Grocery Shopping...or hoarding?

Today I went grocery shopping.  Or hoarding.  Your call.

Let me explain myself, or at least try to.  I despise errands.  All that stop, go, park, back in car, start car, traffic, etc. just drives me bonkers.  I think a lot of it comes from being a single, working mother.  It was always easier for me to do all my errands in one day.  I would plan them out especially by location so I could make a circle of sorts.  Does anyone else do that?  I would also make sure to do a lot of them immediately after work.  Because once I got home...that was it.  I didn't want to move!  My top three most despised errands are as follows:  bank, gas and grocery shopping.  Now direct deposit, online banking and bill paying have pretty much eliminated the bank runs, but if I could only get the gas station to make house calls I would be in heaven!   Hmmmm....could be a new business venture.

So that leaves grocery shopping.  Ugh.  I must confess, I used to order groceries from Acme online and have them delivered to my door.  Oh the sweet, sweet memories!  Ahhhh.  Now before you judge me, let me say this:  it actually saved me a lot of money.  They only charged $10.00 for the delivery and it saved me from all of the impulse buying.  Then they built a Shoprite close to me.  I love it.  The prices are SO much cheaper, the store is super clean and they bag all of the groceries (my local Acme was infamous for not bagging anything).  So I just couldn't justify shopping at Acme anymore.

Gradually, I would start buying more and more with each trip to the store.  Each time thinking, well if I just stock up on this I won't have to come back here next week.  On average, I would go food shopping about once every two weeks.  But I have gotten better.  Oh so much better.  I can now go once a month.  Let me add that there is only myself, my daughter and my 11 month old granddaughter who lives in my household.  Two adults.  One toddler.

And this is what my shopping cart looked like today.

I had a hard time turning corners with this cart without chasing a few runaway items down the aisle.  It was a sight to see.

My purse is somewhere in here.  I think.

The wonderful people at Shoprite even brought over an extra person to help bag the groceries and then got me an extra cart which someone graciously helped push out to my car.  It was a Shoprite spectacle.

Now I must note here that this was an exceptionally large trip for even me.  One of my all-time biggest. I looked at the end of my receipt and it showed 203 items bought. 203.  For 2 1/2 people.  Oh boy.  Now I did half heartedly plan a few of my meals out.  I also already had a fully stocked freezer so only bought three meat items this trip.  There is a blog that I recently followed, which is a wonderful one, where she tells how she shops and plans monthly grocery shopping.  I highly recommend it and for the first time and going to try and include a link in this blog to give her credit.  (Fingers crossed on this one)  She has a wonderful plan.  Me not so much.  But I'm working on it.  Blissful & Domestic is the wonderful blog I found via Pinterest (which I am TOTALLY addicted to...but that's a discussion for another time!).  Please visit her blog!

Now I am going to show you one of my favorite things in my house.  I live in a twin home.  My kitchen is small.  Functional but small.  Right after I moved, my stepfather designed and built this shelving unit as a pantry for me.  It is in the stairway leading down to my basement family room and laundry room.

Isn't this the BEST?!  It's like I get to go shopping in my own home every day!  He actually measured different food containers so that I have a variety of shelf heights.  He built it at their house and then brought the whole thing over and installed it.  It has a back to it so in theory it could be removed.  I love it!  The only downside to it is that for over buyers like myself, you can go a long time without using all of the items.  Therefore, you really need to have a schedule for going through pantry items and looking at expiration dates.  Which again brings up the topic of menu planning.  I really should get on that one!

OK.  This post is getting very long so now I will come to the point of this post.  Now that I have a super duper stocked house, this should enable me to cook some very good meals.  Which will in turn, GIVE ME THINGS TO BLOG ABOUT!  :)  I told you that I loved to talk didn't I??

If you hung in there for this super long post, I thank you.

:)