How do you food shop?

I often buy too much but tend to freeze quite a lot or make soup from veggies I am not going to use for dinners. The slow cooker is useful for making a large amount of casseroles, then they can be frozen in portions.

DH did say that if we got snowed in we could keep ourselves going for quite a long time (as long as the gas and electricity were still on).

Some breakfast cereals contain over 30% added sugar - that's not healthy, in my opinion.

I disagree too and I would add that breakfast cereals have the added benefit that they don't need cooking so children can get their own breakfast, should parents or grandparents wish it (my mum did and I do) from a relatively early age. Great for encouraging a certain kind of independence.

Not that my kids needed encouragement in that direction

I agree with you gillybob -plain cereals are ok!

apricot my GC are the leanest most healthy children you could ever meet. None are overweight ( infact skinny is probably closer to the mark) they eat fruit, vegetables and very few sweeties. They take part in swimming, gymnastics,horse riding, football etc. every week. They eat very little bread ( toast) although elder granddaughter has thing for croissants at the minute. I disagree with your comment that "cereal is unhealthy."

I shop, cook and freeze like FlicketyB and waste almost nothing. Nor do I buy loads of cleaning products, I use concentrated Fairy liquid for most jobs.
Gillybob, breakfast cereals are junk food. Plain (and economical) foods like porage, toast and eggs are more satisfying and healthier.

I do not think doing a monthly big shop necessarily equates with buying too much and throwing food away. I never bought perishables when doing a big shop. Those were bought weekly and if my planned menu changed then any new plans, and the following weeks were drawn up with the food that needed consuming in mind.

I think freezers are very underused appliances when it comes to reducing food waste. My fridge is generally almost empty because apart from things like cheese, which is used over a week if anything is going to be there for more than 24 hours it gets put in the freezer instead. Vegetables and fruit can be cooked and frozen for later use if they are beginning to get stale. I usually make casseroles and stews with a pound of meat and then divide it into three, one quantity eaten on the day, the other two portions frozen for later use. I think the key to reducing waste is portion control. Do not prepare more food than will be eaten and serve meals plated up.

We shop now at Lidl for most of our meat and fresh veg as I find it is such good quality and lasts longer.
Most tinned stuff & washing liquid is delivered along with dog food every month from Ocado where I will wait for an offer to come thrrough saving maybe £10/20 on a big shop,just depends how the store cupboard is looking.
I never shop at Adsa as we have the most awful checkout assistants in our local store I also steer clear of Tesco's their veg is days old.
I use all the leftover veg every Monday for soup and throw away very little,I tend to just top up on fresh milk and bread during the week from a local bakery,supporting local shops is a must for me.

Yes kittylester I do. As I said earlier I did used to do a big shop and found it difficult to work out how much to buy and always tended to overbuy things that often got thrown out. Now I find it so easy to pop into the Morrisons or Asda near to where I work and get exactly what I need for a day or two. Obviously every few weeks I do buy two packs of butter, soap powder etc. and I do "bulk buy" cereals for the DGC, but definitely find food shopping more economical when I buy little and often.

Gillybob, do you think you save money shopping in that way? As I said at the beginning, we have been told that one big shop is the most cost effective way ! I try to do that so I don't have to keep going to the shops but no week ever runs to plan which is where the freezer comes into its own!

I leave it to HymnsElf who gets up at 6.00 every morning, Saturday included, when he gets to Lidl as they open, then to Sainsbury's for anything Lidl haven't got and then to the greengrocer to support a local business.

Any wine comes from the Wine Society, membership of which was a splendid birthday present some years ago from old friends.

I browse the splendid market midweek for fruit and vegetables and use these to inspire me.

We do a weekly shop at the supermarket we pass on our way back from our archery club practice on a Sunday. It happens to be Waitrose. If it were Adli or Lidl that would do just as well. DH works in a city so I sometimes ask him to get something from Boots or some other shop near his place of work during the week. And sometimes I go to the village shop for some milk. I hate shopping.

Up until a year or so ago, I used to "big shop". Now we are on a tight budget and I tend to plan our meals quite carefully working out what we can use and what we need for each meal. I no longer have a fridge full of "goodies" and find that I now throw very little out. These days I tend to do 3 or 4 small shops a week (tying in with shopping for grandma) and carefully plan everything in advance. My biggest expenditure on food is the never ending supply of breakfast cereals enjoyed by the DGC who like to have a choice together with DGD no.1's new found liking of chocolate croissants.

