How To Quickly Become Awesome at Once-a-Month Grocery Shopping
Once you become a mom it doesn’t take long to realize that life, in general, quickly fills to overflowing. As babies join the family, life accelerates and before you know it you have more demands and fewer quiet moments. Every single mom I know wears many hats and is balancing many responsibilities the very best she can.
The end result. Moms are amazing. 🙂
And something we quickly realize as moms as well; these people want to eat. They want to eat often. They want to eat a lot. And they look to us to feed them. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t grow up learning how to cook, run a household, and manage a family, let alone create a family grocery budget with grocery shopping list. These are all skills I’ve slowly developed over time and still grow in to this day.
How I Happened Upon Once-a-Month Grocery Shopping
Many years ago, when we had three children ages five, two and a half, and newborn, – we had just begun our homeschooling journey, I was also working weekends as a Charge Nurse, and our weeks were very full. I found myself wondering just how would I fit the grocery shopping in, too? Even with my helpful husband, he couldn’t always control his long, grueling work schedule. We’re a family team, but like many dads, he wasn’t always home to help. I had to get creative and figure things out to get it all done.
This is where once-a-month grocery shopping came into play for me.
Developing a Once-a-Month Grocery Shopping System that Works for You
By deciding to jump into once-a-month grocery shopping you are deciding to take control of your family’s meals and grocery budget. You will save time by cutting your grocery shopping trips from 52 or 26 times a year, down to 12 or so. You’ll be able to focus on meal time as a family time, rather than a harried event to just feed these people. With less time in the stores you’ll spend less money on impulse buys. You’ll spend less money on gas and car wear and tear, just to name a few.
Once-a-Month Grocery shopping saves time, sanity, resources, money!
Menu Plan – I plan our meals for the month, you can read about some of those here. Meal planning saves money because by doing so in advance I’m not stuck wondering “what’s for dinner.” There’s not the temptation to order pizza – so that saves money too. Having a meal plan helps me to focus on exactly what I need to buy. You’ll find you also save money by being able to buy meat and cheese in bulk. Jolathe made a great meal planner form that you might want to check out.
Make a Master List – Create for yourself a list of e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g that you will need for the entire month. Include food products, toiletries, cat food, you name it. It’s the same as a weekly shopping list only you multiply those items by four. How much meat do you use per week, x4. I even buy all my milk & bread for the month and freeze it. Here are a variety of shopping list and menu planning forms from Money Saving Mom.
Make a list of stores and additional stops for the day. I usually go to at least two stores. I find I need a list of my stops for the day or I’ll forget. This also saves me gas by planning shopping along my driving route.
Get to bed early – The night before the big shopping day, I make sure that we’re all to be early. You’ll want your rest {also, wear good shoes}.
Make it a learning focused family day – I have done O-A-M grocery shopping in just about every configuration. My favorite is when I have all five kids and my husband with me. This may be some people’s idea of crazy. I call it my idea of FUN! I love turning anything we possibly can into a family event. We do fun activities like rounding items to the nearest dollar and keep a running total. Usually we find our estimated total comes out very close to the actual total. The kids love this.
Make it special – Sometimes I’m able to just take one child. I then use this time to have one-to-one time. We shop, talk, joke and I let them pick someplace special for lunch.
Eat a good breakfast – You need your energy. I don’t like to tackle shopping, let alone food shopping, while I’m hungry. Eating beforehand will save you money on impulse buying.
Start Early – It’s a 6 hour outing—easy. But remember, it’s only 12 times per year! The sooner we get out the door, the sooner we get home.
Unload & put away the same day – I like to get it all done and be “free” of it in the same day. It’s tempting – and sometimes we have, just put away the perishable items and leave the non-perishable until the next morning. However, I prefer not to do this, because then IT’S DONE!!! Each of the children has an organization job. J is in-charge of refrigerators & freezers. Z is in charge of pantry organization. N helps the family bring in bags and puts away small items like yogurt and bread.
Treat yourself to a nice meal OUT – Yes, even though you’re saving money by cutting down on your shopping days, food waste & gas it’s still nice to eat out. This also means I don’t have to serve a meal when we get home.
I like having everything I need upfront for all of our meals. Also, It’s a fact that if I’m not in the store than I’m not spending money 
! I’m sure we all have found ourselves running into the store to pick up “just a few items,” only to come out with a cart full an hour later {or is that just me?!}
Free Family Meal Planner Collection
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You might also like:
One Week Grocery Shopping Haul for Our Large Family {August 2015}
One Week Large Family Walmart Grocery Haul + Our Busy Life Menu for the Week!
Large Family Once a Month Grocery Shopping Haul and Grocery Expense Report
The Ultimate List of Free Meal Planner Printables huge list!
How to Stick to a Cash-Based Grocery Budget helpful article
Large Family Grocery Budget Breakdown with Large Family Grocery List
Large Family Meal Planning (one of the methods I use)
Large Family Once a Month Grocery Shopping Haul {Costco, Walmart, Sharp Shopper, Dollar Tree}
My First Aldi Grocery Shopping Haul + Two Week Costco Haul (very popular video & article)
My Slow Cooker Recipes & Vlogs
All Big Family Recipes (including Beans, Rice, and Cornbread 🙂
Everything Trim Healthy Mama my tips and slow and steady journey
Every Weekly Grocery Shopping Haul and my full list of Once a Month Grocery Shopping Hauls (lots!)
And finally everything in My Kitchen – updated weekly
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