In the Smaggle haus, grocery shopping is a contentious issue. Ben would be quite happy to live off gluten free ham and cheese toasties for the rest of his life but I have a penchant for perishables like fruit and vegetables so I have to shop on a more regular basis. This means that I shop almost every day and he’ll join me maybe twice a week. I don’t trust him to do a big shop alone. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not stupid. He can read a detailed list and buy the corresponding items. However if my preferred item isn’t available, he can get pretty creative with an alternative item. We had a very interesting cheese incident a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a game changer really.

Of course, I love having him come with me because it’s so much easier if he’s there to help drag the groceries home… and that’s pretty much where the love ends. Grocery shopping for him is a rather torturous event and he wants to get it done as fast as humanly possible. It’s not exactly a pleasant experience for me either but I like to take my time and select perfect apples, read the labels on all the muesli bar boxes, compare prices and really put a lot of thought into whether I want grapefuit or mint flavoured shampoo this month. It’s relaxing for me. Ben sees grocery shopping as a sport and wants to run around with the trolley pelting items into it at break neck speed and if he can get there and back in 20 minutes he’s visibly giddy.

My mother has always preferred to shop alone. If she shops with me she ends up with an extra $60 worth of beauty products in with her groceries. If she shops with my father he wanders off with the trolley and fills it with weird shit like jam rolls and solar powered outdoor patio lights.

I have friends, a married couple who always shop together and they love it. They plan their weekly menus and wander around the supermarket in a blissful daze. They even have this game where they make a mystery meal for each other once a week and part of the game is to sneak the ingredients into the trolley. I know, puke right?

I also have a friend who’s husband does all of the shopping. All of it. She’ll be eating some kind of weird crackers and I’ll ask where she got them and she’ll be like ‘I dunno. My husband does all the shopping.’ Mental.

What about you? What’s your family shopping style? Team effort? Solo voyage? A bit of both? Also who’s ‘in charge’ of the shopping?

Shopping cart image from Jennifer Squires