Living in a village it isn't easy to top up, I do a weekly shop and get most things at Waitrose, it has a large free car park and their Essentials range is about the same price as basic necessities in other supermarkets.

However, my local Waitrose has been updated, it has a juice bar, wine bar and coffee area in addition to the cafe, I usually find shopping in Waitrose a pleasant experience, but today I seemed to be constantly avoiding other people's trollies, it might have been because it was busy, but I think the aisles are narrower, my daughter said that her friends have made similar comments. The letter system in the car park has been removed, I was told that it was old fashioned, I hope they rethink that one, even young people have difficulty finding their cars sometimes. I haven't been updated and I am beginning to feel quite nostalgic for way in which we shopped when I was a child.

I don't drive so have to shop on foot and often. I get most things at Waitrose, whose basics are all price-matched to the cheaper supermarkets. I don't buy their expensive luxuries.
No access to Lidl or Aldi. I get all greengrocery in the market.
I wish I could my cat and dog food at better prices. When I ordered on-line they kept delivering it to the wrong address. It gets increasingly difficult and expensive to live in a small rural town.

DH does the cooking during the week and I do Saturday and Sunday. He shops at Tesco, generally on Mondays and Wednesdays and I go on Saturdays. If we are out and about we may shop elsewhere. This week we have been in Waitrose and Lidl, where I bought a tin of sardines and a bar of chocolate. I have just eaten the chocolate.

I don't like food shopping, so prefer to do it in one big weekly go at a well-known supermarket. Sooner or later I will do it online, but for now I think it's good for me to get out of the house and mingle.
I top up locally with fresh veg etc. when necessary.

Ditto Flick & janeain - mostly because Mr. F has very little spacial awareness so there's been many a kurfuffle in the past with baskets and trolleys .

I buy in season (cheaper)
At Lidls mostly (cheaper + good veg)
Plan menus (cheaper) but always have flexibility ....
One a week for eating stuff
Once a month for other stuff.
Splurge on good wine, cheese, fish and coffee at a.n.o. supermarkets or street markets.

janeainsworth, never take DH shopping with me for anything. He doesn't want to come and I can do it so much quicker on my own.

I used to be very organised when all the children were at home, planned a week's menus and shopped once a week at whichever supermarket happened to be occupying the premises nearest to us.

Now there are just the two of us and I'm retired, I only plan one or two days in advance as we can then be more flexible and go out if we feel like it.

I've never seen the point of driving miles to a superstore to save a few pounds, when it takes so much more time both to get there and back, and to walk round the store, and then there's the cost of petrol.

I get as much as I can by popping into the local Co-op on the way back from wherever I've been, and anything I can't get at the Co-op I get from Waitrose a mile away.

I do wish there was a local butcher and greengrocer, we have a local baker next to the Co-op and I get all our bread from him.

I admire those of you who go shopping with your DHs. I have to do this when we are in the States because I don't drive in the US and it is purgatory

I have to do a weekly shop as we live in the middle of nowhere and petrol costs would be too high if I drove into town more than once a week.

I buy everything in Aldi, including pet food but pop across the road to Sainsburys once a month because I like to buy their meat for freezing. I don't bother with independent butchers because I can't park near them but we often barter with fellow smallholders for lamb and pork.

I shop at Asda online, as hubby won`t go shopping. We have a delivery every Wednesday. Not too many problems, things are sometimes not available, in which case they usually substitute, but if I don`t want the substitute I can send it back. Any oddments that I forget I get up town on Saturday.

Too often and too much.

Running list on fridge, non rigid weekly shop, with top up by whoever is going near a shop when out.
Butcher delivery, and frozen fruit from fil's garden. Apples from own orchard.

I have a running list on the fridge, but it's mostly milk, butter, cheese and cleaning stuff. The majority of our food comes from the allotment or freezer (we have a deer and a pig in there usually). I pick up whatever's needed from Lidl, Waitrose, Co-op or the local Spar depending upon which is most convenient at the time. I am definitely a shopping tart, but on principle I rarely shop in Tesco if there's an alternative.