Curious - how long do you spend in the grocery store?

[Kassia]

52 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

I wouldn't read too much into any of it. There are just too many nuances involved. Some people are shopping for only two adults and they (perhaps) eat out or get takeout multiple times a week. Others are shopping for two adults, four teens, two tweens, three dogs and a cat, and they all eat all their meals at home. Some people say they're doing their weekly shopping but maybe don't think to mention that they dash into a store every day or two to pick up an odd item or three, etc. It all makes a difference.

this is exactly what I was thinking.  It takes us very little time to shop for the two (or three of us when dd is home)  of us but so much time to shop when our four kids and their boyfriends/girlfriends come to visit.  My sons are huge eaters and I cook much bigger meals with bigger quantities, everyone has different food needs/wants, etc.  Shopping becomes much more complicated and time consuming.  

[regentrude]

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I feel like all you 15 minute shopper must eat way less than us or be crazy fast walkers/good steerers!  Even at maximum efficiency there’s just no way possible for that to happen for a week’s shop.

I find that having a stocked pantry saves a lot of time shopping while not requiring extra shopping time to fill. Grabbing a full box of 12 cartons of pasta doesn't take any more time that taking two cartons; grabbing a flat of canned tomatoes is as fast as picking up an individual can. And it means several weeks of not having to travel down that isle.

Edited September 18, 2021 by regentrude

[ktgrok]

26 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I find that having a stocked pantry saves a lot of time shopping while not requiring extra shopping time to fill. Grabbing a full box of 12 cartons of pasta doesn't take any more time that taking two cartons; grabbing a flat of canned tomatoes is as fast as picking up an individual can. And it means several weeks of not having to travel down that isle.

But scanning them and bagging them adds time, so not sure how much it saves? And without doing that I still have an overflowing cart...I'd have to have 3 carts to buy that much, lol. I did buy 6 boxes of pasta because they only carry it at that store and I don't go there often, and 4 frozen pizzas as they were buy 1 get 1, but that's all the stocking up I can do or I run out of room in the cart and the pantry. 

[regentrude]

4 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

But scanning them and bagging them adds time, so not sure how much it saves? 

No. The checker scans one and presses the number key for # of identical items. And of course I don't bag stuff that's in a store box; the box with the pasta or the cans goes right into the cart and then in the car.

That's the beauty of Aldi, they have the items in boxes on the shelves and it's one move to get a whole.

Taking 6 individual cartons of pasta instead of a full box would take more time because I would need to touch 6 items

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by regentrude

[ktgrok]

44 minutes ago, regentrude said:

No. The checker scans one and presses the number key for # of identical items. And of course I don't bag stuff that's in a store box; the box with the pasta or the cans goes right into the cart and then in the car.

That's the beauty of Aldi, they have the items in boxes on the shelves and it's one move to get a whole.

Taking 6 individual cartons of pasta instead of a full box would take more time because I would need to touch 6 items

 

oh, gotcha. yeah, no where but Aldi has this, and I need a lot of stuff I can't get at Aldi. Publix, Target, and Walmart don't do that with the full box on the shelf. 

[regentrude]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

oh, gotcha. yeah, no where but Aldi has this, and I need a lot of stuff I can't get at Aldi. Publix, Target, and Walmart don't do that with the full box on the shelf. 

I have a few things I can't get at Aldi, so I go to Kroger every few weeks instead. I don't shop at Walmart, for several reasons, one of them that it's huge and takes way too long. ( We don't have Publix or Target or Trader Joe or WF or anything fancy. ) Even when the kids still lived at home, Aldi supplied 95% of our groceries

[ktgrok]

10 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I have a few things I can't get at Aldi, so I go to Kroger every few weeks instead. I don't shop at Walmart, for several reasons, one of them that it's huge and takes way too long. ( We don't have Publix or Target or Trader Joe or WF or anything fancy. ) Even when the kids still lived at home, Aldi supplied 95% of our groceries

Yeah, I used to use them much more, but my Celiac kid doesn't like most of their gluten free stuff, I am not a fan of the canned beans or their deli meat, they don't have the high protein milk I need, etc etc etc it makes more sense to just go elsewhere. I do hit Aldi now and then for their take and bake gluten free pizza - everyone here likes that. 

