Grocery Shopping

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I have a question for women both AS and NT. When I go to the store to go get products or groceries I get the groceries on the list and that is it. All men I know so far do this. They are NT men. With women, it is different. Women go all around the store in this zig zag fashion and buy stuff that is not on the list because they see it on sale. Do AS women do this as well? This is a strange phenomom to me.

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Azurecrayon, I noticed you posted about your husband and grocery shopping. For me, it is not social anxiety. My wife does the same thing you do. All women I know do this. It can take hours. What I do not understand is why do women take hours in the store when it should take only five minutes by just following the list? Why do women I know so far go in this zig zag pattern? What is the logic behind this?

Ok, when I go shopping I have a VERY limited budget and our store loves to move things around on me. I go in (with 3-4 kids with me) get the items on my list first. They are the we must have items. Then if there is a good sale on something AND I have the left over money I will back track for some other things. I can get all this done in about 30 minutes. If I go shopping with my mother(not often any more and you will see why) she causes the trip to last 2, yes, 2 hours. From what I have seen with her it is because she picks up what feels like every single item in the store and debates if she should buy it or not, or which one is better then the other , or some other thing. I wonder someday's if it is because she has(ok, she thinks she has) a lot of excess money so she suddenly forgot how to shop.

Aspie female here:

If I have a list, I'll follow it and get what's on it, and move towards the cashier.
If I don't have a list it can take ages. Not out of any like for grocery shopping, but because it's dead boring, and I'm so fed up with most foods anyway, so it's a real pain to choose something as nothing tempts me.

With or without a list I will stop if the shop in question have DVDs, games or pocket books, and flip through them.

So, with a list: quick and effective.
Without a list: Wandering around, trying hard to find some tempting food items.

If I were to go shopping by myself, I would only get items on my list and get out of there ASAP. But I go shopping with my mom because I can't drive, and she always gets distracted. I don't mind though, because I think she's cute when she gets distracted.

My NT husband hates shopping more than anyone I know. I don't really like doing it either, but he practically has a meltdown if he's in the grocery store for more than 15 minutes. Adding a shopping app to our phones helped because our lists are synced and he can grab things from around the store and bring them to the cart, but that only helps with things that are on the list. Sometimes, you have to walk through the store to remember something that you need (because you forgot to put it on the list) or you find a good sale. If I find a good sale on a roast in the meat department, I might have to go back down the condiment aisle to get BBQ sauce and the bread aisle to get buns. My husband can't take that, but if we did it his way, we'd have to go to the store every couple of days and since he hates grocery shopping, that's not a good solution either. We've just decided that I'll go grocery shopping and he'll bring all the groceries in the house which works for me because I have a bad back and we live upstairs. Not only is he happier because he doesn't have to go grocery shopping, we're also saving money because I can find the sales. I'm still never at the grocery store for more than an hour.

I WISH my boyfriend was like this, I WISH WISH WISH! I am female and I like to go in and out quick tootsweet, knowing what I want to buy and getting the hell outta there! My boyfriend on the other hand likes to go round and look at everything and touch everything, it's like he's a 5 year old and it takes so much time. Sometimes I will join him if we are not in a hurry and won't mind so much, but on occasions where it's like 8.30pm and we have popped in for bread and milk we don't have time to spend an hour in the store messing about for no reason and it drives me completely batty and I want to throttle him. Especially when he's fannying about with stuff like the demonstration ipads which we would never be able to afford to buy brand new anyway, so it's even MORE pointless as far as I'm concerned.

(Sorry to bring another anomaly to your theory LOL ;o))

lol, I've already accounted for this anomaly. I said, "All men I know." I do not know your boyfriend so I considered this possibility already. As you implied some men do this to.

I have to go with my wife so she don't spend too much money. This would not work for our household. I am like your husband I can't take it either but I deal with it. It is either I deal with it or she spends too much money. I choose the lesser of the two evils.

I have almost everything delivered. It's easier to find what I want at the best price.

And yes, this includes food.

My husband (Mostly NT but with some definite AS traits) does most of the grocery shopping and he does a pretty good job so we don't have to, as one poster said, make repeated trips to the store throughout the week. He's good at getting all the things that need to be purchased on a regular basis but for things that you don't buy often, e.g. olive oil, sugar, flour, spices... if I don't write it down on a list, he will never remember that they need to be bought. I don't always get the opportunity to make a list before he goes out so this is kind of an ongoing issue (though far from a major one). On the rare occaision when I do go shopping, either with him or by myself, I do tend to look at what's on sale at least for things that have long shelf lives or can be frozen. It can really save money if you stock up on meat, e.g., when it is on a good sale if you have space to keep it in the freezer for a while. This is something my husband would not generally think to do. I don't spend a lot of time debating about it whether or not to buy certain items that may be on sale,as some here have described, becuase I usually just want to get in and out quickly as well. So I'm kinda in between. I usually don't stick solely to the list if I have one but I don't spend a lot of time regardless even if I don't have 2 kids in tow. 45 min-1 hr tops.

