Once-a-Month Grocery Shopping

SOooo...let's create some background here.

Last year (about this exact time, actually) I was stymied by all of these Pinterest pins and blog posts about grocery shopping once a month. I just couldn't even fathom going that long without re-stocking fresh produce, and other such perishable items! At that point, I was grocery shopping once every week or two, nothing crazy. I also kind of liked grocery shopping...I like food, and I enjoy cooking...so it was kind of exciting to be surrounded with all of the possibilities! Ha.

But I also like saving money. Not in a save-money-no-matter-what! kind of way...but definitely in a student-family-needs-to-keep-it-frugal kind of way.

I was curious, so I started by evaluating how much I had spent on groceries/household-necessities for the past three months. I thought I was super-thrifty...so the amount I actually spent kind of shocked me. It was the motivation I needed to look into the whole idea more seriously.

So I did it for a few months last winter...AND I LOVED IT. I plan to do it again this year...and just read a post that got me all pumped up about it again. Since I've got it back on the brain, I figured I'd share what I learned the last time around...y'know freshen up and air out my memory, or something like that.

Number One Concern for me was fresh produce. I love me my fruits and veggies! And it's important to me to feed them to my family. I didn't get how it worked to just buy them once a month... But THIS POST totally changed my brain when it came to how I thought about it. After reading it, having fresh produce the whole month sounded actually do-able for the first time.

My own best tips for produce:

-Initially, I listed all the fruits and vegetables I could possibly think of that my family actually used. I then went through each fruit or veggie and put a number "1" beside them if it would only last a week or less..."2" if it would last up to 2 weeks..."3" if it would last up to three weeks...and "4" beside the ones that could last all month. This gave me a good, giant reference list. And helped me know which meals needed to be planned for which weeks (ie. Taco Salad in the first week, when the lettuce, tomatoes, and avocados are around). It actually surprised me how many I had that could last the whole month: carrots, beets and other root veggies, apples, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, even things like cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli in the right conditions (coincidence that most of those that keep for longer are "winter veggies?" I think not. Side benefit of shopping once a month through the winter? Eating more seasonally! Awesome.)

-Leafy greens: I would buy a TON of leafy greens (especially spinach & kale). For the first week or two it's lots of fresh salads. Weeks three and four we get our daily greens by making frozen smoothie bags. Frozen greens also make a great addition to stir-fry's, soups, spinach lasagnas...PLUS! we would even juice greens and freeze the juice in ice cube trays to add to smoothies...or to thaw and sip slowly in a glass.

-Juicing: the first couple weeks were fresh-pressed green juices, the last couple more of the beets, apples, and carrot juices...with maybe a green juice ice cube tossed in (see above).

-I would buy bananas like crazy, too, because they got eaten fresh, frozen in smoothie bags, or frozen and made into banana bread or banana "ice cream."

-The freezer is your best friend. I realized that I totally under-appreciated frozen veggies and fruits before shopping once a month. Example? Avocados can be frozen (scooped out of the skin) and then thawed for guacamole. Awesome.

-Look up internet tips and tricks for keeping produce fresh longer. The "wrap celery in tin foil" one actually works alright!

And dairy.

-My mom has always frozen milk growing up, so it was easy to imagine buying enough for the month and just thawing a jug when needed. The catch with this one is enough freezer space. If we did run out, it was the perfect opportunity to try dairy substitutes like coconut milk and homemade nut milks. We use these more often than dairy milk this year anyways, so I don't anticipate any problems this year.

-Cheese can be shredded and frozen, but it also keeps pretty well on its own for the month, too. You can apparently freeze cheese in slices as well, but I've never tried it...I can see it being useful for making sandwiches at the end of the month, though. I would shred a block and freeze it in smaller quantities since we usually use cheese for things like quesadillas, soup toppings, and tacos anyways.

-Blocks of butter freeze and thaw beautifully.

-Eggs last a month. Just take them out of their carton and place them all into a little basket or container in your fridge, gently piling them on top of each other. Takes up less space.

-Our plain, full-fat yogurt lasted the month just fine.

And meats.

-We don't really eat a lot of meat, but what we do eat, we would buy in bulk and freeze in smaller portions so we only had to thaw a meal-sized amount at one time.

