Shopping everyday?

[ParanoidAndroidd]

Does anyone else go food shopping everyday? I have 4 large supermarkets all in walking distance and I’m considering doing this instead of my usual weekly shop. I’m terrible for meal planning and then on the day just not fancying what I’ve planned. So I’m wasting a lot of food, or giving it away on Olio. Is it better to just pick up what I fancy each day? Does anyone else do this and find it’s cheaper?

I would say that in general meal planning is cheaper. Maybe not in these specific circumstances though. I guess give it a try for a couple of weeks and see how it goes!

Depends on how strict you can, divide your weekly budget into daily

Keep in mind shops are specifically set up to make you spend more money.

So, if saving money is your aim, set a daily budget and only take that amount to the shop.

Generally though, most people find a weekly shop more cost effective. The way I get around the 'cant be arsed to make/eat that particular rish' is to set aside a couple of hours a week to cook a few things off. Then I bung them in the fridge/freezer and use them as I fancy them.

Today, for example, I made roast veg soup (about 10 portions worth), made cpus cous, greek salad, boiled eggs, paneer curry and baked potatoes. Thats lunches and dinners covered for a while. I then made chicken noodles for tea and I know in the freezer I've got 2 x beef chilli and 1 x beef casserole from other times I've cooked. I also made a carrot cake. Im no domestic goddess, I just like to feed us well and cheaply.

All that said, when I was very poor I did shop daily as I needed to get the yellow sticker deals.

I have shopped daily in the past to try and get price reductions, but I hated dragging round the shops every day and then having to go home and cook.
I don't do a rigid meal plan, I buy things with possible meals in mind...mince maybe turned in to chilli or spag bol or shepherds pie etc.. I sometimes don't fancy what I've got in either, but I cook and eat it anyway because I hate wasting money & by the time I've made whatever it is I'm quite happy to eat it.

We kind of do this but the way we work it is to have the bulk of our meal ingredients as dry goods or frozen - pasta, rice, potatoes, gnocchi etc and frozen peas, sweetcorn, greenbeans, carrots, mushrooms, onion…. We also have a good stock of flours, sugars, seasonings

Then we’ll buy the main protein or some fresh veg based on what we fancy on the day or the day before. Knowing that we have all the rest of the ingredients at home purchased in a big shop a couple of times a month.

I also regularly make up slow cooker batch meals and freeze those in portions for quick meals and I buy big packs of meat when it’s on offer and freeze that, so it lasts ages and I just get it out and put it in the fridge in the morning if I decide I want that for my dinner today.

We rarely have to throw food away as the food we have is either stuff that lasts weeks/months/years or stuff we’ve bought for immediate use to fill out a meal, we don’t buy fresh food with a limited shelf life on say a Friday with a plan to eat it the next Wednesday.

I shop daily, because it’s much easier and it works out a lot cheaper with a lot less waste.

I do not like the phrase weekly shop as it was invented by supermarkets and I think we should all give less money to them if we can.

I’ve been shopping daily or nearly daily for most of my adult life so more than 20 years now. It’s changed in that I do get some bigger and heavier pantry items delivered in bulk now - eg dog food, wine, flour, oil and rice sacks. Etc.

I shop daily because I never know what I’m going to want to eat before I want to eat it. I think going into a good local shop to see what is appealing, what is fresh, what is on offer, and basing a meal around that is absolutely better than deciding days ago what we will eat tonight and eating something that’s been sat in storage for several days or longer.

I also absolutely make the most of reduced items. I get a delivery from a refill store, a pet shop and I have a milkman for milk eggs and juice.

I feel we are healthier and happier this way as a family - and I spend about £14/day on average (I do have monthly costs for milkman etc to add to this) I live somewhere where it’s very easy and possible and I am sure to walk past the shops I need daily so it’s no big deal. But would always choose this way.

I have just sorted all the out of date food in my cupboards. Put them in boxes. Will use this as my staple and shop when I need to add fresh ingredients.

It’s a mindset.

When the DC are home from Uni the boxes will go in the garage because they won’t eat out of date food 😂Me and DH don’t mind we both grew up poor so we don’t like wasting food plus it’s mostly dry goods and in sealed packaging so I am happy it is edible. I will do look and smell test too.

I find it easier to food budget when it’s just me and DH when DC are home it’s harder (boys meat meat meat!). But, I will be looking at adding beans and lentils more in general because the food bill this last summer has been ridiculous.

@Seaside3
Just a question, do you freeze or 'fridge' your baked potatoes and do they taste ok after doing so?
I love jackets, but as they take so long, we very occasionally have them, but this would be a great idea.
Thanks.

@Rubyupbeat I fridge them. And i usually hate the taste of potatoes that have been in the fridge, but fir some reason im fine with baked ones! I sont have a microwave, so I use them fir work lunch, where there is one. They last a good few days. I bake them when doing something else in the oven.

Second what @SheSpeaks and @Wegovy2026 said.

The concept of a 'weekly shop' and buying everything for the week in one single shop is a con and an expensive way to shop. We've never done it and I don't see why you would with 4 supermarkets in walking distance.

Keep in a good basic storecupboard of non perishables and frozen food and then just go 2-3 times a week to shop for the next few days. Keep on top of what you have in and make a point of using things up. I don't understand when people say 'but you go in for bread and end up spending £20' because surely you're buying things you need and won't need to buy later?

If you find you need something else when you've decided what to cook, just go out and get it, or put it on a list - always keep a running list of what you need next time you go to a shop.

You can also buy reductions and things on offer, there's so much that's always on offer somewhere, such that you never have to pay full price for it.

