Food: The Grocery List

How does one even go about writing a grocery list?  Do you really need to take the time to do this?  A basic grocery shop depends on many factors.  How many times a week does one want to go shopping?  What is the family budget and for how many people will the food be for?  Are all the meals and snacks going to be eaten in the home?  I guess one could write a long list of questions just revolving around writing a simple shopping list. 

My mother had a notepad on the fridge and every time we would run out of something it went on that list.  She would add things on sale to prepare dinners, but other than that we had the same staples in the house.  I remember having the same breakfast and lunch for years.  I had two toaster waffles and for lunch a turkey sandwich, an orange, and a granola bar.  We always came home to a freshly prepared meal with some kind of meat, vegetable, and starch.  Food preparation was simple. 

I went in to married life thinking this is how it is done.  We would go to maybe a couple of grocery stores to get things on sale and our meals would be modeled a lot like the ones I grew up eating.  Meanwhile, my husband was looking forward to his bowl of cereal (more like a couple of them) and peanut butter and applesauce sandwiches.  Sometimes we would get provolone cheese and hummus.  Since, I was not in a dinner routine yet, I spent lots of time looking through the two cookbooks I owned and writing down the ingredients as a part of my shopping list.  Most of the time I was too tired to cook the meals I planned and we went out to eat.  As a couple, this was an expensive option, but we only needed to buy for two people. 

I tried to work in a budget of 75 dollars a month.  We would buy two or three different fruit options, four to five veggies, some pasta, some rice, a box of cereal, yogurts, and a few other things.  Our list changed as I quickly realized that boxed cereal was costing us a fortune because one box does not feed a hungry husband more than two days at best.  It was also hard to stick to the budget at first because we did not own basic things like salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Regardless of this simple structure, it only really worked for our family until we had more than two kids.  Granted our budget got up to 100 to 125 dollars a week with a couple of kids.

When baby number three came along we started to spend more and more money, not to mention I spent so much time at the store.  I no longer had as much order because I was buying food that kids could eat, baby food, and a few things that adults might enjoy.  I never trained my kids to only eat kid friendly foods like mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, but choking was something I wanted to avoid as well. 

Then we discovered the wonderful world of buying in bulk.  At this point we all loved eating steel cut oats for breakfast, ate a decent amount of rice, beans, lentil, eggs, and other things that would be good to buy in large quantities.  When we got our tax refund, we went ahead and spent about 600 hundred dollars in bulk food from Azure Standard.  It was great to have a large supplies of things.  All I had to do is buy local produce and dairy.  Our list was shorter and we seemed to save money too.  I noticed about a fifty dollar difference at the store and I  am sure out rice, oats, and other supplies were lasting three to six months.  Some things were lasting even longer. 

Our family food budget became more predictable and easier to keep under control.  I spend around 150 dollars a week at the store and around 200 hundred dollars a month with Azure Standard.  My husband and I constantly comment that if we did not have so many kids, we would not have figured out how to save so much money.  What would be the point in having 50 lbs of oats for four people?  How long would it take to get through this?  With our current family size I think it lasts about seven months.  Believe it or not, we actually see the bottom of our bucket before the end of the year. 

Instead of having a single grocery list I have a favorites on the Azure Standard website,  and I have a basic local list.  I try to mainly shop at our food coop because I really want to support local farmers and often it is cheaper to find local organic food than it is to buy organic at the big chain grocery stores.  I may have a handful of recipes I use most of the time, but because I love spending time in the kitchen we try new things once in awhile too.  Trying to find the most effective way to budget and shop has been important.  Our families needs are growing and changing and my desire to buy healthy organic food is increasing.  I no longer buy meat because it on sale, as do I no longer buy my produce this way, but analyzing our diet is another story for another day.