food shopping once a month...

moonchild · May 2012

^^People are funny. We often freeze our bread because there are only 2 of us living here, now. The OP, however, can't have gluten. That makes things a bit tougher.

romanigypsyeyes · May 2012

Ema, yeah I meant school. I messaged my mom about it though and she's looking into it in our area.

icedragon · May 2012

Very high chance that i will be in a single due to medical reasons

Transportation is the key. My school is, well, slightly far away from the store. There is, however, a costco down the hill from my school (about a mile or so away). So, potentially, I could somehow get down there and raid it.

I don't eat much in processed food. In fact, if i can't read what its made out of, I normally stay away from it.

About the chex, I normally use it as a snack/aid to stop acid reflux. It stores really well, so i decided to stock up.

I adore peanut butter

So I plan on having a supply of that on hand.

I will probably get myself a rice cooker, and maybe a crockpot for when i'm down there.

I will have to look at getting veggies and stuff delivered.Has anyone ever done this at a college campus?

pageagain · May 2012

once a month is probably not enough. esp if you live alone and only cook/eat the food yourself. milk, eggs, cheese,juice, fruits, dairy meats, all go bad fast. Many things do not come in single size or even a normal size. I like a certain brand of almond milk and soy milk that is nearly sold by the barrel ( sarcasm) but still. no way I can drink it all before it goes bad. I might want a glass a week or so and the rest is dumped down the drain and into the trash. Same with many things that are deals for a family of 5 for me it is a waste. I buy a lot of stuff knowing some of it will end up in the trash.

emeraldkity4 · May 2012

The thing about CSA delivery is that you don't pick the produce, so you have to be open minded about the selection. They often do include recipes however if you need some help.

I would agree that you would have more options if you go shopping more than once amonth,but I disagree that you should expect a lot of waste.

My h only eats one meal at home, and neither of us eat much but we don't waste food, it's too expensive for that!
( we also shop at minimum, once a week)

HImom · May 2012

I guess it's hard for me to imagine food shopping only once/month. When I was 12, I went food shopping for our family of 9 EVERY DAY! That is what I'm used to so I think I'm doing great if I only have to go food shopping once every few days. If I can only go once/week, I'm estatic! I love leafy fresh veggies & they don't keep long, even in a good fridge, so I have to buy those pretty often.

walkinghome · May 2012

My son's college has a CSA available - Champlain College News: Summer CSA Available at Champlain I get saving money and buying in bulk to a point, but unless you are incredibly far from a store, I don't see the point in only shopping once a month. Yes, for things like paper supplies, but weekly seems less stressful to me. Even in our family of four, things go bad before I can use them.

I would instead encourage finding places for good fresh vegetables and proteins and simply keeping a well stocked pantry like most people do. Stocking a basic pantry

icedragon · May 2012

Well, would it be doable if i took advantage of that costco? It is right across the street from one of my Uni's buildings (thus i can jump on the shuttle bus to get to it). I would probably only use it for veggies and such, then i could get back and cook up half of it and freeze it for later use and such

VeryHappy · May 2012

Yes, but why?? If it's convenient, just buy fresh veggies once a week. If you freeze them, they lose texture, flavor, and nutrients.

Moreover · May 2012

Remember that many Costco products are packaged in very large quantities. Could you eat lunch out at a salad bar or place with lots of fresh stuff on the third or fourth week of the month after you run out of fresh stuff? Make it a social time to see your friends to justify the expense. My daughter's school will also let you take a piece of fruit out of the cafeteria with your meal. You can get boxed milk in individual sizes or a bigger box.

lookingforward · May 2012

I big-shop once a month- and just get a few extras in-between, plus milk, veggies, salad. The trick is you have to be able to anticipate what you'll need over the course of a month. I find that each in-between trip always slurps a bit over that trip's mental budget, which adds up.

I either cut large items like a roast or chicken before freezing or cook whole, then freeze portions. When the kids were little, we shopped BJ's and I also broke down those big boxes of kid things into smaller packages, so they fit better in the freezer. It's worth it to have very good freezer bags and also wrap items within them, to avoid drying out.

Your issue will be carrying so many bags back. For that reason, when I lived in an area without a car, I started with multiple trips for staples- the canned things, oil, pbutter, tp, whatever. Then, could pare each big trip. Or, you get a ride from someone- or parents when they are there.

If you know what you like, managing this way is easy. And, Annasdad, I love Aldi!
Oh, btw, both colleges I work for have CSA arrangements. But, you pick up the goods at some location. This is probably covered somewhere on the web sites.

thumper1 · May 2012

Aldi fan here too. I really love the place for certain things. It's not uniformly outstanding but I do love their yogurt, milk products, cottage cheese, and many of their cereals and crackers.

The key to shopping monthly is having sufficient STORAGE for what you buy.

SunnySally · May 2012

Shopping just once a month can be tricky. As other posters said you do need to have some storage for stuff that you get. I have been to Aldi, but was not thrilled with what i saw there. I like to buy certain things only if i know the brand. One good thing to look for in shopping are small spots that sell fresh produce. You can get some good deals if you buy from smaller places such as the "corner" store that gets it's stuff from roving salespeople. Like people that take stuff directly from the farms and then sell it to small stores.

There are some vegetables that keep well in the freezer. Soybeans, or endamame is good right from the freezer as is spinach. I would imagine that you could get some rice noodles and have them with a peanut sauce. Since you love peanut butter, you might like peanut sauce on noodles.

i use sesame oil, spicy chile sauce(if you can handle it)plain ground peanut butter, garlic, soy sauce, some rice wine vinegar and chopped scallions. The recipe is mostly peanut butter with maybe equal parts of the others and then to suit your taste. It is really good with pan fried tilapia and basil.

icedragon · May 2012

I don't drive and i do not know the bus route well enough.

I will, probably learn the bus route somehow and figure it out from there.

My mom may come down every so often (depends on how she is feeling) so i can do major stock ups then.

Unfortienently, my school does not have a good salad bar. They have one in the main eatery, but it isn't well kept up and everything tends to get cross contaminated

They also sell salads in prepackaged portions, but again, due to my tomato allergy, I can't go for it.

lookingforward · May 2012

We found that sometimes buying a few of the sealed (not just zipped) bags of cut lettuce is worth the fact that they are slightly more expensive. (I like it when they're on sale.) They don't age as fast as loose heads. Not until you open them.

Also, for larger trips, it can be worth it to shell out the $5 or so to get back to your apt, with lots of bags, via taxi. Good luck.

Emaheevul07 · June 2012

Maybe you could use something like this? Amazon.com: American Trading House, Inc. H1001XL-Heavy Duty Shopping Cart in Black: Home & Kitchen This is what we used to have to do when we had to take the bus into town to get groceries.

thumper1 · June 2012

icedragon, my kid did NOT have a car on campus at all in college...but she had plenty of friends who did. Since they all needed to go grocery shopping at times, my kid just offered to chip in for gas for the trips. They were all friends. It worked out well...also sometimes there are buy one get one free offers or even buy one get two free. When she went with a friend, they were able to take advantage of these offers.

walkinghome · June 2012

I'm sure you will get it all figured out icedragon, but you might want to simply look at sale items at your local small grocers instead of cluttering up your small apartment with warehouse sized items. I find that cereal, for instance, is usually less expensive at my local grocery store when it's on sale and I have a coupon then it is at Costco.

food shopping once a month...

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