There’s a store like half a block from my apartment, so I just treat it like an external pantry.
I have a spouse and child. Winging it simply would not fly.
Anything less than strict adherence to a list would be another fight… and there are already too many of those.
Yes
Finally an answer I can relate to.
A little of both. As a mom you get used to doing a mental inventory of what you have and what you need to create meals for everyone while trying to reduce waste
Grocery list and I take a pen along and mark everything off when it goes into the cart.
Yeah, I’m old.
I’d love to have a database with all my recipes with ingredients and add them at a click of the button. The problem is I have a fairly well stocked kitchen and I still need to go through the list anyway to make sure I’m not buying anything I already have. So having a computerized system really doesn’t save me any time.
Wing it
I did worse than wing it actually… half of the groceries I got over the past few weeks were from Too Good To Go, so near-expired food that the grocery store winged-it for me💀
It’s a bit of both. We do have a list with the staple items and foods we buy and we check it to see if our pantry needs refilling but other than than we just take what we think would be good and/or useful
I make a menu that includes two breakfasts (6 and 9 am) a lunch (11) and six dinners. I account for what i have and list the rest of the needs. Then i go shopping and add two treats(for snacking or dessert) and two beverages (oj, pop, prebrewed coffee, rtc) and a freezer pizza.
If i have to go back that week for anything, i fucked up.
two breakfasts
I stopped winging it after all too often ending up with both a fridge full of rotting produce and yet also nothing to eat. Turns out grocery shopping needs some strategy that I can’t do without help.
AnyList has been an awesome tool for me. It’s got all my recipes, a meal plan building to sketch out the next week, and builds a shopping list so I can only buy the things I will for sure cook with.
It’s also made me realize I’m not about to buy fresh herbs or green onions when they’re only going to be used as a bit of garnish for one dish.
For me the meal planning is more important than the shopping list.
Even with a list I still may get a bunch of random stuff and no meals. But if I know what meals I want to make, I can do a decent job even winging it
List
make a list, then also wing it at the store.
Both.
My grocery list is just to prevent me forgetting the main points. So three items on the list “cat litter, dinner somehow, bake a cake” turns into any number of things bought as I decide on what to make for dinner and which cake to bake while shopping.
I make a list of the things I need, organized by the places I need to stop and buy them and a list of the things I need to do
When I lived alone I did not need a list. I did meal prep and for most perishables I could get away with using a whole unit so as long as I remembered the recepie I was fine most of the time.
Living with a girlfriend that is a very picky eater that changes what she likes every day made it too complex to keep track of. She sends me the list, I go by the store on my way home from work.
