What a Once a Month Grocery Shopping Trip Looks Like

Want to see what it looks like to grocery shop once a month? Check out this once a month shopping haul and day in the life. It’s a great look at the process.

If you have been a reader for very long you likely know I shop once a month out of town. For the last several months my mom and I have been doing our shopping together.

We like the same stores, we enjoy spending time together, we have a nice lunch, sometimes with my childhood best friend that is in college in the town where we shop, and our husbands are happy to skip the shopping trip and send us instead.

This trip was a little different from our normal trip. We “needed” pumpkins to decorate with and Whole Foods always has some really nice ones so we decided to go up to Oklahoma City, which is about 30 minutes from the town where we normally shop. We planned to leave at 9:30 but we are not morning people at all, so we ended up leaving at about 10:15 by the time the car was all loaded up.

We did go ahead and go to Norman (the town we normally shop in) because we needed to drop off glass recycling as our town doesn’t recycle glass, go to the locally owned store we like, went to Homeland (a small regional chain grocery store, kind of like Publix or Ralph’s), and to meet up with my friend for some lunch at our favorite little restaurant.

When we got up there we dropped off our recycling to make room for our groceries. And then we headed over to Homeland for a few things. They had a great sale on organic onions, it was only $2.89 for three pounds. I didn’t need three pounds of onions but it would have cost almost as much to get what I needed and onions freeze really well.

The rest of my items were kind of funny, two gallons of white vinegar, two containers of salt, and hair ties. I’m sure if anyone looked at what I was getting they had to wonder what I was doing with all of that stuff.

After that stop it was time to meet my friend for lunch. We ate at the Pink Elephant as we almost always do. We were very excited this time because I asked if there was any chance they could make the potato soup they made last time we were there as a special because it was the best soup I’ve ever had. They are awesome and said they would make it happen. Last time we got cups of soup and had wished we had more so this time we got full bowls and ate every last bite.

After our very nice lunch, we headed up to Oklahoma City. Our first stop was Whole Foods. While I love Whole Foods, the produce is amazing, I love all the fresh flowers, and pretty little things, however, it’s a bit overwhelming for me.

I have gotten used to small, locally owned grocery stores where I know a lot of the staff and we go when it’s not very busy. Plus I know where everything is. I walked back and forth in that Whole Foods so many times. It isn’t set up like any Whole Foods I’ve been in, in the past.

I have only been twice to this Whole Foods. I could not find the deli for the longest time and that’s a big area so I felt dumb. I was looking for one in the center area by the bakery because every Whole Foods I had been to had their deli in the center area, not this one.

I did have a nice guy that found a grass-fed filet for me (well for my husband, I don’t like steak) in the back and cut it fresh for me. And our cashier and bagger (is that the correct term?) were very nice and helpful.

Oh and I forgot the best thing that happened at Whole Foods. They had samples of these grapes which I believe for red holiday seedless grapes, I love grapes so I tried one. Oh my gosh! It was so good. I MAYBE had three of them and was tempted to go back a few more times. I made my mom tried them as well.

After a couple, I figured out they taste like watermelon Jolly Ranchers, or what I remember them tasting like, it’s been years. My mom picked up on the watermelon as well so we have been calling them watermelon grapes.

So after spending way too much at Whole Paycheck Foods, we headed to Sprouts, which was close by. I had only been to a Sprouts in Texas a few times but they had some really good sales. One was a 20% off anything you could find in a paper sack from their frozen foods.

I stocked up on some frozen fruits and veggies, and maybe some junk food as well. After that we had spent too much, the car was full and we were tired, so we headed over to a little cupcake store called Green Goodies for a yummy treat. We then headed home.

I’m not sure when we got home but by the time I got the food put up and sat for a few minutes, it was 9:30 before I had dinner. My feet were sore and I was tired but my kitchen is fully stocked with food and I had a nice time with my mom and my friend. And for the answer to the question on how much food a Prius can hold, check out the pictures below.

Have you ever tried once a month grocery shopping? Click here to read more about once a month grocery shopping.