Ways to make shopping easier

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I've been avoiding ordering food for a while. We keep having to pick up food. Today I haven't eaten because we have no food and going to the shops is making me stressed. We had the same meal on Monday and Tuesday because I couldn't cope with buying anything else and event that wasn't pleasant.

I try to avoid buying ready meals because I was brought up believing they were very, very bad and I find it difficult to shake that. I hate shopping in the shops because there's so many options.

I need to do a food order. And I know the food we've been having has been getting boring, but when we have 'new' meals on a budget I have to make sure there's enough overlap between ingredients so that it all gets used and is cost effective. This is more difficult with new meals.

I've had a pretty bad week - my rabbit got ill and I had to feed him hourly on Monday. The flat is messy and we have no food and I just want to hole up somewhere.

If you find it difficult to shop because of the choices, then I would suggest making a list. Think about the foods that you could use for more than one meal - for example, if you wanted kraft dinner with hot dogs for dinner, then you could eat the rest of the hot dogs for lunch - and buy them in bulk, if possible, since buying in bulk is cheaper. When you go into the store, only focus on getting one thing at a time, so that you aren't overwhelmed by the stimuli.

Thank you for your advice. I am having trouble making the list.

Even more so because I'm having to look for meal ideas and then I get stuck because if I buy, say, garlic for x what else can I use it in and then I get overwhelmed with planning.

Trying to avoid going to the shops because even when I know want I want there's usually several types and it's hard for me to know which is the best.

My wife is now angry at me for being lazy - I don't have much to do and she is somewhat overworked. (She said so between my first post and my second post.)

Have you tried making a list ahead of time and then going in and only going directly to the items you Need and picking them up like you're on a mission?

I don't actually write myself a list very often, but I know exactly what I need and I just go on, bee-line it to the items I need, pick them up & leave. No wasted time, no decision making, no window shopping etc.

Also, some things I order online in bulk because it's far cheaper.. plus they get delivered so I don't have to worry about shopping for them at all. Could be an option for you.

Definitely make a list.

Can you go shopping frequently? I shop about once every two days, so I don't really have to plan ahead like you say. Where I shop, there are pre-bundled vegetables (so you can buy a bag of say 8 carrots or something) but there are also individual vegetables that you can take as many as you want from. So if I'm making a recipe with carrots, I just buy as many as I need for that recipe (or a few extra for lunch). I would be very bad at planning out everything I need for 2 weeks, which apparently some people do .

I've recently discovered that if you search online for "recipes that call for_________" you can find lots of recipes calling for exactly what you need to use! That function might be of use to you. I know it's hard to use stock up. I use a lot of stock, but it's never exactly one container of it…

It says on your profile that you are 19. If that is true, then I think part of this is due to inexperience. Meal planning is a hard thing to do and takes practise. Maybe sit down one day and come up with "combinations" of meals- meals that go together because of overlapping ingredients. That way, you have some combinations already thought of when it comes to going shopping and don't have to be stressed over both the planning and shopping at the same time.

Or don't spend your time and energy trying to figure out differing things you can make with ingredients you have.. there's an app for that! And websites.

I don't know the name of any off hand as I do not use them, but you can find them by googling. Basically, there are websites/apps that you enter in the ingredients you have and they spit back a list of recipes that use those ingredients. Next to zero effort required and you get to pick different things that will use up things you already have in stock.

Usually I try to shop for 7-9 days. I was doing quite well for a while but I got too predictable. I do have some foods that go together but I'm prone to trying to eat lots of the same sorts of foods. Especially when I buy in bulk. Just have to remember to vary the other ingredients.

Recently, especially as we're trying to eat more "adventurously" it's been getting much harder.

For most of the past year I've matched ingredients using sections in recipe books.

It provably is in part inexperience - if I had a larger bank of foods to fall back on I might not have this trouble.

I've considered making weeks of meals that go together and vary from other but there's an initial time investment that I just haven't managed. And it doesn't always work when I've bought abs frozen stuff - I know I could leave it frozen but we don't really have enough money to be freezing and leaving. Plus our freezer freezes over.

Maybe clusters of 2 or 3 meals would be better as its easier to adapt to cheaper food.

