut up little bags of veggies and having hummus in containers so I can just grab and go in the morning. It makes things a lot less hectic in the morning or when I’m rushing to get to work
Does anyone have any grocery store favourites or tips on how to shop the sales? I find I can never time my purchases with what I need and when it’s cheap.
