How long do you think you could not go to the supermarket?

[laughoutquiet]

How many days do you think you (or whoever does the shopping) could manage without going? It's just me and DH.

Due to long running furlough and limited funds, I thought I'd see what I could do. Pre-covid I was a lazy planner and used to go for small (but relatively expensive!) shops every couple of days. Lockdown has forced me into going once a week and now I have a proper freezer too.

I'm going to try 2 weeks. I haven't especially shopped for this, the fridge is not full to the gunnels but the freezer is around half full. Dry store about average. No takeaways allowed.

Shite, I just thought about milk

Maybe 10 days? DH and I could maybe last 2 weeks but the DC would start whinging when the nice fruit and snacks ran out.

The way we normally eat every 5-7 days we need to shop. But if we made a few swaps and did a bit of extra food freezing could probably manage 2-3 weeks comfortably.

1 week under normal circumstances as we run out of fresh stuff.

My freezer and kitchen are also small.

Could live for a couple of weeks eating random stuff. With no fruit and veg or milk and bread etc.

If we ate frozen fruit and veg rather than fresh we could go about 5 to 6 weeks easily. We could then go another month or more if we only ate pasta, rice, lentils, chickpeas, beans etc.

I freeze bread and milk. A previous poster said frozen milk is horrible but that is not true at all. Always have frozen fruit and veg in the freezer along with home made soup and home made meals.

We do a big shop about every 6 to 8 weeks and just shop for fresh fruit and veg as we need it - we try to make it as in frequent as possible as neither of us like shopping

We get an online shop every two weeks but we get things in between from the co op or local shop and butchers

Some of the supermarkets now do filter milk that's a bit cheaper but still has a longer date and lasts 7 days when opened.

I do a 'big' shop once a month because I meal plan and tend to buy similar stuff, and then buy milk/bread/fruit/veg fresh once a week. I just had shopping to be honest, but I do find it helps to keep spending on food under control too. I used to go as and when and it's surprising how much spending creeps up that way- the odd fiver here and there over a month can be quite a lot!

Hate shopping*

I'm sure we could go a lot longer than we think, we'd just have to eat meals we didn't really fancy and use up those emergency tins you have in the back of the cupboard!

I don't think we've ever gone longer than 3-4 days because we can. If supermarkets are open then we don't think twice about popping in for a few bits or something for tea if we dont fancy what we've planned that night!

I was just saying this to dh and dc1 on the weekend; I'm so so fed up of being in a supermarket every other day! I'm fairly organised but normallu go Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Two adults two primary aged dc here.

My cupboards are well stocked and I really want to empty them to have a good sort out and clean the inside of all my kitchen cupboards (I have many).

So was thinking of going on strike for a while. Dh can grab milk, bread and some fresh fruit but apart from that I'll be cooking with what we already have. Am also hoping it makes me more inventive (not sure rice and HP will go down too well though ).

Will see how I go!

I've been loads lately due to needing fresh flowers from Aldi (birthdays and a bereavement) and Easter eggs (down south and massive shortage so literally went on an egg hunt to five different supermarkets... Always end up doing a "top-up" whilst there )

Since the pandemic I shop totally from my weekly delivery. I meal plan and stick to it, it's easy with no going out or surprise invitations to eat out or guests!
I could do two weeks easily but there'd be less interesting meals, I've only got an under the counter freezer.

As an experiment at the start of lockdown, I twice managed to go 30 days between food shops - using store cupboard and freezer food.

The last 10 days were a bit miserable - soup and plums from the freezer type of thing...

30 days between food shops!! That's amazing. I think after two weeks I'll actually miss browsing the Aldi middle aisles

I am astonished what size fridge and freezer people must have. I have a standard size for both and with 3 people I have no space in the fridge when the weekly shop is done. Where you do have these monsters or do you all have super large pantries with chest freezers and american style fridges?

My freezer holds typical stuff like chips, frozen veg, ice cream, left overs like pasta sauce or curry for one person plus some meat we buy not locally and therefore I need to freeze.

When lockdown happened last year I had to feed three people all the time, normally I get food at work, DD is a mix of packed lunch and school dinners and it is only lunch for DH which needs to be in the fridge. I also topped up at least once on the way home from work.

Lockdown and WFM/online school was a shock for my fridge/freezer.

@reluctantbrit

I am astonished what size fridge and freezer people must have. I have a standard size for both and with 3 people I have no space in the fridge when the weekly shop is done. Where you do have these monsters or do you all have super large pantries with chest freezers and american style fridges?

My freezer holds typical stuff like chips, frozen veg, ice cream, left overs like pasta sauce or curry for one person plus some meat we buy not locally and therefore I need to freeze.

When lockdown happened last year I had to feed three people all the time, normally I get food at work, DD is a mix of packed lunch and school dinners and it is only lunch for DH which needs to be in the fridge. I also topped up at least once on the way home from work.

Lockdown and WFM/online school was a shock for my fridge/freezer.

We have an ordinary size fridge/freezer in the kitchen and then a tall freezer in the outside shed.

We like to always have plenty of food in the house and have done for years so, for us, an extra freezer is needed.

We don't have a pantry and only have 1 double wall cupboard and 1 single wall cupboard for food in the kitchen. It's surprising just how much we can fit in the cupboards!

We put a lot of the surplus food in the shed such as tinned items, lentils, chickpeas, pasta etc. We also have a stock of things like washing up liquid, washing liquid, fabric conditioner and they are in the shed

@SatsumaFan

I was just saying this to dh and dc1 on the weekend; I'm so so fed up of being in a supermarket every other day! I'm fairly organised but normallu go Monday morning and Friday afternoon. Two adults two primary aged dc here.

My cupboards are well stocked and I really want to empty them to have a good sort out and clean the inside of all my kitchen cupboards (I have many).

So was thinking of going on strike for a while. Dh can grab milk, bread and some fresh fruit but apart from that I'll be cooking with what we already have. Am also hoping it makes me more inventive (not sure rice and HP will go down too well though ).

Will see how I go!

Yes this too! I'm hoping it'll give me a chance to clean out my cupboards.

reluctant, it's probably best that I don't tell you about our fridge freezers.
All our friends scoffed and laughed that in covid lockdown Dh made an excel spreadsheet of all that we had in our freezers.

It's because they were so packed, you couldn't get a fag paper in: Dh likes to rearrange and fit huge deliveries in, re-arranging like jenga.

Yet, knowing that I had 2 packs of sausages in the freezer, none could be found.

We have a fridge freezer in the kitchen and then two chest freezers. We also have a large kitchen garden.

I have accepted I have a bit of a thing about food security but even before my prepping was ramped up a gear I only shopped once every two weeks.

@Oblomov21 - I think DH would also start a spreadsheet but as I am the one in the family cooking I refuse his organisational tendencies.

We could put a freezer in the garage but I must admit, I enjoy shopping for food too much and it still wouldn't solve the problems of fresh fruit and veg, I also have two rabbits, they need fresh greens.

I think we have more jars/packs for curry sauces/pasta sauce and obviously the dry ingredients around to go for emergencies but I am not a fan of tinned food unless you can't get it fresh.

When i was doing click & collect orders during lockdown I tended to plan a week of main meals but could manage 8-9 days once I raided the cupboard and freezer but I didn't eat much fresh veg the last couple of days. I buy long life non-dairy milk and bread lives in the freezer so that helps.

I would get annoyed if I couldn't go twice a week, simply because we don't have room in the fridge for a week's worth of salad and milk.

I have been making a point of only using the car for a Big Shop, though.