I will definetly try the ingredients matcher thing. Hopefully that will help.

Neither of us drive and the shops near us are prohibitively expensive. It would cost a fair bit to go every few days unfortunately, unless I travelled further. (I get free bus fares for very specific routes).

Thanks for your advice though. I do appreciate it. Apologies if I seem like I'm being difficult.

Don't let not driving be a constraint to healthy eating.

I didn't have a car for 3 years and didn't have a licence for a year. I would ride my bicycle w/ a backpack on, or walk about 16km/10miles round trip, w/ my backpack loaded to the max with healthy groceries once a week-ish. Sure, it took hours to do, but it was good exercise and I was able to get everything I needed.

I don't think you're being difficult at all. It sounds like you're trying to do the best you can, and I applaud that - good job for even posting this thread and asking for some pointers so you can do an even better job! Continuous improvement is the only way forward.

I've been considering going back to the green grocers/fishery/butchers combo - it's hard for me to carry back food for two but together we could do it. Only problem is that I would have to go to the shops for other things (double cream, etc).

Although at the time it was very stressful because I had no list (usually I have a list along with the days they will be eaten on to accommodate for longer and shorter lifespan ingredients) but the employees were more helpful.

I exercise 4-6 hours a week so I'm in no hurry to add more.

I'm now fretting over how best to organise meal clusters - do I print them, save them, tag them. I find it difficult to change to another way of going things but will try to start.

I've had a run up and down (and up and down) the stairs and now I'm a bit clearer headed I have remembered that I have some old draft lists saved on my phone.

I think I will pick an old boring one for this week to get it out of the way and then start sorting a meal cluster for next week before its urgent. Hopefully I could build up that way.

I avoid regular grocery stores as much as possible. They overwhelm me.

I like to shop at Aldi's and Trader Joes. You can pick your flavor of cereal, but you don't have to choose between brands. That reduces a LOT of stress!

I still haven't figured out the whole meal-planning thing, but Olive Oil Mom has suggested watching Rachel Ray's Week at a Time cooking, or something like that... I haven't checked it out yet, but I plan to.

Don't you guys have grocery delivery there? Many stores here let you order online. You can study and tweak your shopping list for as long as you want, run downstairs to check your fridge to see what you're short of, come back and edit it more, pay with credit or bank card, then expect them in a day or two. Delivery charges are not very much and can be waived if you order a minimum amount.

I never mastered traditional meal planning and I mostly shop on impulse (I do stick to budget). However I'm an experienced cook and can create, adapt and change a recipe based on what I have. Most of the time it works out just fine. I think with more experience you'll feel easier, too. You can either work towards the plan menu -> shop for ingredients route, or buy whatever is on sale or look good -> put meals together based on ingredients route.

I think one of the things that makes grocery shopping a pretty stress free thing for me to do is that I've made it routine. I tend to buy the same 2-3 dozen different things from the same handful of stores whenever I'm running low. Sometimes I get bored with a dish or ingredient and make a change or two, or pickup something on sale. But in general I buy the same foods/herbs/spices etc. This makes it a pretty simple autopilot routine thing to do. The only time shopping becomes a slight bit frustrating is when it's convenient or necessary to shop at an unfamiliar store where I don't know the exact location of each item on my list. Maybe you just need to make grocery shopping a routine thing and it'll be a breeze.

Ask someone to help you shop at first then you will get used to shopping

Makes a list of possible meals and buy fresh ingredients accordingly. Meat, fruit and vegetables. Don't buy fresh ingredients in bulk as you'll end up discarding a lot of what you buy.

What sort of food do you like to eat in restaurants? Look up the recipes and try to make your own. Pizza, pasta (dry pasta but fresh sauce), chilli, Chinese food, Indian etc. A lot of the ingredients (spices, rice, noodles, dry pasta, flour) for this sort of food will last for quite a while. Your local shops will sort of dictate what sort of food you can cook. If you eat meat, then cook something with beef one day, then chicken, then pork and add fresh veg like onions, carrots, tomatoes (tinned are good too) to each recipe. I always have meat, veg and carbs in varying proportions. I gather healthy food can be very expensive in some parts of the states but you can eat reasonably well with some basic vegetables like carrots, potatoes, onions and broccoli.