I thought it’d be best to do a FAQ post to answer all the questions regarding Monthly Shopping Trips. That way it’ll all be in one spot for future reference, too!
There’s a lot that goes into a Monthly Shopping Trip (MST). It can definitely be overwhelming when you’re just starting out. After shopping this way for over a year and a half now, I’ve gotten quite a few recurring questions about the process and how it works.
Let’s start with the most obvious question…
Why is it worth it to do a MST in the first place?
It may seem strange/odd to attempt to only shop once per month…it’s not a very common thing, I get it. I’ll answer the question with a question…What is your time worth? For me, the biggest reason it’s worth it to do just one shopping trip a month is to gain back some of my time.
I live in the rural midwest. In order to get to the stores to shop, I have to drive at least 30 minutes. That’s just the way of life where I live. It’s not uncommon to have a 30-45 minute commute to work or to run errands. But, who wants to constantly be running errands? Especially on their day off. Not me.
When I began staying home to raise our kids, I quickly realized what a great time suck it was to be spending our days in the car, running errands a few times a week. I wanted to live in my home and actually watch my children grow and create fond memories there. Not in the car through my rearview mirror.
And don’t worry, I realize there are life lessons to be learned and experienced by taking the kids with me out into the world. We/I get them out into the world plenty, I promise.
One of the easiest ways to gain some of that time back was to commit to shopping for all of our household items just one time a month. It’s worked really well for us!
There are actually quite a few great reasons why one might attempt to do a Monthly Shopping Trip, and I rounded them all up for you to read here.
Do you really save money?
This is a tough question. I definitely know we save money on gas and eating out for sure. Our money is most definitely going further for us. However, we do spend a good chunk of money this one time a month – usually in the $500-$700 range (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less). It’s the only time of the month that I’m out and about to really spend money.
For some of you, this may seem like a lot, but I really don’t think its that out of line for a family of four. I’d encourage you to calculate how much you spend at each shopping trip you make (let’s say $150/week x 4 = $600), plus gas (maybe $40 for all errand running/shopping for the month), and then all of your eating out expenses (let’s say $200/month). With those calculations, you’re easily sitting at about $850/month.
We weren’t great at keeping a budget or tabs on our spending prior to starting our MST, so I can’t give an exact answer. I’d venture to guess we save about $100-$300 every month, though.
Doesn’t produce go bad?
Short Answer: Rarely.
Long Answer: In your first couple of months of doing your MST, you’ll begin to realize which foods you go through quickly (no waste), and which foods you either need to buy more of or simply not purchase. Yes, we occasionally have a bit of spinach leftover or another produce item that goes bad.
Part of the point in doing a MST is to have less waste. As you become more familiar with your household’s eating habits throughout a month, you’ll learn what to buy (and eat!) and what not to buy (because it consistently seems to go bad).
I use a Master Shopping List every month. This helps me stay on track with purchasing items that we actually need. It also cuts down on impulse buys, and I rarely forget anything since using it!
With produce specifically, you’ll also learn how to ration your produce and eat what goes bad quickly, first. It becomes a bit of a game or challenge for us!
I’m a visual person, so I created this graphic that shows the timeline of how we eat through produce over the course of the month in our house. Each week you can see which produce items we have left to eat:
As you can see, we (obviously) start with a whole lotta food each month when it comes to fresh produce. We strategically eat anything that will go bad quickly – avocado, raspberries, bananas – first. Then we’re left with the items in the “Week 2” section and so on until we reach the end of the month and we have very little “Carry Over” food. This leads me to my next FAQ…
How do you eat Fruits and Veggies until the end of the month?
When we run out of fresh produce, we move on to canned or frozen fruits and veggies. I was doing a lot of canned veggies, but I’ve since learned frozen is the way to go for getting the most nutritional benefit.
I really like the frozen steamer veggies from Sam’s Club (they come in four-packs), and they have a fantastic large bag of frozen berries that I like to use when we run out of fresh berries!
How do you freeze milk?
This is one of the greatest hacks of Monthly Shopping (if you have the freezer space). I (currently) buy four gallons of milk each month. I’ll put one (sometimes two) in the fridge because I know we’ll go through them before they go bad. Then, I put the other two gallons in our deep freeze!
When I buy from Sam’s Club, the jugs aren’t full enough that I need to dump any out to avoid busting in the freezer. But, if I buy from somewhere else and the jugs look like this (see below), I definitely open them and dump milk out until about the red line. Then I put the lid back on and place it in the freezer.
When you start getting low on milk, pull a frozen gallon out of your deep freeze. If you think far enough ahead (go you!), you can pull it out and put it in your fridge to thaw days ahead of needing it. Otherwise, I typically get it out the day before (or day of, let’s be honest) we need it and let it sit out on the counter to thaw.
It takes a while to thaw… like, a while. I let mine sit out all day, or overnight if it’s later in the day when I grab it. If you shake it and can still feel/hear a large frozen cube, you’re good. Trust me. We haven’t gotten sick or died (or any other dramatic thing you strum up in your head) yet, and the milk is still A-OKAY. I promise. Just let it thaw on your counter.
I actually just did this. I took it out of the deep freeze yesterday afternoon, let it sit on the counter over night, and it was still slushy this morning when I put it in the fridge.
What can you freeze to make things last longer?
I love this question because there are so many things you can freeze to get you through an entire month (and beyond!).