[regentrude]

3 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

 they don't have the high protein milk I need,

what is high protein milk? I don't think I have ever seen any

[ktgrok]

2 minutes ago, regentrude said:

what is high protein milk? I don't think I have ever seen any

Fairlife is the main brand - it has less sugar and more protein - about 13 grams a cup if I'm remembering right. After my bariatric surgery it was advised as getting enough protein can be a problem. It also helps my picky celiac kid get in enough protein. And my 11 yr old who doesn't like to eat breakfast but is needs something in her stomach will drink it for breakfast. And makes really good lattes. They also have one fortified with omega 3 fatty acids. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by ktgrok

[Pawz4me]

27 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Fairlife is the main brand - it has less sugar and more protein - about 13 grams a cup if I'm remembering right. After my bariatric surgery it was advised as getting enough protein can be a problem. It also helps my picky celiac kid get in enough protein. And my 11 yr old who doesn't like to eat breakfast but is needs something in her stomach will drink it for breakfast. And makes really good lattes. They also have one fortified with omega 3 fatty acids. 

That's the only kind of milk I buy. I need lactose free and love that I can buy it ahead and stay stocked. I credit their chocolate milk for helping DH maintain his weight when the cancer meds are kicking him around. It's really good stuff.

[ktgrok]

40 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

That's the only kind of milk I buy. I need lactose free and love that I can buy it ahead and stay stocked. I credit their chocolate milk for helping DH maintain his weight when the cancer meds are kicking him around. It's really good stuff.

Yup - I try to find the small individual bottles of the chocolate milk for DD11 to have for breakfast - they are hard to find though. (in a 6 pack anyway, individually they are pricey so I look for the multi pack). Much lower sugar than normal chocolate milk and higher in protein - more protein than sugar which is sort of my definition of "nutritious" for that kind of thing. 

It also froths nicely for lattes, etc. Even the skim one. 

Edited September 18, 2021 by ktgrok

[lynn]

Now that Publix has an app I can make a list and choose a store and get my list organized by aisle it takes about 15-20 min.   I'm only shopping for 3 so I guess without the app and family of 6 I could have spent an hour years ago.  

We also have a WM market that very organized so about 15-20 min there also.

[kbutton]

On 9/16/2021 at 7:42 PM, Bambam said:

It varies now because my grocery store decided to remodel/aka relocate almost everything.

I didn't read all the responses, but this is a big factor here. You can't go to two different versions of the same store and have even a hope of knowing where anything is. They remodel all.the.time. I have done a lot of shopping trips away from home during the years my kids have had speech, OT, PT, tutoring, preschool, etc.--it's a good way to use up time that would otherwise be wasted or potentially spent on make-work that I can take with me.

One of the last major remodels included taking their "healthy/allergy-friendly: section and relocating all of those products all over the store, and then Covid hit. At the same time they did this, the store also started selling their own line of some of these products vs. a name brand, and the name brands disappeared, so suddenly I was looking in entirely new places, and I no longer knew what I would be looking for or actually find.

On top of that, they designed the stores to purposefully make customers backtrack. We live near the corporate headquarters of a major chain, and I suspect they use our local stores to test new product placements because it changes so very much so often.

I might never return to in-person grocery shopping on the regular except for Aldi and Trader Joe's. Now that the store knows what I tend to buy, I can shop quite fast online. I will have to pay for it after the pandemic, but I am pretty sure I no longer care. 