I don't like reheated baked potatoes so only eat them fresh. I microwave them for 5-10 minutes first then put them in the oven on high for 5-10 minutes to crisp up.

Can't get my head around round wasting or giving away food because 'I don't fancy it'
Just eat it the next day, change the recipe or freeze it??

I wish I had this mindset.
My neighbour does very well indeed from my pickiness over food.
Until this year I used to eat out every day for at least one meal, but usually 2 or 3.
Trying to improve my diet I started meal planning and getting food deliveries twice a week. Rarely fancy any of it, but cook it and get on with it for a couple of days before I decide I would rather not eat than eat what I have.
Neighbour is very grateful and always uses it as she has 3 teenagers at home.
Ive tried shopping daily for what I fancy that day, and that has helped a little.

The upside is I have lost a lot of weight

Precisely. I feel like if there’s something on the meal plan I really don’t want, it borders on feeling slightly nauseas at the thought of it. I’m pescatarian who doesn’t eat dairy so feel like I’m rather fussy. I also have parosmia with mainly meat so I vomit when cooking anyone meat, I just can’t do it. It makes cooking a challenge but if I really don’t fancy something then I don’t see why I should have it or freeze it for example… keeping it for later only means it’ll go in the bin at a later date. I have tried this maybe a thousand times before 😆. My post was asking for other peoples experience on daily shopping as I really do want to stop being so wasteful. Typical MN just can’t help themselves though.

My sister does something similar. She has a family of 5 and i used to laugh that her cupboards would be practically empty. Her pantry is fuller now that her kids are adults and cook more for themselves along with having dietary challenges but for a long time she did not have a large stock of food in her house and based her meals on what was in the shops and how much time she had on that day..

Her main issue was that she didn't like cooking and cooking would actually turn her off eating a meal, her husband works for himself and often ate dinner later so having a "weekly meal plan" wasn't really doable daily for them. She found it cheaper to just buy what she needed on a daily basis. Her job and life also meant it was extremely easy for her to do this so it fit into her lifestyle and i'd guess that is whats important. is it going to work for you?

If you can shop daily and only buy what you need than overall you are probably going to have less food waste and find that while it might not be cheaper it probably wont be more expensive either. I'm saying it might be the same price as buying individual items over multipacks is often more expensive. A pack of 6 apples is better value than an individual apple etc.

I go shopping for food 3-4 times a week, so not quite daily but not far off it. Mostly because like you, I'm so close to multiple supermarkets, but also because we are so indecisive about what we want for dinner. I tend to go straight to the reduced section and see what's there. Partly because it's cheaper but also because the limited choice helps me decide what to cook 😅
It also encourages me to try new things.

I enjoy it, but it isn't very time efficient.

I’m not sure you know, because I spend quite a long time when I’m meal planning, thinking of meals, checking the cupboards/fridge and then doing the dreaded weekly shop, it still takes time! I guess if you know you only need to pop in for that day or that one meal maybe it’s not as inefficient as we think

Not going inside shops too often generally reduces food bill by reducing spontaneous spending, however it does mean you're less likely to see yellow stickered food! Meal planning is a good idea, planning things which need the most fresh/perishable ingredients towards the days just after the food shop.

Doesn't need to be only either once a week or once a day! I go every 2-3 days. It can be a bit of a chore to go to the shop every single day - even if it only takes 20 mins, it will add up. Also tiring to have to decide what to cook every day!

But at the same time I don't like weekly shops - too much planning and not much flexibility, also will need top ups anyway as salad won't keep a week. So going about three times a week is fine.

We don't have much food waste, for example if we have lots of left over tomatoes in the fridge from previous shop, I can decide on something that uses them up and go to the shop. Just go with a list so that you're not tempted by extras, and it shouldn't be any more pricey.

We keep a shopping list pad on the kitchen worktop. When we see something running short, add it to the list. DH likes to buy something he fancies, he does most of the cooking. He buys say a pack of mince, eight portions of salmon, and a pack of pork loin. Cooks with half and freezes the other half. There's only the two of us now.

He has the Lidl app so spins for the freebies. He'll go to Tesco for the bits you can't get in Lidl we have very little waste, perhaps some veggie or fruit.

I enjoy picking up something a bit different, partial to chicken wings now and again, a pork pie.

I'd say he shops four days a week.

I shop every single day. I live 5 -10 minute walk from Sainsburys. and can easily walk to Lidl, M&S, ande drive to Waitrose. I can literally be in Sainsburys for 10 minutes.

Shopping every day has been transformational for us. We have been doing it for at least 8 years. We eat what we want on the day, and never have food waste. Meal planning starts with what we already have and then just shopping around that.

I never have to put away shopping. It stays in the shopping bags until I cook it a few hours later.

It's good exercise if you can walk or cycle to the shops. DH goes for a bike ride then pops into the shop for bits and pieces.

I think that sounds fun, a different supermarket each day, one day for a fun day out, and one at home. Oh wait, I can't count! One shopping at the corner shop? My idea of fun might not be anyone else's though.

I go 3-4 times a week. I often see some really good bargains in the reduced section which I freeze then get fresh veg to go with it on the day I decide to use it.

It also gives different meal ideas as the reduced section changes so often. Weirdly yesterday there were loads of reduced lamb hearts. Gave that one a swerve!

I’m the same with meal planning—I make a list, then half the time don’t actually fancy what I’ve planned. I’ve started doing smaller shops every couple of days and it does cut down on waste. It’s not always cheaper (I’m more likely to grab extras I don’t need), but I like having the flexibility to buy what I feel like eating that day.