Why I Stopped Grocery Shopping as a Single Person

If you are anything like me, you are single, you probably work a 9 to 5 job, spend about 2 hours a day commuting, spend a little time with friends and family after work, then go home and crash.

Oh... and we can't forget about going to the store to buy food. I tend to stay away from prepackaged, preserved dinner meals and usually try to stock up on ingredients to cook healthier, fresh meals.

The only problem is... a lot of the food usually ends up going to waste. There is too much of one ingredient, or the shelf life of another ingredient won't keep as long as the rest (sigh...) Grocery stores typically sell their food in quantities for 3-4 people or more in a family. It is almost like buying in bulk for a single person. Let's say you pay $3 for a loaf of bread, and ... idk $5 for a pound of turkey.

$8 for ... about 10 sandwiches roughly. (that was the case with the loaf I bought) Pretty good value if you enjoy just eating sandwiches for a week.

...yes, it's cheaper buying a loaf of bread and other pieces vs. splurging on one sub sandwich (which is about $5-8)..... but, when you have already eaten a few sandwiches, and still have a half of the loaf left, and it is getting moldy, and you didn't buy enough turkey and don't feel like going back to the store... that situation gets old pretty fast. Also, you shouldn't eat bread nonstop for a week strait.... that's - … that's not good.....

-- so, there was a phase I went through in which my fridge was completely empty other than drinks and a few veggie snacks.

It just made sense that my workplace was near fast food restaurants that were semi healthy. It was perfect: i'd grab something from one of them on my lunch break, and on my way home, I would catch one of the drive-thrus.

Well, no food went to waste then, and it felt great freeing up my schedule... but anytime I craved something when I was at home (besides a granola bar) I had to jump in the car and go get it.

A personal habit of mine is that I come home, I wind down, take a shower, then grab an evening snack while watching YouTube on my TV.

I'd sometimes order pizza or a sandwich so that way I didn't have to get in the car. But... my weight gain was starting to bother me, along with delivery fees.

I liked having the extra time that wasn't spent making lists and grocery shopping, so I started looking into just having groceries delivered... but unfortunately, that isn't a service currently offered where I live. But even if it was, I'd deal with the issue of possibly wasting food again. However, I can have a couple of meal prep services shipped to my house instead.

With the service I use, each serving is approximately $9 (for one person) which is a tad cheaper than what I would typically order at the drive thru. It is about the same amount of food, and it usually only takes about 15 minutes to cook. It's delivered strait to the door in a box. Perfect for quarantine or just pure laziness since you don't have to drive anywhere to pick it up.

Best of all, everything is pre-proportioned, so it really doesn't take a whole lot of thought. You just toss it in and you are done.

It tastes great, you know what is exactly in your food. You know that it is fresh, and since it is a little simpler now that everything is pre-proportioned, its kinda fun!

The amount of dirty dishes are minimal since now you don't need measuring cups, extra spoons and stuff. Now, I don't have to deal with a loud crowded store very often, or stress about meal planning. I pick from a few choices and it's taken care of. So easy. I used to hate cooking because of all the steps and measuring, but now I look forward to it. I randomly get hungry in the evenings, and I can just go cook something real quick, and not be minimally worried about someone judging me at the drive-thru for being in my pjs (lol).

I eat between 2 and 3 meals a day depending on what is happening. My service is set for 2 people receiving 3 meals a week... so 6 meals total. I use those for the evenings and weekends, as well as days where I am not going out with friends or family. Since one meal selection serves two people, I usually cook both servings at once and store the 2nd serving in a container for later. Sometimes, I can even get 3 meals out of them, it just all depends.

I do still buy my lunch though, that way I don't have to worry about someone stealing my lunch from the fridge, or dealing with the microwave... or washing the container. It's a nice 50/50 system. With an occasional run to Walgreens, I almost never have to go all the way into town now. Walgreens is literally down the street from my house, and always has the few essentials that I need (deodorant, toothpaste, soda, etc.) And, if you buy their specific brand of things, you can avoid the extra dollar or so more that you pay at Walgreens for big-name products vs. the same exact products at the grocery store. Stopping by on the way home (and not having do deal with shopping for food) saves me gas, drivetime, as well as all the time that is usually spent walking through the large grocery store. Another perk when you have a meal delivery service is that budgeting for food becomes a lot more predictable, and easier to keep track of.

I'll wrap this up by saying, I just feel that this system is what seems to have worked out best for me. Since it's just me, "buying bulk" to save money doesn't really work. So, why not have someone else buy in bulk and you still get to have some of that savings without the waste? Really, think about the last time you ever got out of a sit down restaurant, and paid $9 for a meal that wasn't an appetizer. Or think of it this way: minimum wage for one hour of work where I live is $12. It will cost you ( calculating in drive time, prep time, cook time, as well as the actual time-to-money value of what groceries you buy for this meal are) at least $24 - $36 if not more... (every situation is different, it obviously just depends on everything). Instead, for approximately $9 for a one person serving, you save about an hour or two spent at/driving to and from the grocery store, the gas it took to get there and cook time ( without having the food pre-proportioned, cooking will take up more of your time) Have someone else spend the time to sort everything that you need, and send it to you. It's like having a help mate to do the shopping without any drama, lol.

By the way if you want to try HomeChef for the first time and get $35 off, all you have to do is use my referral code at checkout:

rachelw236

Write it down!! Screenshot it!

You can learn more about this service here:

https://www.homechef.com/

Just put the code in at checkout, and boom! The discount will be applied.

However, there are other great options out there too, I have just had the best experience with this service so far. I've had issues with other services where items were missing... it costed more, and you still had to go to the store to get somethings which kinda defeated the point for me, but with HomeChef, you literally just need salt, pepper and olive oil (which you can find at Walgreens). Maybe some of that info doesn't bother you, so definitely do some research and see what service works best for you.

But hopefully, if you are in the same boat that I was, this was some good food for thought.

I hope that you enjoyed, thanks for reading!