[kirstenhill]

I was going to time myself in Aldi today, but I ended up going to a location I don't shop at as often, but forgot that I would be shopping at that location and wrote my list for the order of the items in the other Aldi.  The layout is nearly 100% different except for the frozen section, so my list was a mess.  😁

I think the thing that adds up to extra time for me in Aldi that actually doesn't happen in stores with more selection is that when Aldi is out of something, I might spend a while hunting to see if I am just not seeing it...or digging around to see if they have any left of the 1 flavor/variety I need of something that comes mixed in a tray of different varieties...Or trying to decide what flavor is the best of what's remaining when things are picked over. 

All three of those things happened to me today.  There were no lasagna noodles despite my time spent gazing back and forth over the pasta section (I know I've bought them at Aldi before...but maybe it was a special purchase?). I did find one last container of plain full-fat yogurt hiding behind three flats of vanilla (but it took a lot of digging on the top shelf, over my head, to get it). I picked out a flavor of granola I think the kids will like, when their top two favorites were out of stock (but I did have to stand there for a while thinking about it).  At the "big" grocery store, I can get a different brand if the brand I prefer is out of stock, and they tend not to run out of favorite flavors of products as often as Aldi seems to.  I like the huge price savings of shopping at Aldi, but it doesn't always feel faster. 

I did time myself bagging.  Today's order felt a bit smaller than normal, and the cart was maybe 3/4 full.  I was surprised that it only took me 9 minutes to bag, because i am pretty particular about how I bag my groceries, and it always feels like it is taking forever to get it done.

[teachermom2834]

My dd used to go to Sunday school after mass on Sundays. Dh and I would run to Aldi/run through Aldi/ work together to bag/ run home and unload: and get back to the church to be waiting for dd when she got out. We must have done all that in about 70 minutes (and 30 of that was drive time to Aldi/to home/back to church. 
 

We were practically running down the aisles and both throwing stuff in. If we missed something we didn’t even usually have time to run back and get it. It was kind of fun and silly to have this weekly sprint challenge through the store. Even with both of us working together it still took us 30 minutes from the time we got out of the car until we were leaving the lot. 
 

Aldi streamlined things for us. Either they had an item or didn’t, not much time analyzing all the options to substitute. The store was small and we knew the layout. I had to quit Aldi because I was having some really gross quality issues. I’ve never really found my groove elsewhere. Our stores are all so woefully slow to checkout there is nowhere I could get out of in 30 minutes if I had more than a handful. Sometimes I have to wait ten minutes just for access to a self checkout. 

[KungFuPanda]

Does anyone else hate grocery shopping more than cooking?  When the store closest to me changed from a Food Lion to a Latino-Asian market, we started making a LOT more fried rice and lo mein dinners.  Last night I made Singapore noodles because I had all of the ingredients.  We also do a lot with tortillas and burrito bowls.  We've even done homemade egg rolls.  I'm in love with my 2-minute grocery commute. 😆

[ktgrok]

23 minutes ago, KungFuPanda said:

Does anyone else hate grocery shopping more than cooking?  When the store closest to me changed from a Food Lion to a Latino-Asian market, we started making a LOT more fried rice and lo mein dinners.  Last night I made Singapore noodles because I had all of the ingredients.  We also do a lot with tortillas and burrito bowls.  We've even done homemade egg rolls.  I'm in love with my 2-minute grocery commute. 😆

When.I was shopping for 3 people, with no food allergies or such, I liked it. Now? It's just freaking exhausting. 6 people, 5 pets, Celiac, sugar sensitivities, bariatric surgery, etc...

[Shoeless]

I timed my "just a few things" trip: deli meat, grapes, bagels, chicken, mayo, milk. It was 20 minutes from my car and back again. Waiting at the deli counter was the biggest block of time (5 minutes). I didn't wander the store and picked up items in the order of the aisles. I used self checkout, too, so no waiting in line.

I also clocked it with my pedometer app: it was 1000 steps, which is about 0.4 miles, from car into store and back. I did not park particularly far away from the store, either; I think I was 6 spots away from the door. 

