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I go once a week for the big shopping but on occasion will go another day of the week if I need something that I forgot. I live 5 minutes from 3 major grocery stores.
I admit up front that I detest grocery shopping, and avoid it whenever possible. Wondering how often others shop for food.
I usually do one big shopping run at a local supermarket once a week. Besides that I might enter my local CVS for a few other food items once or twice.
I find myself shopping often. I usually keep my freezer stocked with proteins, so it is for produce I pop into the store several times a week. Like some other posters I used to drive all over for sales. I live a 5 minute drive from a grocery store that is considered by some to be expensive, but I have saved time and money by just sticking with that store and paying attention to their sales.
I used to work at a major chain grocery store, no kidding, there are people who come to the store, four and five times a DAY! It was crazy. They came in the am for donuts, coffee, fruit, lunchtime for a coke and chips, and deli sandwich, dinner time, to pick up fried chicken, coleslaw, late night, for some crazy item, and beer, or diapers...it was insane. Men, women, we knew their kids, it was like, all they did was come to the store! Very strange.
Every day or two usually. We eat a lot of fresh food and only have a small fridge/freezer. And my toddler loves going to the supermarket so its a fun activity for her too.
Since our new Redner's Store opened, we go often, either my husband or I. It's a 3 minute drive there from our house, close parking is a cinch, food is fresh, and employees are ultra-friendly and helpful. We're in and out of there in less than 10 minutes (with our fresh baked pumpkin muffins).
So nice not to have to go to Wal-Mart, which is a 5 minute drive from our house. But, finding a close parking place at Wal-Mart is a chore, employees are not as friendly, and it's a dreaded trip with lots of walking to find what we need.
It's on the way home from my train, so I stop in a couple of times a week to get what I need when I need it.
When my daughter was growing up, I would plan out meals and do a big shopping trip when I got paid to make sure I had everything I needed until I got paid again. Now that I live alone and chips and salsa can be dinner, it doesn't matter so much if I'm stocked up or not.
Also, where I live now there is a farm nearby where I get fresh vegetables and fruit plus a farm-market type of store that's open year-round. They are further away, about a fifteen-minute drive, so I go there on the weekends and get the produce I need. Supermarket produce in NJ sucks--they truck hard, unripe crap in from California when we've got the best tomatoes on the planet minutes away (at least for our short growing season of a couple of months).
It's almost embarrassing to say that I have 15 full-fledged grocery stores within a ten to twelve minute drive from my house. That's not counting the convenient/gas stores, the drug stores/dollar stores that have grocery sections, or K-Mart and Target, which have grocery departments but not full-service like meats and produce.
I often stop into one or the other when I'm out doing another errand and will pick up something that's on sale that week.
Since I'm becoming increasingly disenchanted with actual cooking, I tend to pick up some frozen meals (a la Marie Callendar or Healthy Choice), or a rotisserie chicken which can last for several days. I waste more bread than I consume, even though I freeze half of the loaf. A quart of milk lasts beyond the expiration date.
I guess I have to vote for several times a week (or "far too often")
I agree, Queen, with the tomatoes in Jersey. We go to the beach every Summer, but no longer look forward to red, ripe Jersey 'maters or just picked Jersey corn. Even the green beans look ashamed to be there. We just enjoy the ocean and the sea breeze and eat out a lot.
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