Grocery Shopping

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I hate cooking. Wait, no, allow me to clarify. I hate grocery shopping. I also hate cleaning, but that became easier after I switched to an apartment with a dishwasher. However, I despise picking out what to buy for dinner. There's too much to decide from in the supermarket! I used to decide based on what coupons were available a given week, but now that I switched apartments, the nearest grocery store doesn't have coupons. It just has a sales book, and there's too much in it! I wound up getting myself too worked up (though I kept myself from making a spectacle of myself, don't worry) and left empty handed. But I probably need to get over this sort of thing at some point, right? Does anyone have any good systems by which they decide what to buy at the supermarket?

On grocery day I usually get the same things I get at the grocery day before, but a few different things for new recipes and what not.

as a single person, i find it just as cost effective to eat out most of the time. For example, a single bacon cheeseburger and an order of fries at Wendys comes to about $3.75. Supermarkets generally dont sell single servings so to make a single cheeseburger with fries comes up to:

1lb ground beef $4.50
(see, first item on the list and ive already spent more than a whole meal)
six pack of bulkie rolls $2.50
pack of american cheese slices $2.50
14oz(small) bottle of ketchup $1.25
8oz bottle of mustard $1
Bag of frozen fries $2.50

Grand total: $14.25

Yes, theoretically i could have more than one meal from that purchase, but frozen rolls and frozen meat never come out the same. Supermarkets are not meant for single people, as I have learned the hard way. Its far easier to order a large pizza from a local shop for about $7.50-$9.00 and refrigerate the leftover, which amounts to $3.75-$4.50 per meal. And on top of that, I dont have to cook or clean the kitchen, in fact, food rarely makes it to the kitchen, i often eat while still sitting in the car.

For breakfast, my usual is a bottle of soda and a candy bar, which can be purchased "in bulk" making the cost per meal just over one dollar.

Yeah, that's typically what I do too, but my costs go a bit higher, since I'm supposed to be watching what I eat (my blood sugar levels have come out too high the past few times, and my dad was recently diagnosed with diabetes). Because of that, plus the fact that I live in the city, meals usually wind up costing me six or seven bucks (with breakfast coming out to about two or so). I figured because of that, it may be cheaper to simply make somewhat healthy food from home.

I buy the same things when I go grocery shopping. It rarely take more than five minutes. I don't enjoy making food, but I don't usually enjoy eating food that's prepared by other people either—unless I've seen the food while it's being made.

Sometimes I just don't want to deal with anything more difficult than opening a can. Other times, I really enjoy cooking.

My kitchen is super small though so it's not that easy to cook. It's very cramped.

I decide before I go shopping. I plan my entire week's menu the weekend before, that way I don't have to think in the supermarket or at night when I'm tired and not up to planning dinner.

I like to eat the same things each week, with as much frequency as my family will allow, so we have a grocery list that is almost the same each week. It depends on what you like to eat. If you're single and no one else minds, why not decide what to have on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc and then just know that you are having it for dinner, and buy that.

What do you like for breakfast?
Lunch?
Dinner?
Snacks?

I usually have the same thing for breakfast for most days, similar type things for lunch, and then whatever dinner thing my family is interested. For example: I make smoothies for breakfast, have sandwiches or hummus and crackers for lunch, and then for dinner we have grilled chicken and frozen veggies, tacos, spaghetti, ground turkey burgers, rice and beans, chicken casserole, things like that. For snacks and times when I don't feel like making something I buy: cereal, instant oatmeal, apples and peanut butter, carrots, pistachios, jelly beans

Then when you have a list it becomes familiar to you at the store, where to pick up your items, and you can breeze through the list each time a little faster so it is less of a huge chore because you know where the same things are and have a list of exactly what is needed.

just make sure you thaw out your frozen things ahead of time for dinner the next day.

This is where the aspieness in me shows itself. Since I hate shopping, I usually go in and busy what I'll be eating that month. If it's Chinese food then everything I buy and eat that month will be Chinese food. If it's seafood month, then that's all I'll buy and eat. I've had pizza months (can you imagine walking out of a supermarket with boxes upon boxes of pizza?), Indian food months, cold cuts months, mac & cheese months, Indian food months (those I actually don't care for too much because frozen Indian food is tasteless and eating out can add up after a while) and pasta months. I'd buy punds of all different kinds of pasta and all different kinds of spaghetti sauces - fettuccini Afredo, meated and meatless, four cheese, etc.

No mention of Aldi?

I have a sick fetish with this supermarket, so much so I'm starting to think if Hitler had colonised the world it wouldn't have been an entirely bad thing.

Da Germans Yah!

Any one else

Sorry I also have an unhealthy obsession with the Germans to which is surprising really as a German (I'm Swiss) is a slightly inferior Swiss persons (the Swiss look down at every one their just to polite to say it ! )

@aussiebloke - You'll like my latest novella. It's set in 1960. It's about survivors of a cruise ship accident who accidentally an uncharted island where Hitler and Eva Braun live in exile. Yes, they survived the bombing of Berlin 1n 1945 and the coupled buried by the Russians hastily were "stand ins."

I hate checkout lines and how I always get the person with WIC checks, bad credit cards, or some other problem.