The store is BIG. Now I am curious how many miles I could cover on a regular shopping trip. 

[Ausmumof3]

9 hours ago, regentrude said:

I find that having a stocked pantry saves a lot of time shopping while not requiring extra shopping time to fill. Grabbing a full box of 12 cartons of pasta doesn't take any more time that taking two cartons; grabbing a flat of canned tomatoes is as fast as picking up an individual can. And it means several weeks of not having to travel down that isle.

I have definitely been moving toward the model of buying a tray of tuna, a tray of tinned tomatoes etc and it does help.  However some kinds of food we eat that are less healthy options that doesn’t work for because people will just eat more if there’s more available.  This definitely works best if you are more buy ingredients than buy pre Made food.  It’s also better from  a budget perspective and takes less space in the trolley. 
 

just need to get better at cooking and clean up!

[SKL]

I normally don't use a list when I shop, so that might save me time?

It does mess me up when they move everything around.  😛

[Melissa Louise]

Took me 58 min today. 

I was surprised it took that long, actually. I guess I just move slow. 

[Ausmumof3]

3 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

Took me 58 min today. 

I was surprised it took that long, actually. I guess I just move slow. 

I feel like Aussie stores might just be less efficient.  I know I move slow but I don’t know anyone who does a weeks shop in less than 20 minutes I don’t think?  Not that I’ve asked around but people I’ve shopped with seem to take longer if anything.

[ktgrok]

8 hours ago, MissLemon said:

 

I also clocked it with my pedometer app: it was 1000 steps, which is about 0.4 miles, from car into store and back. I did not park particularly far away from the store, either; I think I was 6 spots away from the door. 

The store is BIG. Now I am curious how many miles I could cover on a regular shopping trip. 

Oh, I know part of my weight gain in Covid times was gettig delivery instead of shopping. I used to get a HUGE percent of my steps hitting up walmart and target. 

[Carrie12345]

On 9/17/2021 at 8:52 PM, Garga said:

I simply don’t believe anyone can do a weeks’ worth of shopping at Aldi in 15 or 20 minutes. I don’t think anyone is lying, but I do think their assessment of time is way off, unless you only buy 10 chuck roasts and 10 heads of lettuce and eat roast and lettuce all week long. If you get any assortment of goods, it takes time to physically walk up and down the aisles and pick it all up. Even if you don’t bag in the store, but do it at your car, there’s still 8 minutes or so for checkout.  That leaves only 7-12 minutes to gather

I hit Aldi yesterday and totally forgot to check what time I had gotten there. I did a full shopping, which I only do there once in a while. Even though it’s THE most mask-wearing store in my area, I usually do a pick up elsewhere and then grab a few specific items. I was working on the fly, so it was the whole cart this time. (About $190.). 
It absolutely felt like an hour.  
Dh had dropped me off, went down the road to Lowe’s, and picked me up when he was done. In no world was that less than 45 minutes.

To be fair, that did include full bagging, which I don’t always do.

Which reminds me, that’s another reason I don’t usually do all my shopping at Aldi. I totally “get” their system and all, but the fact that I load the belt with colds and shelf stuff grouped, but my cart always ends up like everything was stirred in a giant cauldron irks me with a big order. Little orders, no problem. But a full cart means I’m spending at least 3x the amount of time bagging as a bag-while-checking store would take. And then still finding a frozen item at the end that doesn’t fit in my Tetris. Blah.

Still love that place for some reason. Maybe it’s the overflowing cart for <$200, lol.

[ktgrok]

2 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

But a full cart means I’m spending at least 3x the amount of time bagging as a bag-while-checking store would take. And then still finding a frozen item at the end that doesn’t fit in my Tetris. Blah.

Still love that place for some reason. Maybe it’s the overflowing cart for <$200, lol.

I set out my all bags first, on the counter, then start loading stuff into them, so I can sort as I bag. 