I would also point out that advertising, in general, involves sophisticated research into the NT mind...most advertising is carefully designed to make you spend more time in the store, to leave with stuff you didn't plan to buy, and to spend more than you planned.

Fortunately for people on the spectrum, much of this manipulation is on a social communication level - so an Aspie (if he or she can get over the sensory overload that is a grocery store) can waltz right through and pick items based solely on logic and need. My mother was the master at this; her "sales resistance" was formidable. I have it less, but I'm definitely not as brand conscious as many NTs I know.

This is an area where people on the spectrum do better than NTs, plain and simple.

if by "the same thing you do" you mean what i described in that other thread, i look at the labels of things, yes, i do do that. ironically, one reason i do that is because my SO hates buying things with high fructose corn syrup, so i often look at the ingredients list, and he still gets upset even when i am doing it because of what HE wants to know. we also have done low carb a couple times and i still try to buy lower carb items when not on low carb, and even when i have to look at labels to make sure they are good for our chosen way of eating, he was still getting upset with me for taking time to look at a label. i will buy things on sale that are not on my list, because we are essentially poor and cant afford to pay full price if we can get it cheaper. thats also another reason i check labels, for sizes in comparison to similar products. i also like to use coupons to save more money, and will take the time to make sure the product is the exactly right one on the coupon.

i actually prefer to shop by a list, but my SO refuses to make one and hates helping me make one. when we use a list, we zip through the store really fast, when we dont, it may take 60-75 minutes at the store. hardly "hours", and considering we shop maybe once every 7-10 days for a family of 5, an hour is perfectly acceptable.

much of the reason i shop the way i do is because of my own neurological issues (i am really neither asd or nt). i believe i shop pretty quick, but i am self diagnosed ocpd. a few of the traits of ocpd which i have are difficulty with and anxiety over making decisions, preoccupation with lists/rules/order (i like my kitchen cabinets to look like the scene in "Sleeping with the Enemy" when the husband finds Julia Roberts), miserly attitude towards spending money, rigidity and inflexibility. i am not sure exactly what you mean by a zig zag pattern but i like to go through the store in an ordered fashion, i start at the back and go up and down every aisle, yes i guess kind of zig zag, when i dont have a list; this is because without a list to go by, i need to see everything to decide what i need to buy. with a list i hit only the aisles i need to be in.

so, how i shop has nothing to do with being a woman, and everything to do with how my brain is wired =)

I'm not sure AS/ASD and NT have anything to do with this choice of shopping style. I think it may be, in part, learned from the shopping parent.

I shop both ways. It depends on the shopping trip. When I do a BIG, fill the pantry kind trip, I have a needs list in my head and check out the sales to see if I can save on some staple. I'll occassionally go in looking to explore new brands, or new foods. Some trips have a list of filler needs and thats all that gets bought - I tend to buy alot of fresh veggies so that trip is done 2-3 times a week. I'm lucky to live in dense suburb so the distances are small. I'm sure if I lived more rurally my technique would change.

I have always been curious if any Aspies have taken up extreme couponing... it seems like a very Aspie pasttime to me.

Aspie here and I always get what we usually get. Sometimes I will grab something that we don't usually get. Sometimes I see something on sale so I want to get it or sometimes I might feel like having a treat. My husband does the same thing too, sometimes grabs something random off the shelf or decides to get a dessert.

My wife and I have saved a lot of money on couponing. We have bought over $300 worth of groceries in which the store owed us money one time.



I agree with the list. You're right it is hardly hours.



I don't think you're asd or nt either. From what you say, you do shop pretty quick. I hate spending a lot of money. I get this horrible feeling when I spend a lot of money. When it comes to money, I. have to know exactly what is going on. I need to know all of the ins and outs of it. I guess I have high rigidity issues myself and I can be inflexible. I've have been called controlling and a control freak. I can be miserly myself. I think League_Girl understands where I am coming from and what I am talking about.

This is what I mean by a zig zag fashion. http://www.madblast.com/funny/8861_how- ... ently.html



This is very interesting indeed. I wish your SO came on here and posted his thoughts.

By the way, when there is a lot of people in the store I become very ansy and combatitive. I can come across as an as*hole. I don't mean to. I just become anxious. I'm working on it.

I was thinking it was a man vs. woman thing more than AS vs. NT.



Does your children and husband come with you?

I have always been curious if any Aspies have taken up extreme couponing... it seems like a very Aspie pasttime to me.[/quote]

My wife and I have. She is non-ASD.