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One of the habits that I am developing is to try to shop for fresh foods more often, but in smaller, well-chosen quantities. I used to try to save time (and in theory, money) by stocking up on one big shopping trip, acquiring everything I might need in the hope that I could stretch that food for a few weeks.

Of course, as was my previous pattern by the time I left the store I was starving, eating whatever salted carbohydrate-in-a-metallic-plastic-bag that jumped off the shelf and into the cart, and having relatively little of anything that could be considered fresh.

I used to have every legitimate (or, not-so-legit) reason in the world to avoid the store. The reasons included things like:

1. I don’t have time
2. I can’t afford it
3. I don’t enjoy the grocery store (too crowded, its boring, “I ‘vant to be lev’t alone”, I don’t like beets, and so on)
4. It costs gas money, and adds that much more to our little global hothouse conundrum (I’ll give ya that one.)
5. I have my kids with me - have you ever been to a grocery store with a 3 year old?
6. I’m afraid I’ll buy things that are bad for me, since they’re all there, in their beautiful, glowing packages, just waiting to be eaten
7. When I buy produce it always goes to waste or mutates into something entirely unrecognizable in my refrigerator
8. My personal assistant doesn’t understand me (ok, that one’s not mine. But I am pretty sure I’ve heard it said when we lived in L.A.)
9. I might break a nail, or a sweat. And I work really hard to avoid that.
10. I have a personal rule against, you know, shopping and and/or using my kitchen more than once a month
11. I can’t find my sunglasses/My sunglasses make my forehead look big
12. My pants are in the dryer. Not that it stops me from getting the morning paper on the front lawn (Again, not mine. Probably.)
13. My ear hurts
14. I have to pee. A lot.
15. I think I may have offended the person working the deli counter. I must avoid her at all cost.
16. My gums may start to bleed at any time, requiring my immediate attention.
17. I might lose something (keys, chastity, who knows???)
18. I may not be able to remember how to get home. (OK, this one might be legit.)

No time to shop

While there may be varying degrees of truth to some of those items on the “I can’t because” list, this one, lack of time, is probably the most common (followed closely by, “I can’t afford to do that!”). I used to think that I simply didn’t have time to shop once every few days; I was convinced that there is no way I could squeeze out any more time than I had already wrung from my day.

In reality, for me at least, this turns out to completely untrue, though I would have argued vehemently this point a year ago.

As folks like Michael Pollan point out, we all feel that way these days, as if our lives have become so busy that we simply do not have time to do such pedestrian things as shopping for the day’s sustenance. But somehow we’ve made the time for a couple of hours a day to surf the Web - lest we forget that we all felt equally as busy before we had that computer in our daily life. We have all found time to use up that 1500 minutes a month chatting away or texting for hours on the cell phone, or watching bizarrely addictive reality TV shows (I say this, fully admitting that I just DVR’d Top Chef tonight on Bravo). But somehow, we can’t seem to find the time to buy groceries that might be better for us - you know, those fresh things that rot in the “crisping drawer” because we don’t know exactly what to do with them.

So truth be told, the concept of shopping once every couple of days is less about how little time I have and much more about where my priorities lie.

How do you afford it? Does this blog pay THAT well?

The second most common reason against this was simple cost - I thought, there is no way that I can afford that!

However, I’ve found that this is only partly, maybe even barely, true.

For me, there are two big factors here:

1) By shopping for smaller quantities, more often, and actually eating the food you buy instead of saving it in a cabinet for months on end, I’ve found that I get several meals out of one “set” of fresh vegetables. As an added benefit, maybe even the primary benefit, If I’m spending my budget on fresh foods, I do not have as much money to spend on things I should probably avoid for the most part anyway, like fast food. Meaning, putting my money into better food forces me to eat better, because I don’t have money left over for the wrong choices.

2) In the end, yes, it may cost a little more, but that is just a matter of shuffling around the money that I’m spending for the sake of improving my health. As with your time, its a matter of priorities. And healthful eating should simply be a priority.

When I started trying this, I was skeptical on the cost question. I mean, how could we save money eating expensive organic produce? It turns out that the truth is I wasn’t saving as much money as I thought I was; combine buying stored foods that I didn’t eat with eating out more, in reality my food expenses were relatively high. However I’ve changed those habits since the beginning of the year, and I’ve had a surprising result: I’m actually saving money by eating better. Now that I have been eating fresh, real food in moderation and avoiding things like fast food and a regular, nightly beer (I still drink beer, but much less frequently), I’m actually saving money while eating much, much better.

And this with two children and a voraciously hungry wife. Just kidding, honey.

I find it important to remember that part of the reason that we tend to think its cheaper to buy heavily produced food that lasts an unnaturally long time (read: products that are bathed in preservatives or are inordinately salted), is because the manufacturers of those products spend a ton of money to convince us of this idea. There’s nothing wrong with that; as a friend recently pointed out, if you are selling any product, from apples to gasoline, it behooves you to make it look as appealing and necessary as possible.

But, that doesn’t mean you have to buy it. In fact, advocates of keeping advertising unregulated are the first to point that out, and they do indeed have a point.

And no, this blog does not pay that well. I think .37 cents or so from Google, though that is far from an official count.

So what is the answer? How do you get to the store more often without breaking the bank?

In the next article, “11 ways to go food shopping more often“, I’ll include at least 11 ways that you can buy better food, more often, without dipping into your toddler’s college fund or taking out a series of home equity loans from a guy who wears pointy boots and goes by the name of the Vinny the Vinialator (no offense, Vinny, if you’re out there).

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1. 11 ways to go food shopping more often
2. Five Reasons Why I avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup
3. Eat Real Food - It’s what your Grandma would do
4. Chicken part 2: How to save money at the grocery store
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