Either have groceries delivered ($5 charge), or hitch a ride with a pal.
I live right across the street from a gigantic supermarket–and you know what? About a third of the time, I drive across the street to shop. Saves me about thirty steps of lugging heavy packages.
At one stage there were several in Sydney and there may still be one or two left around about the suburbs. There was definitely one near me, at Neutral Bay. But it quite quickly discovered that there simply weren’t sufficient people who wanted to do their shopping at 3.00am to justify paying the costs of remaining open 24 hours. It shuts at midnight now.
They tried 24 hour supermarkets in Adelaide, and like Cunctator said, they were just finding that the number of people who came in between midnight and 0600 just did not justify keeping the stores open those hours.
When I was without a car of my own, it was a city bus and a personal shopping cart. On occasion, my wife and I would take an Access van to Costco, shop there, run to Tony Roma’s for lunch, and get back to Costco in time for our pick-up to go home.
In the US, they stay open in lots of places not because of the customers, but because there are workers there stocking shelves overnight so they just have a couple of them work as cashiers for the odd customer or two. Otherwise it wouldn’t be cost effective as it is here. Plus, we’re all more dependent on public transport moreso than in most of the cities I’ve been in, and night busses are woeful.
For the few months I went without a car, I just got off the bus at the grocery store on my way home from work, bought food, and took the bus home. Pop and cat litter I always bought on a separate trip.
On a crowded bus with a load of groceries is not something I would personally recommend, but you do what you have to.
The same applies to every home I’ve had in Europe (including hotel stays long enough to want groceries).
Right now I’ve got a rolling cart which stays in my ground-floor storage room when not in use and several sturdy reusable shopping bags I use to take the groceries upstairs. There’s a fridge in the storage room, so I can even leave food that needs cold there instead of taking it to the third floor right away (no lift).
In South Miami I went before the sun burned too badly (and was eventually able to obtain a rolling cart like the ones Anaamika described), as the nearest supermarket was only 6 blocks away and a 24h place. In Philadelphia, having greater income, I hired a car or took a taxi for big grocery runs and used the convenience stores for fill-ins.
Had periods of years with no car. Five blocks from grocery store, rolling cart, careful planning and careful packing. Sometimes supplemented with backpacks, esp. when bicycling instead of walking. I could say more frequent trips but, quite frankly, we rarely have a night when we don’t have to run out and get something we forgot even now that we have lots of cars (and still, for such occasions we usually walk/bike to the store) (er, weather permitting, and I confess to being a bit of a wuss about the weather).
ETA yeah, so much for careful planning…
I have one grocery store across the street in one direction, another grocery across the street in the other direction, a huge recently opened 24-hour supermarket 3 blocks away, a new Whole Foods is 3 blocks east, and if I take the subway just one stop I have a Fairway & Trader Joe’s. I just buy food each night when I need it, or get a couple’s night worth in one go.
I have a 24-hour minimarket across the street from my house, for smaller stuff (I have something like 5 24-hour places within a 10-minute radius, for some reason). For major purchases, the supermarket in the mall 15 minutes from my house does deliveries. I can also order groceries online, although I haven’t done that recently.
Seeing as I work at home and my wife doesn’t drive, I can’t really see any real need for us to get a car. Everything I need is within walking distance.
Well, I’m using my uncle’s old 75+ liter pack. He needed a giant, sturdy pack because he was unwilling to take his wine out of the bottles before a backpacking trip, and so would stuff five or six bottles of wine into the pack along with the rest of his gear for a long trip. He was so much fun that my parents didn’t even let me meet him until I was 14!
Though I have a car (well, a pickup truck) I haven’t driven to the grocery store in over two months. (fuel prices and desire to lose weight) I have panniers and a trailer for my bicycle. Last time I went to costco, the load included a 30 flat of 20 oz. selzers and a 50# bag of dog food.
I lived in Vienna without a car for a while. I’d walk or take public transportation, and put stuff in my knapsack or just carry bags. It was VERY common for people to carry groceries home on the public transportation.
At my apartment in Kansas City I have an Aldi’s five blocks away, and I walk there with either a backpack or a cloth bag depending on how much stuff I need. I also have access to a CostCo that is one bus ride away, and I can head down there and back on one bus fare and transfer. I have a huge external-frame backpack and can fit weeks worth of groceries in it. The only tough grocery shopping I have is those items that not available from either source, but I can visit the Pricechopper downtown or the SunFresh in Westport.
At my Chicago apartment, I have similar access to a CostCo, but also have a grocery store on my block.
The hardest shopping I have to do is picking up kitty litter and food. I can put a 50 lb bag of litter and a 25 lb bag of food in the same backpack. As I said, it is huge.
No kids, but my wife and I went about 1.5 years without a car in DC. Mostly, we’d walk to the grocery store. It was kind of nice and I found that we were more careful about buying a lot of crap we didn’t need. We also had zip car so about once a month we’d do a bigger shopping run. The only time it would be kind of a pain was if it was late at night and I realized we didnt’ have coffee or juice for the morning, if we had a car, I could have driven over to the 7-11 to get some small items.
We now have a car for the work commute, but I was surprised how little I missed having a car.
I forgot, but we also would Metro to the grocery store at Columbia Heights and then hail a cab for the ride back home. Again, it was kind of nice not having a car. It was really good for going out to dinner because no one had to worry about not drinking because no one was going to be driving.
A bicycle is a vehicle. I don’t have a car, but even if I did, I wouldn’t use it to go grocery shopping. I’m living on my own, and can easily take a couple of days worth of shopping on my bike. I’d spend more time, energy and money finding a parking spot near the shops in town. Even if I had a family, it would very likely be easier to use bike like this one - there’s a reason those are extremely popular in the larger cities over here.
The walk home from the station (about ten minutes if I go really slowly) takes me past a supermarket, so I end up buying almost all of my food on the day. I keep little at home.
Christiania bike. Faster, cheaper, and in most ways better than a car here in Copenhagen.
There was a period of several years, from when I was about 8 to when I was about 13, when we had no car. There were a couple of small grocery stores within 2 - 3 blocks, plus we would do larger grocery runs on the bus to the supermarket now and again. And every once in a while, Mom would schlep us on the train to the natural foods store for certain things. Kids can carry groceries, too, you know.
Oh, and I didn’t own a car until my mid-twenties. Before then, I stopped at the supermarket on my way home from work on the train and only bought whatever fit in my backpack and maybe another small bag or two, and walked it home. Even when I owned a car, but shattered my left leg bones and spent several months on cruiches, there was Peapd. They were a lifesaver.