In order to prevent cabin fever, I go to the grocery 3 or 4 times a week. May or may not have a short list on my phone.
Before the restrictions I use to grocery shop once a week with no list but now my whole shopping routine has changed. I don't walk the aisles because they are always lined with people and carts. I get what I want and leave.
Janet and I go grocery shopping a few times a week. We have a dry marker board in the kitchen, and we write what we need on it as things run out. I take a pic of that board right before we head out. Works great.
As I live about 35 miles from the big supermarket and take a taxi to go there. I make a list and if I was alone. I could do my shopping and be back home buying very little more that what is on my list. Of course the whole family goes and the shopping cart gets filled with everything that looks good at the time we are there. Thank goodness I live in a country where the cost of the taxi is about $60 for the whole day and he helps carry groceries.
I keep my list in a spreadsheet. When I was working in town and had ready access to different grocery stores, I would go through their online ads, note the sales prices at each store of things that caught my eye, use that as the basis for my week's menu and my shopping trip, and then print my list. (In fact, I just went through the Food Lion ad...their sale week starts on Wednesdays.) I still keep my grocery list in that spreadsheet because it's a convenient place to mark stuff to buy as I run out or as I find recipes I want to try. I also mark things I'm running low on to look out for sales (mostly meats) so I can stock up cheaply. The list is categorized and sorted in the order the store aisles occur, so I copy the list and don't end up at one end of the store having forgotten to get something I already walked past. It's not that complex once the spreadsheet's set up...I just put a check by an item when I need to buy it or watch for the sales. And things are easy to add to it. I almost always stick to the shopping list, unless there are unadvertised in-store things like marked-down meat.
Sounds like me. There's a Walmart I routinely shop at about 8 miles up the road, and I've taken to driving into the big town about 12 miles past that once a week just to get out (and to get specialty items not available closer to home.)
Our restriction continue Eating out only with people of the same household No visitors allowed No gatherings of any size Mask wearing indoors and out Vaccine roll out is slow So far the variance in the virus is linked to travel No New years parties Our death toll nation wide is now 15000 thousand + our numbers are expected to rise in the next few weeks because of the holidays BC restrictions get reviewed January 7 these restriction are only for the province of British Colombia the rest of the country has their own restriction
What do we find out today one of our ministers is vacationing in Barbados while the rest of our country is being asked to stay home senior citizens are dying alone because of visitor restriction in the care homes .
I have used Our Groceries app for last four years. I like it and use free version. You can change it around to fit your own needs.
Over this past year I've learned better and more efficient ways to shop. I keep a running list for the grocery trips. I plan our meals and add the necessary items for each meal to that list. I organize my list according to the store layout. I mask up .. glove up .. in and out as quickly as possible. If I forgot an item then it must wait until my next trip which will probably be in 3 or 4 weeks. I have bottled water delivered .. it's worth it to have someone else schlep it up the stairs for me. We have learned to be better planners and it's cost us far less money. I quite like the way we were forced to change for our own safety and plan to keep doing it this way .. I see no reason to change back to the old ways.
I just went to Aldi for the first time in my life. The nearest one has been 45 miles. They opened one up last week in Charlottesville that's half that distance...and I go to Charlottesville every once in a while to hit a "real" grocery store (like Kroegers.) It's not what I expected, in that I thought it would be uncomfortably stuffed. I actually walked out wondering how they can pay their rent, since the aisles are so wide (meaning underutilized square footage) and the shelves are not as over-stuffed with product as I expected. They likely got a deal on rent, because the strip mall is in a horrible location and there are lots of vacancies there...and they negotiated during COVID. I guess Aldi is now the strip's anchor store. I was also shocked they were not more crowded, having only been open for 5 days (although I did go on a Monday morning.) I was talking to a couple of other customers, who said they had been driving to the Aldi 30-50 miles away to shop, so this store should do well. Their prices are great! Blueberries and strawberries are half of what other stores charge. Their meats seem to be reasonably priced, as are snack foods. Eggs are only 49¢ a dozen (although I'll continue to buy local eggs.) On the downside, the variety of fresh produce is lacking (but sort of proportional to their limited selection of everything else.) I certainly won't be able to buy all my salad fixin's there. But what they have seems to be of good quality and is certainly cheap enough. Selection of other things (like condiments) is also very limited. I needed a squeeze jar of lite mayo, and they don't carry it. They don't carry dried beans. This is not a fully-stocked/major-brands grocery store. But I got a good-sized container of house brand yellow mustard for under 50¢. I thought of @Beth Gallagher when I walked down the "Look what we got a deal on this week" aisle and saw perforated fabricated "woks" for your grill at under $8. They were right next to the personal UV sanitizing lights (which carried no warning regarding the risks of diminished fertility.) Beth had told me to look out for this flea market section. I almost bought one of those grill woks (it was such a great deal), but I've already got a grill topped that I hardly use. I can see working these guys into my routine shopping when I go to Kroeger into Charlottesville. I could save enough just buying my weekly fruit supply there to pay for gas. I can see a family saving lots of money if they worked their meal plans around what these guys do carry. As an aside, I was chatting with the cashier, and she said she really likes her job so far (they've been open less than a week.) Aldi lets their cashiers sit on a stool as they work, and she said they have great benefits.