How Our Family Only Grocery Shops Once a Month

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Yes, you read that correctly – my family only goes grocery shopping once a month! I’ve been doing this for years now and honestly I forget that this isn’t a normal thing most people do. However, there are so many benefits to this method that I can’t imagine changing things up anytime soon.

Why We Grocery Shop Once a Month:

I am a single mom of two boys, and I get them about 50% of the time. On the evenings and weekends that they spend with their dad, I prefer to fill my time with things that fill my cup as a mom and a human. I go to the gym, I co-host a personal finance meetup group, I spend time with friends, and I am building my other blog into a business. I do not want to spend my time grocery shopping every week because that would limit the time I could spend on things that I want to be doing.

Shopping once a month also keeps us on budget in the best way. I am a self-described foodie, and I am also very easily distracted. Shopping once a month limits the amount of times I am exposed to specialty fun foods like sun-dried tomatoes, marinated olives, specialty vinegars, and all the additional foods that I could picture myself using in creative meals that, let’s be honest, I won’t actually use beyond a meal or two.

Another benefit is that it helps reduce decision fatigue. Once a month shopping decreases the amount of “how much is left in the food budget” by 75% if you’re used to shopping once a week. As part of the shopping once a month, I also meal plan once a month, which eliminates the weekly stress of “what’s for dinner?”

Bonus side effect: we had some horrible weather here in St. Louis this last week, and many people rushed to the stores to grab whatever food they could before getting snowed/iced in. Since I was still within my monthly meal plan, I had everything I needed and got to skip the traffic, checkout lines, and overall stress.

What Does a Monthly Shopping List Include?

A monthly shopping list includes all food for me (three meals a day), meals for the boys on the days I have them (breakfast, a few lunches, and dinners), and all the household cleaning products, toiletries, and my makeup.

Our current budget for all of this is $400 a month. We very rarely go over budget. When we have leftover money, the boys get to decide how and where we go out to eat. Sometimes we have enough to buy a tub of Breyer’s oat milk ice cream (a family favorite!), and sometimes we can order pizza.

How do we eat fresh fruits and vegetables if we only grocery shop once a month?

This is a common question I get asked about our system! And it makes sense, because fresh fruits and veggies are the core of a healthy and balanced diet – especially a plant-based one.

The answer is that we buy hearty fresh produce that lasts a long time and eat that throughout the month (apples, bananas, potatoes, and carrots). Anything that is more “delicate” in nature that might go bad faster is usually frozen. We go through bags of organic frozen fruits from Costco like nobody’s business. My kids are frequently seen with blueberry stains around their mouths from eating entire bowls of frozen wild blueberries, and my oldest would prefer a bowl of frozen mango to most desserts.

What About Milk?

Being vegan, I don’t have the concern about milk going bad, but almond milk from the refrigerated section can be expensive! We get a case of shelf-stable almond milk almost every month from Costco. They also have soy milk and oat milk, but the almond milk seems to be one of the most cost-effective options for how often we use it.

How *Exactly* Do We Shop Once a Month?

Now for the part that most people probably care about the most – what does this process actually look like?

Well, it starts…with my phone. I keep an ongoing note on my phone throughout the month with things we are running low on or just completely ran out of. For me, this is organized by which store I will be buying from (that part comes with practice). This part is essential for me because otherwise I would be shopping blind and very likely to do that thing where you go to Target for toothpaste and leave with $150 of unnecessary items and no toothpaste.

The morning of my shopping trips, I do a quick once-over of the pantry, fridge, freezer, and bathroom. I check for anything I might be running low on that missed the list, or multiples of items that I know I don’t need to buy again this month.

Second, I complete the monthly meal plan. This is just done on a simple sheet of paper with lines labeled for each day of the month. I focus on the dinner menu more than breakfasts or lunches since I know what our usual favorites for those are. I review the upcoming month so I can plan ahead for days where things might be busier. My boys take martial arts on Mondays and Wednesdays, so meals for those nights need to be quick and easy (or be prepped on Sunday reset days). Every Friday night is Family Pizza Movie night. I save more complex or time-consuming meals for Saturdays and Sundays since we have more time.

I also add in a few “backup” meals to the list for those instances where plans change or we just don’t feel like eating whatever is on the menu for that day.

Next, I finalize my grocery list and put in my curbside orders for Aldi, Target, and Whole Foods. Curbside pickup is a GAME CHANGER and I am so grateful for it. I could not possibly do this marathon shop without curbside pickup. Curbside saves us time, and keeps me on budget by limiting impulse purchases.

It’s not all curbside, though. We do go into Trader Joes for a few things (they have the best price for cashew yogurt, and a few vegan meatless treats we like), a local Asian market for rice, rice noodles, and spices, and we do a big stock-up at Costco. Costco takes up about $200 from our $400/month budget, typically.

For the stores where we go inside, I make the trips a family project. My oldest manages the grocery list and my younger one handles the calculator. This started when my oldest could read and my younger one was learning his numbers, and it’s become jobs that they are fiercely protective over.

Costco is a huge temptation for all of us with impulse purchases, so we worked out a system. If we see something we like that isn’t on the list, my oldest will write it on the list, along with the price and a “?” beside it. Once we have finished getting everything on our list, we review our budget and anything listed with a “?” next to it. We decide if it fits in the budget and if we would really want it. Most of the time, they opt to not get it and use that money towards getting takeout later in the month.

What Happens Next – How I Lower Waste Output:

When we get home, I chop all the onions and most of the peppers and freeze them. This eliminates a lot of waste (don’t ask me how many times I’ve let peppers go bad before I started doing this). I save the onion skins and pepper tops/insides in a bag in the freezer, along with all my other veggie scraps that I collect throughout the month. When the bag is full, I put it in my instant pot and create a veggie broth.

The leftovers that I strain from the broth go into my compost bucket. I use a local compost service, which supports small business while improving the health of the soil and my local ecosystem.

Aldi and Whole Foods provide their curbside orders in paper bags, which I use as liners for my bird cages.

How To Get Started Grocery Shopping Once a Month:

This is such a great system, but not one to jump into overnight. Definitely start small to avoid burnout. For example, if you are not currently in a place to do a full Costco stock-up, could you buy one thing in bulk? For instance, let’s say you normally buy a small box of rice every week – could you buy a 5lb bag of rice one week, and use that next week’s “rice money” to put towards one more thing in bulk? In my experience, it’s much more sustainable to slowly stock up on your bulk purchases, and then alternate which bulk products you purchase every month. As an example, now that I buy in bulk, I don’t have to buy flour, sugar, and rice every month. I alternate those purchases, which allows for some flexibility within my budget to buy other things.

Keep a list of your favorite meals and the common ingredients that you need to make those meals quickly. This keeps your kitchen from becoming an episode of Chopped, and eliminates stress because you always have a few key meals available. If there are some common ingredients in those recipes, focus on bulk purchases for those items first, if possible.

Get in the habit of shopping your pantry first and looking up replacement options before heading to the store. For example, did you know that in a pinch, you can make baking powder by mixing baking soda with cream of tartar? With enough notice, you can also bake a loaf of sandwich bread instead of buying one.

Lastly, this system works in tandem with other routines that make my life easier, like my weekly Sunday reset routine, which I’ll talk about soon. My monthly shopping list makes my Sunday reset routine faster because I have all the starting pieces.

I hope this post was helpful for you! I would love to hear any question you have or feedback if you decide to implement it in your own life!