So remember that build-your-own dinner thing from last week? Where you make one main dish and let everyone customize it? Well, that’s great until you realize you still have to actually buy all the food.
And oh my gosh, the grocery shopping.
I used to walk into Kroger with a list that looked like three different people had written it. Regular milk AND oat milk. White bread AND gluten-free bread. Regular pasta AND the $6 box of chickpea pasta that my teenager swore she’d eat (spoiler: she didn’t).
My cart was basically a small grocery store, and my bill showed it.
The duplicate disaster
Here’s what I was doing wrong: buying two of everything “just in case.”
Two types of bread because what if someone changes their mind about gluten? Two milks because my husband likes regular but my daughter is lactose intolerant. Two kinds of yogurt because plain is boring but flavored has too much sugar for keto.
Last month I counted - I was literally buying duplicates of 12 different items. Twelve! No wonder I was spending $450 a week at the grocery store.
Plus I kept forgetting which kid needed what. Was it my youngest who couldn’t have dairy or my oldest? Is my husband still doing that weird no-carb thing or did he give up already?
What actually helped
I started doing two things that made shopping way less insane.
First, I stopped buying two versions of everything. Instead, I looked for foods that could work for multiple people with tiny changes.
Like instead of buying sandwich bread AND gluten-free bread, I started getting those Mission carb balance tortillas. Everyone can use them - for wraps, quesadillas, even as “bread” for my daughter’s peanut butter sandwiches. One item instead of two.
Or instead of regular milk and almond milk, I just buy Oat Dream oat milk now. It works in coffee, cereal, and cooking, and honestly most people can’t tell the difference. My husband complained for exactly one day and then got over it.
But this doesn’t always work. I tried switching to dairy-free cheese for everyone and that was a hard no. Some things you just have to buy multiples of.
My shopping list trick
The second thing that saved me: I reorganized how I write my shopping list.
I divide it into three parts on my phone:
Basics - stuff everyone eats: eggs, chicken, bananas, sweet potatoes, frozen vegetables. I buy these every week no matter what.
Special stuff - the dietary requirement things: gluten-free pasta, dairy-free butter, whatever. I check what we have at home first because this stuff is expensive and half the time we still have some.
Random stuff - cheese, salsa, nuts, fruit, snacks. The extras that make meals more fun.
This helps because I’m not wandering around the local grocery store trying to remember if I need almond flour or if we still have some from last month’s baking disaster.
When it doesn’t work
Sometimes my brilliant plan falls apart.
Like when I decided quinoa would be our “universal grain” that everyone could eat. Turns out my 8-year-old thinks quinoa looks like tiny bugs and refused to touch it. So now I have a $12 bag of quinoa sitting in my pantry that no one will eat.
Or the time I bought plantain chips thinking they’d be a healthy snack everyone would love. My husband said they tasted like cardboard and my kids just stared at them like I’d brought home actual tree bark.
You win some, you lose some.
The reality of grocery shopping with multiple diets
Look, I’m not going to pretend this is easy or that I have it all figured out.
Some weeks I nail it and come home with everything we need for $150. Other weeks I spend $300 and still end up ordering pizza Friday night because I forgot to buy something crucial.
Last week I spent 20 minutes in the Whole Foods dairy aisle trying to remember if my teenager was avoiding dairy or just lactose. I ended up buying both regular yogurt and coconut yogurt, which defeated the whole purpose.
But overall, buying fewer duplicates has helped. My grocery bill is down to about $250-300 a week (still more than I’d like, but better than $450). And I don’t feel like I need a cart and a sherpa to get through the store.
What to try this week
Next time you’re shopping, look at your list and see if there’s one thing you always buy two of. Maybe it’s milk, or bread, or snacks.
See if there’s a single option that could work for most people in your family. It won’t always work, but when it does, it saves money and space in your cart.
And don’t stress if it doesn’t work perfectly. Sometimes you just have to buy the regular pasta AND the gluten-free pasta and accept that feeding a family with different diets is complicated.
What’s the one thing you always buy duplicates of? We’d love to hear your grocery store wins and fails! Email us at hello@choregami.com or tag us on Instagram @choregami!
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