Monthly Shopping

I don't actually do monthly shops but if I did I would buy bulk everything - including milk, bread, meat, butter, cheese etc - and freeze what I don't need straight away (remember to siphon some milk from each bottle first so they don't split when the liquid expands).

I'd get a yoghurt maker too (if you don't have one already) and make my own yoghurt so you just need to buy the packets which can be stored in the pantry.

I love it Peanut, I sooo need to do that coz I have 2 dozen tins of creamed corn but no tinned tomatoes

Maya wrote: I love it Peanut, I sooo need to do that coz I have 2 dozen tins of creamed corn but no tinned tomatoes

Lol me to and we dont even eat creamed corn.... go figure

I am only use to monthly shopping and then came over here where it is weekly. Found weekly shopping to be a load more expensive. I do a combination of the two now. Work out more or less what you eat in a month or want to eat. Make the list. Then look at cleaning stuff and put that one. Then see what you have and dont have. Scrath out ect.

Milk I buy fresh. If we had to go somewhere I will just get longlife milk then. Bread I buy and put in the freezer. I will buy cheese, grate it and then put in the freezer.

Peanut wrote: If I was you (although you might not be as big a geek as me), I would write down everything you buy from the shop this time round and then its an easy check list e.g brought 6 cans of tomatoes used 3 so replace 3. I do this with our fortnightly shop and did it as an excel spread sheet and now just print it out each time and mark off what I need. Time consuming first time but so easy every other time! Yes, I am a complete geek

I am glad you said that as I planned to do that as I am going to try my first monthly shop this weekend! I love spreadsheets!

We always freeze our bread as we don't eat it fast enough to keep it in the pantry. I prefer to buy my milk fresh and will do it when I do the weekily vege shop

spreadsheet sounds fab..

we freeze our bread aswell and just leave 1/2 loaf in the fridge all the time..

grated cheese is fine in the freezer....

When we lose DH brother from living with us (eats like a horse) might try and do forthnightly shopping i think

Ginger, at least you put a whole lot of emoticons at the end

I had the millions of cans of one thing and just kept buying it, am now so good that I haven't had to buy creamed corn for 2 years

If there is any other geeks lurking out there, you may PM me with your email addy and I can email it to you, then you can adapt etc and not have to do the start up bit.

See, I am a helpful and friendly geek

Edited to say: I can't be that much of a geek as its only a word document and not an excel spreadsheet so probably down grades me a notch.

Edited by Peanut

I haven't read the other posts yet, but we have monthly shopped since we had a house - so almost 8 years!! (WOW! Can't believe we've been home owners that long!)

We shop at Pak N Save at the beginning of every month (at the beginning of our credit card period) and DH shops one side of the shop, and I shop the other, we are done in about an hour.

We write a list of what we are missing or running low on, and buy enough for 4 weeks. We buy a heap of bread at the fruit shop (as its cheaper than PnS) and get our fruit/vege/milk once a week.

It works really well for us, and I think we save a heap of money, and we have really interesting meals with the 'leftover' food at the end of the month (ie - whatever we can scrape together!)

i use to order groceries online when preg and as we run out or got low on something add it to the list on the website plus it saves your lists from your last shop so found it really useful