Here’s a list of items we put in the freezer to save until needed:
- Bread Products: bagels, tortillas, buns, bread
- Dairy: milk, cheese
- Meat: hot dogs/brats, ground beef, sausage, chicken, meatballs
- Meals: If you get into the habit (I don’t personally do this) of making double meals when you’re cooking, you can easily freeze those for future use. We tend to make extra and just eat on it as leftovers during the week instead of freezing it for later.
- Veggies: If you are a gardener, there are many methods to preserving your produce by freezing/blanching/canning/dehydrating/etc.
Do you meal plan?
Nope. When I first started doing a MST, we did attempt to meal plan one week at a time. However, it’s just not really my/our thing. I really do think it would help things run more smoothly, and I hope to try it out again in the future.
Now that I’ve shopped monthly for so long, I know how many meals I can get out of certain foods, so I basically do meal planning on a larger scale and then on the fly throughout the week.
It would probably be really helpful if I broke it down further each week, but ya know… I’m just not there yet. I definitely think meal planning works very well with monthly shopping!
How do you know where to go to shop?
This is kind of hard to determine at first because you’ll have a tendency to want to go to all the places to get all of your favorite things from each store. That’s just not realistic once you’ve done it a few times. It’s a big day of shopping, so I’d limit your stops to three maximum.
Here’s my strategy. I have a “bulk” store (Sam’s Club) where I stock up on a lot of produce, meat, paper products, milk, etc. Then, I go to an “everything” store (typically this is Hy-Vee, sometimes Wal-Mart) to get everything else on my list and things I need in smaller quantities.
By the time I’m done at these two stops, I’m pooped. You will also have a ton of food in your car that’s frozen/cold/fresh produce, so you can’t dink around all day. There for a while, I was going to Aldi and Sam’s Club, but neither of those places is an “everything” store, so I’d end up only needing literally one or two items and would have to trek into a third store that had everything anyway. So now I just stick to the two.
I’d encourage you to experiment a bit the first few months. You’ll figure out quickly how you’d like to tackle it. I’ve also just done one stop before at Hy-Vee. That was kind of nice, but I love snooping around Sam’s Club for fun stuff too much!
Do you coupon/shop sales?
No. I do not coupon at all. We do use the Hy-Vee fuel saver, but only on items that are already on my list that we need. I do not buy things that are not needed (or on my list) just because they are on sale. I’ll say that again for those of you ducking in the back, I do not buy things that are not needed (or on my list) just because they are on sale!
I’m mainly referring to food items here. You can bet your butt I’m always on the hunt for a good bargain on gift ideas or clothing items. But again, I really really really try hard not buy any of that unless its an actual need and *you guessed it* on my list!
I’m referencing “my list” a lot here. I use a Master Shopping List (MSL) every month. If you don’t have a Master Shopping List, you’re truly missing out. Lucky for you, I’ve created a template to get your own MSL going – CLICK HERE to get started!
What is a Master Shopping List (MSL)?
Oh, what a great question! I’m glad you asked. My Master Shopping List is a key to success for my Monthly Shopping Trips.
Essentially, you take inventory of everything you buy for your household, list items by category, and alphabetize within each category. Then, you’ve created your MSL. From here, you print off this list each month (yes, the whole list), and highlight only the items that you need to buy for that month. The highlighted items become your “list” for your MST!
What if I forget something?
Look, this isn’t meant to be a stark black and white situation. If you choose to make that way, I think you’ll come up disappointed more often than not. I use our MSL as a guideline and goal for each month.
I do my best to remember everything we need, for every occasion that may arise in that month. That being said, things pop up, prescriptions are a necessity, events and birthdays are forgotten, we sometimes need clothing, etc. I am flexible and give myself grace. You should too.
Also, did you not read the previous Q&A? If you have a MSL, you really shouldn’t be forgetting a whole heck of a lot. š
What happens if we run out of food?
First, I don’t know that this is even possible. Second, if you run out of all of your food (like every.single.thing) you can certainly go and buy some more, my friend. I won’t tell anyone, scouts honor. There are no MST police.
I highly doubt you are going to run out of every single food item in your home. However, you will begin to run out of certain items as the month draws to an end. It’s okay. Not having milk for three days is okay. Not having stuff for cold meat sandwiches for two weeks is okay. You are supposed to run out of most of your food every month! That’s the whole point here – use what you buy = less waste!
Yay! You have an empty fridge and pantry! That is a successful month, my friend.
Please note that when I say “empty fridge and pantry” I don’t literally mean you go through every single condiment and salad dressing every month. Or every single box of pasta and all canned goods. I simply mean that what you have left at the end of the month is your “bare- bones stock”. You can maybe pull together some noodles and butter, but other than that, you’re getting pretty thin in the food department.
Again, it is okay. Embrace the uncomfortable and get creative! Raid your deep freeze or look up some recipes for only the ingredients you have on hand. And for gosh sakes, order a pizza if you’re too stressed out about it! It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
That Does It for my Monthly Shopping Trip FAQ
I hope you learned a lot and feel encouraged to give MSTs a try. If you’d like more detailed information on MSTs, please go read my Monthly Shopping 101 post! It breaks everything down really well for you.
Let me know what other questions you have that I didn’t answer here! I’ll be updating this as time goes on.
What the most surprising thing you learned after reading this? Let me know in the comments!
To the chaos!
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