[Carrie12345]

2 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

I set out my all bags first, on the counter, then start loading stuff into them, so I can sort as I bag. 

That’d probably work on a weekday morning. They were so busy yesterday they had THREE registers open for a few minutes. 😂 Very limited counter space.

[Melissa in Australia]

I don't bag in the shop. I take the trolley to my car and bag it as I load the car.

[Melissa in Australia]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I feel like Aussie stores might just be less efficient.  I know I move slow but I don’t know anyone who does a weeks shop in less than 20 minutes I don’t think?  Not that I’ve asked around but people I’ve shopped with seem to take longer if anything.

I am pretty fast. most times I do the weekly shopping I have the twins in tow which makes every trip an adventure. I never know how it is going to go...  We start out with them "helping load  ", and I move very quickly to try and get all the way through before they start having hissy fits. The staff all know us now. They give encouragement to the boys if they are behaving in the shop, and give them stickers at the check out if they have seen them behaving . 

[Spryte]

I hate food shopping. We used Instacart before Covid, to cut down on shopping. 7 anaphylactic allergies between us, celiac, multiple other food allergies, two people on keto … too many labels! We had to hit four stores regularly to get all the stuff, so I started using delivery for the stores that offered it.

Now it’s all Instacart. All four stores are on Instacart, so we’re golden.

And I do a lot of mail order for safe items. Finally caught on that a case of a shelf stable allergy friendly food is easy to store and less expensive.

Our shoppers all communicate well about substitutions, and on the rare occasions something has been subbed and delivered that we can’t eat… Instacart credits it back to us, and we donate it. Easy peasy.

I have actually found more allergy safe options shopping this way, so it’s worked well.

It’s pricey, but I’m happy with not having to go in and shop.

[ktgrok]

2 hours ago, Spryte said:

I hate food shopping. We used Instacart before Covid, to cut down on shopping. 7 anaphylactic allergies between us, celiac, multiple other food allergies, two people on keto … too many labels! We had to hit four stores regularly to get all the stuff, so I started using delivery for the stores that offered it.

Now it’s all Instacart. All four stores are on Instacart, so we’re golden.

And I do a lot of mail order for safe items. Finally caught on that a case of a shelf stable allergy friendly food is easy to store and less expensive.

Our shoppers all communicate well about substitutions, and on the rare occasions something has been subbed and delivered that we can’t eat… Instacart credits it back to us, and we donate it. Easy peasy.

I have actually found more allergy safe options shopping this way, so it’s worked well.

It’s pricey, but I’m happy with not having to go in and shop.

That's what we are doing too. One celiac, one lactose intolerant, one person who needs to avoid sugar, my bariatric stuff, etc etc. Plus a picky eater with anxiety. Most weeks I order from Target and Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh (I get 5% cash back on my Amazon credit card for Whole Foods and Amazon fresh which helps a bit). And now Kroger delivery.

[Shoeless]

10 hours ago, ktgrok said:

Oh, I know part of my weight gain in Covid times was gettig delivery instead of shopping. I used to get a HUGE percent of my steps hitting up walmart and target. 

I am going to do a full shopping trip tonight, just to clock how many steps it takes. I am only going to HEB; Walmart stresses me out too much to ever set foot in there again. 

I wish we had Aldi here. We have HEB and Walmart. No Target, no Whole Foods, no Trader Joe's, no Kroger.  There is a tiny local market here, but it's like stepping back in time to 1973.  Tiny aisles and brands that I haven't seen in a big store in decades, (Prell, anyone?)

[Spryte]

3 hours ago, MissLemon said:

I am going to do a full shopping trip tonight, just to clock how many steps it takes. I am only going to HEB; Walmart stresses me out too much to ever set foot in there again. 