-Right after grocery shopping, I would cook and shred half of my chicken breasts (or thighs, whatever). and stick the cooked, shredded meat into the freezer in its own bag. That way it was convenient for soups, toss into quesadillas, white chili's, etc. Just made a real meal so much more accessible on the days where I didn't want to cook...


Pros to shopping once-a-month:

-A healthier view of grocery shopping. Grocery shopping was kind of my 'retail therapy' before, and it was fun and exciting to me to imagine what I could make with so many choices, and something to get-out-of-the-house and do...which it still is, in a way...but now I feel like it's not the "hobby" it once was. After once-a-month for a few months, it became something with less emotional implications and just something that needed to get done. Which also translated into spending less.

-It challenged me, creatively, in the kitchen. When things would start to run out near the end of the month, I was determined to try and make it until the end of the month anyways...so it would push me to use what I had on hand and not just run out to the store and grab some more of what I thought I needed. I actually used the vegetables that I had frozen earlier and was finally pushed to home-make things that I hadn't really needed to before (like finally cooking dried beans...ha!). I surprised myself with meals I never would have tried otherwise... that were actually delicious and nutritious despite thinking I had "nothing in the house."

-It saved money. I think this is for two reasons: like I said in the first reason, it helped me not grocery shop as a "hobby" anymore, which reduced the emotional spending. The second reason is simply that when you are not at the store as often, there's not as much opportunity to spend on things you don't need.

-More time to spend on other fun stuff! My kids are good grocery shoppers, so it was always a fun little outing for us, but after hauling them and groceries around to a few stores, the rest of the day was pretty much shot for being productive as we came home spent. Grocery shopping once means more days that can be used for play dates, drop-in activities at the local YMCA, walks, and other fun things.

The downsides of once-a-month shopping:

-HAVING ENOUGH SPACE to put everything, whether it be freezer space, fridge space, or counter/shelf space. I would always feel like I was drowning in groceries for the first week or two. And that my fridge and freezers were overflowing. We have an upright deep freeze...and a "produce shelf" in the kitchen has helped tons...but I still anticipate feeling a little overwhelmed every time I'm putting a month of groceries away. Waiting until the very last second to go grocery shopping helped with making room, I found.

-Having your entire monthly grocery amount in one large, lump sum. I realize this isn't really a problem for most, but a student budget combined with an owning-your-own-business budget can get kind of patchy sometimes, so sometimes having ALL of our grocery money for the month at the beginning of the month was not always realistic.

-In my opinion, it's something that only really works through the winter months. Once the Spring produce rolls in, I start grocery shopping (even if it's just produce!) a little more often. I try and eat fairly seasonally, and the spring and summer produce (asparagus! strawberries! peaches!) doesn't keep as well. During this past summer, I tried to just get non-perishables once or twice a month...and then get produce at the farmer's market on a weekly basis.

-Last time I did once a month shopping, I had two kids that both fit in the cart so I could take them on one giant grocery shopping trip...now, though, I have three kiddos and that won't work...so this time around, I'll have to go by myself.

Extra details?

-I meal-planned, but not rigidly...it was more like a list of meals I would make that month, with them grouped into "The First Two Weeks" and "The Last Two Weeks" just to make sure that I got the ingredients I needed while I was out. That said, I live in a big city not in the middle of nowhere...so there was always a little money leftover to run out and grab something if reeeeally reeeeally needed. I tried not to, though, just because it was an experiment to see if it would ACTUALLY work to just go once.

-I was using debit last year, and still spent less...but this year I am only using cash, since it's been working for us for the past several months. It's proven to be effective for our family at keeping us on budget, and I anticipate it will be save us even more in the groceries department this year, too.

-Last year, I went to Costco and Superstore with occasional visits to our local Health Food store for things that I just couldn't find at either Costco or Superstore. I don't think I'd make that number of stores any higher. It worked for our family's needs.

-I froze bread, or just made it with my super-fast-super-easy recipe. Someday, I want to learn to make slow, beautiful breads...but not now.


Okay, I think that's all I can dump out of my head at the moment.
This made me totally excited to start up again; I'd love to hear any tips you've got. I need 'em!