Shoppers at a Brampton FreshCo store in June. David Berman found that smaller grocery shopping trips multiple times a week helped his family cut back on food waste and spend less overall.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
I’m very excited to announce a tried-and-true method for reducing my grocery bill: Buy less. I know how that sounds, but hear me out.
After writing last month about why I look at best before dates as a loose guideline on when to consume food, I received a mountain of mostly positive feedback from readers.
One put it better than I did: “They’re best before dates, not dangerous after dates. I trust my nose.”
Other readers had to one-up me on their tales of how far past those dates they are willing to go.
Still others admonished me for writing on something that is obvious to them. And some readers saw the environmental benefits of reducing waste as more important than the financial savings.
Whatever your take, I thank you for it.
But one bit of advice really resonated with me: You can cut down on waste – and reduce your overall grocery expenses – if you put less food in your shopping cart.
No one is preaching starvation here. Rather, instead of buying a ton of food to last you the entire week, or longer, think about what you need for the next two to three days. Repeat two or three times a week.
This approach has been working like a charm for me.
I don’t enjoy grocery shopping because I am easily overwhelmed by the aisles and aisles of possibilities. Lists help, but I grow irritable trying to track down every caper and anchovy.
With just three dinners to contemplate, plus extras for breakfasts and lunches, I don’t tend to get bogged down. Making precision strikes is far less onerous than trying to buy everything all at once.
More importantly, if you’re consuming food within a few days, there is significantly less risk that fresh produce will go bad before you get to it. Like, zero chance.
This is absolutely the case in my household. Everyone here can agree on what we would like to eat now. But in a week, our appetites can change dramatically.
So can my willingness to cook. That ambitious Julia Child recipe might have looked like a good idea on Monday. But come Friday evening, beer in hand, the recipe can look like an assignment.
An embarrassing amount of food gets wasted this way.
With this approach to smaller hauls – a tweak on the “just in time delivery” inventory management strategy that U.S. companies adopted from Japan in the 1980s – food isn’t sitting around for long. And recipes remain inspiring.
On top of the financial savings, I think we’re also eating better. And some readers pointed out that this approach means that sale-price items on, say, beef or chicken, are fair game.
Okay, there are some drawbacks.
We are fortunate to have five grocery stores within a quick walk or drive. If I had to travel far, perhaps in a rural area, I wouldn’t want to go shopping two to three times a week.
It also entails taking a weekly chore and multiplying it. I prefer the trade-off – less time spent each time I visit a store – but I can understand why efficiency mavens might tsk-tsk this approach.
Do you load up the shopping cart or sail through the express checkout (ooh, perhaps another benefit)? Let me know at dberman@globeandmail.com.
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David’s personal finance reading list
If you’re on the lookout for a relatively strong-performing bond fund, this short list is a good place to start. The caveats: Even the top-performing funds are down over the past year, and you may need to do some additional research to see if fees are higher for individual investors than institutions.
Bonds have been a pain this year, raising the question of why investors should bother with them at all if stocks have historically delivered superior returns. “We can’t know what the future holds, so that’s why I’d recommend an asset allocation that, statistically speaking, might be more conservative than necessary” (hat tip: Abnormal Returns).
Living on 4 per cent of your savings works well when stocks and inflation play along. When they don’t? “The strategy fails far more often in certain circumstances – namely, when there is high inflation, if stocks slump for a decade (as they did during the early 2000s), or when an investor has too conservative an allocation strategy or has advisory fees.” (For subscribers to The Wall Street Journal.)
Chart of the day
Economic malaise is holding back the housing market – and potentially limiting rate hikes. Here’s a chart with the latest mortgage rates.
New products that caught my eye
The Fiat Topolino is a real head-spinner. I know, my head spun every time I saw one of the tiny electric vehicles during a trip to Italy this summer. It looks quaintly European, designed for mild winters and ancient roads. Turns out, Fiat is now betting that the EVs – with a top speed of just 40 km/hour – will thrive on North American roads too.