I wish we had Aldi here. We have HEB and Walmart. No Target, no Whole Foods, no Trader Joe's, no Kroger.  There is a tiny local market here, but it's like stepping back in time to 1973.  Tiny aisles and brands that I haven't seen in a big store in decades, (Prell, anyone?)

Wow. Prell. That’s like straight out of the 80s. 
 

ETA: wow, it’s really still around! Mind blown.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Spryte

[SKL]

Doesn't shopping hurt your feet though?  I think the heavy-duty floor design is really hard on the feet.  I would rather walk 15 minutes in the store and then do a 4 mile hike in the park.  😛

Edited September 20, 2021 by SKL

[Shoeless]

24 minutes ago, Spryte said:

Wow. Prell. That’s like straight out of the 80s. 
 

ETA: wow, it’s really still around! Mind blown.

Even older than that! It was around in the 60s. You could get it in glass bottles in the 1970s. My dad still has a *tube* of it at his house. Yikes. I haven't seen a tube in stores for at least 20 years.

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by MissLemon

[Melissa Louise]

7 hours ago, Spryte said:

I hate food shopping. We used Instacart before Covid, to cut down on shopping. 7 anaphylactic allergies between us, celiac, multiple other food allergies, two people on keto … too many labels! We had to hit four stores regularly to get all the stuff, so I started using delivery for the stores that offered it.

Now it’s all Instacart. All four stores are on Instacart, so we’re golden.

And I do a lot of mail order for safe items. Finally caught on that a case of a shelf stable allergy friendly food is easy to store and less expensive.

Our shoppers all communicate well about substitutions, and on the rare occasions something has been subbed and delivered that we can’t eat… Instacart credits it back to us, and we donate it. Easy peasy.

I have actually found more allergy safe options shopping this way, so it’s worked well.

It’s pricey, but I’m happy with not having to go in and shop.

I simply cannot get my brain to adapt to shopping not in-person. It's like I can't envisage food we need until we need it, kwim?  I have to book at least three days ahead to get online delivery. 

How do you manage to plan what you need without literally looking at bare shelves and noting what's missing? 

[Spryte]

27 minutes ago, Melissa Louise said:

I simply cannot get my brain to adapt to shopping not in-person. It's like I can't envisage food we need until we need it, kwim?  I have to book at least three days ahead to get online delivery. 

How do you manage to plan what you need without literally looking at bare shelves and noting what's missing? 

I couldn’t do it three days out. That would be hard. Our orders are normally here within 3 - 4 hours.

I think we started shopping this way (instacart) about three years ago. I find it much easier now, but there was an adjustment period.

Maybe lots of practice helps, too. Even when DS (17) was a toddler we did curbside. He was allergic to a ton of stuff and our grocery store passed out cookies at the door. Kids would ride in the carts eating them. It made shopping with an allergy kid so stressful, I was delighted when they started offering curbside! 
 

 

[Melissa Louise]

1 minute ago, Spryte said:

I couldn’t do it three days out. That would be hard. Our orders are normally here within 3 - 4 hours.

I think we started shopping this way (instacart) about three years ago. I find it much easier now, but there was an adjustment period.

Maybe lots of practice helps, too. Even when DS (17) was a toddler we did curbside. He was allergic to a ton of stuff and our grocery store passed out cookies at the door. Kids would ride in the carts eating them. It made shopping with an allergy kid so stressful, I was delighted when they started offering curbside! 
 

 

Three hours makes sense. I could do that. I gave up when I had to shop online for next week's groceries the day after I went grocery shopping for this week's groceries. 

Same day would be  magic!

 

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said:

I simply cannot get my brain to adapt to shopping not in-person. It's like I can't envisage food we need until we need it, kwim?  I have to book at least three days ahead to get online delivery. 

How do you manage to plan what you need without literally looking at bare shelves and noting what's missing? 

Amazon and Target (Shipt) and Whole Foods (via Amazon) all are same day, generally. Usually a few hours. Kroger is anywhere from next day to a few days. That one I just get staples from, mostly.