Live Cheap and Large at the Supermarket!

I know a woman who enjoys supermarket shopping. But she's an artist, and everyone knows artists are crazy.

For the rest of us, the faster we can get in and out, the better. Sometimes it just seems like too much trouble even to think. That's when a few comfortable habits come in handy.

What you want is to keep a supply of food on hand, so that you never have to run to the store just to look for dinner. (Okay, so "never" is a big goal. "Almost never" is good.)

You need a place to keep some extra food - not tons of extra, just some. It's a matter of finding where to shove this or that. You may have to keep the laundry detergent in the coat closet, and make a little platform of canned goods to go under your shoes. The idea is to have enough on hand of the stuff you mostly eat, so that you can do quick meals without much thought or time.

Then when you go to the store, you don't just buy what you're going to eat - you buy what you already ate! You ate three cans of tomatoes last week, so you buy three cans of tomatoes. You ate frozen broccoli, you buy more. You replace the macaroni and cheese you ate, and the spaghetti sauce, and the tortillas, and the chicken. If there's a great sale, you buy extra, sure, but basically you're on a replacement mission.

Then when dinnertime comes, you know something is there, even if you don't know exactly what you're going to do with it. This gives you a wonderful feeling of security. If the weather's terrible, or your child is sick, or you work late, you don't have to run to the store or call for pizza; you already have food.

Of course, you buy the store brand or generic. Right? At least you try it! At one store where we go, the store-brand soup is revolting, but the corn is fine. The canned peaches have irregularly shaped pieces - watch me not care. The canned pineapple is absolutely wonderful. The frozen broccoli is okay, but the frozen peas have a lot of sodium.

Sidetrack: Did you know there's a huge difference in the amount of sodium content of frozen peas? Some have 220 milligrams per serving, and some have 20, or five! Taste the same, too. Weird.

Go to the bakery section last, if at all! Two good reasons for that: (1) By the time you're almost ready to go, you might be too tired to go back there to Temptation Alley and (2) If you do go back, the baked goods won't be mooshed in the bottom of the cart.

Meat: Look for manager's specials, of whatever your store calls meat that's discounted because it's near its sell-by date. You can take it home and use or freeze it, just don't keep it raw and unfrozen for a week. Fry or boil your ground beef and freeze it in small packages; most of those recipes that call for a pound of ground beef don't need a whole pound. Then when you've used a pound out of the freezer, you buy another.

Produce: I buy a lot of our fresh veggies and fruit at a discount grocer, where they aren't, to tell the truth, as fresh as they might be. The prices are cheap enough that I will overlook the soft onion in the bag, or the potato that needs to be pitched. Sometimes I chop a whole bag of onions in the food processor, and freeze them flat in a big plastic bag, to make dinner easier. Green peppers, I freeze in strips. Potatoes, strawberries or mushrooms, we just use quickly.

The freezer is good for canned food, too. Buy a big can of roasted red peppers, freeze them individually on a cookie sheet, and keep them in a bread bag to add color to the casseroles. Freeze dabs of tomato paste, or little piles of diced green chilies, all those things that you use only a little of.

Cook boring!

Well, no, not if you enjoy cooking.

But if you're tired and in a hurry a lot of the time, you need stuff you can cook quickly, in your sleep. Pasta or rice or beans with some meat and some seasonings, maybe. The family needs to be fed, but you aren't required to make gourmet treats every night, or even every week. The more shopping becomes a habit, the faster you can whisk that cart around the market, and the less you'll spend. Why spend twenty minutes hunting for Tex-Mex kohlrabi strips (I made that up. Might be okay, though.) when you can grab frozen broccoli and chicken and be out in ten?

Now, about all that stuff that isn't food. It sure is convenient to buy it at the supermarket, but if you get a chance, stop at a dollar store, and see what they carry. It might be worth your time to buy deodorant, toothpaste, tampons, cat litter, or plastic bags there. Some of it is brands you know; some isn't. Try one package first, to see if you like it okay. Okay is good! It doesn't have to be as good as the expensive stuff to be worth buying, if the price is right. It only has to be okay, something you can use. (While you're there, look around the store for other stuff you might need, like candles, light bulbs, birthday cards, cleaning supplies, craft items, or kids' party favors.)

You know all those ads that say, "You deserve the best, and the best is our product"? Well, leaving aside the question of what you deserve (and who are you, Martin Luther King?), you don't always need the best. Second- or third-best will often do quite nicely, thank you.

Is my life any more joyous when the house is stocked with a fancy brand of plastic wrap? Hmmm.....

There are things you may not need to buy at all - paper towels and paper napkins, for instance. Those might be necessary if you use a coin laundry, but if you have a washer in the basement, the extra wash from rags and cloth napkins won't even be noticed. Cloth napkins (from garage sales) work far, far better than paper ones do. They can be reused before washing: after dinner, everyone sticks their napkin in their own napkin ring and saves it for the next meal. (Oh, and you don't iron napkins. Not unless ironing is some kind of Zen thing for you.) Remember, the less you buy, the less you have to carry from the car.

You probably have a lot better things to do than trudge around a grocery store. Get into good habits, and soon you'll be shopping fast and cheap in your sleep!