A Monthly Shop
Shopping a little differently . . . One of a few notes.
A few years ago I had some inspiration to change the way our family shops for food. I can't remember where the idea came from but it was along the lines of eating local and not being at the supermarket every few days. What started as a challenge for a few months became a habit that still continues today.
The original goal was that we would not go to the supermarket between monthly shops. We bought fresh produce from the local market each Saturday, meat from the local butcher and coffee from the roasters. The exception to the rule was milk - for this we could enter the supermarket.
We wrote out a list: How much flour did we need to bake bread for everyone for the month? How many tins of tomatoes would we need? How much chocolate was allowed? How much cereal would we eat? Rice, pasta, tuna, cheese, butter . . . And most importantly how many rolls of toilet paper we would go through.
People used to look at us and wonder how many we were feeding as we wandered the supermarket with 3 bags of cornflakes, 2 bags of ricies, 2 boxes of wheatbix and some all bran (I was pregnant at the time with a craving for cereal!) not to mention the 36 rolls of toilet paper!
It was quite fun. It saved us time not going to the supermarket as often and encouraged us to use what we had left in the cupboards. And there was only once chance a month for extra things that weren't on the list to somehow end up in the trolley.
When we ran out of Wheatbix and toilet paper I knew it was time to go shopping again. Sometimes we lasted six weeks.
These days we aren't quite as strict on ourselves, although it would do us good to be. But I still do our big shop once every 4 - 6 weeks. And now I know roughly what we need to last us and when it's gone it's gone. There will be something else to eat.
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