It’s a trap! :eek:
We shop once a week, and it takes about an hour. My wife and I work together, so we plan out work lunches for the week, and spend Sunday making a couple of crock pot or Dutch oven recipes that are then portioned into microwave-safe dishes for the week. (Except Friday’s lunch. Friday is date day.)
We get a once a year shipment of non-perishable goods and we have become pretty good calculating our needs for the year. For produce and other perishable items Mrs. DrumBum and Sandra ( our empregada ) head out to the various markets. Meat comes South Africa and/or Brasil, and they head to the beach to barter with the* pescadores* for our seafood.
I’m a workaholic, my hours are long and irregular and so I’m really bad about cooking a sensible meal on those nights when I get home at 10:00 pm. A few years back, I started buying bulk items at Costco about once a month and have a cooking day during which I cook up several pounds of ground beef, or chicken breasts or pork roast into several recipes which I then divide into single portions and freeze. If I have something cooked that I can nuke when I get home, I’ll eat it instead of whatever unhealthy thing may be lying around beckoning to me.
Beyond my once-a-month Costco runs, I restock my perishables once a week at either a farmer’s market or the chain store down the street. I usually freeze some fruit and veggies during their seasons and put those in single-size portions in the freezer as well.
I invested in a big freezer 5 years ago that I keep in my garage. I have definitely gotten my money’s worth out of it.
We’re not so good at pre-planning meals and sticking with them. So our grocery strategy is to have certain staples on hand, like onions, garlic, citrus, rice, beans, herbs and spices, frozen vegetables, flour, butter, sugar, chicken stock, etc… and then for meats and fresh vegetables, we get what is fresh, looks good, on sale, interesting, etc…
Then the actual meals are more of an Iron Chef exercise in preparing a meal with what we have on hand. Sometimes, we’ll have all but one perishable ingredient for something we like, so I’ll grab that during my lunch hour. Like say… cream or jalapeno peppers or something that we wouldn’t just stock for later use.
Sometimes, if we have enough stuff in the freezer, we may start deciding on specific dishes. For example, last winter we realized we had a few roasts in the freezer, a bunch of onions, and a bomber of Belgian ale, so I was dispatched to go get some egg noodles to eat with the Carbonnade a la Flamande that we made out of the beef, onions and beer.
Ultimately, it’s usually one big trip to the store on the weekend, and a lunchtime trip or two for odds and ends that we forgot, or didn’t know we needed.
We hit Costco every week for a variety of staples. Select fruits and veggies, meats, cheese, milk boxes, cat stuff, cereal. We skip the trip once a month or so if we don’t have a critical Costco-only need. Being Executive Members, we get a percentage back, which funds our membership fees in full.
We also usually hit Trader Joe’s on the way back, to fill in with smaller quantities of stuff that we just can’t eat in Costco amounts, or where we prefer TJ’s brand. Fruits like pears and peaches, hummus, potatoes, onions, frozen fish and chicken, pasta and sauce, milk and butter. TJ’s has very good prices on that stuff, at least on most of it. For what’s left over, Tetley British Blend Tea, Hellmann’s Mayo, Oscar Meyer Turkey Bologna, etc. we go to the soon to close down Pathmark.
Hehe, at first glance I read this as “a variety of samples.” I was like, “me too, but how on earth do you stretch that into a week’s worth of food?!” 
There’s a Food Lion right by the highway on the way home. When the grocery list gets long enough (or if we’re low on milk or some other critical foodstuff), one of us will grab the list as we head to work in the morning, and we’ll stop at Lion Food on the way home. If it’s a long list, we’ll go in together. If it’s only got 3-4 items, I’ll usually run in and grab them while my wife sits in the car and amuses herself on her iPad.
Shopping for one, I’m in and out in about 15 minutes. I shop at a small-ish store and know where everything is. I normally get about a week worth of staples.
I keep an ongoing list in the “notes” app on my phone that I add things to as I run out. Other than that, I make a list for meals I plan to make and write it out according to the floor plan of the store I’m going to. I also check Ibotta, Cartwheel and MPerks and add anything that appeals from those apps to my list.
Dog food is a once a month run to Costco, where I also grab coffee, laundry detergent, paper products. Occasionally I have to run to the hippie store for some special ingredient and while I’m there I grab anything else that keeps for awhile and is hard to find in the regular grocery store (nutritional yeast, vegan bullion, gluten).
I do my meal planning sometime between Thursday night and Saturday morning. Grocery shopping is typically once per week on Saturday mornings as early as I can get in there. So jealous of all those who can do online pre-ordering or shopping; I loathe going to the grocery store and would really appreciate any shortcuts to avoid it.
Typically I go to two stores (the only two in our town), Wal-Mart and Kroger. The Kroger is only for loss leaders or specialized items that Wal-Mart doesn’t carry. I don’t like Wal-Mart and would prefer not to shop there but can’t make my spouse-set $125 spending limit for weekly groceries without it. 
My spouse would prefer that I go to the grocery store each day after work and pick up whatever sounds good / fresh produce daily, but I don’t since: 1) It’s much harder to meet that spending limit without very careful planning and shopping; 2) I’m exhausted after work and much less up for running around / going to multiple stores if one doesn’t have something; 3) I hate the grocery store anyway and want to minimize my time there. I can see the wisdom in picking up the freshest stuff daily, but I’d also be hitting the grocery store tired and cranky during ‘rush hour,’ so I don’t.
Wife and I usually hit Whole Foods once per week, with a list, on Thursday night; we often grab some take-out on the way home and eat it after the groceries are put away.
Generally we cook a single meal on Friday night, but on Saturday and Sunday nights, we’ll cook enough food some that we end up with a total of four leftover meals. Those get eaten on Monday-Thursday, or -Wednesday if one of them gets eaten for lunch. Then we’re back to Thursday again.
Sometimes we’ll cook a smaller meal on weekends that gives us less leftovers so we can go out for dinner some time during the week.
Wife and I shop together; the drive to/from the store is a fine occasion to chat, and the shopping goes faster with two of us gathering things on the list.
We go food shopping every ten days, thereabouts. The most important part of food shopping is that I must go to the store alone or with my preschooler. My husband is no longer allowed to come. He has some weird phobia of having an empty pantry or freezer coupled with a very intense desire to try everything. He can easily turn a $150 shopping trip into a $300 shopping trip if I bring him with me.
I live alone and hardly ever eat out.
I try to alternate what I eat so that I’m not always eating A for lunch Tuesday and Wednesday because I made it for dinner Monday. Sometime around Thursday, I look at my lunch and think “I have GOT to think of something different for dinner”
I look at Yummly and think “No dinner needs a full cup of olive oil”. I look at Cooking Light and think “I’d like to be out of the kitchen before St. Swithin’s Day”. I look at Eating Well and think “Do I have to pick these organic radishes by the light of the full moon to get all the woo goodness?” I look at Family Circle and think “I don’t give a crap if it’s kid friendly or not!”
Then I stop at HEB and get 2lbs of 93/7 ground beef and make tacos.
I buy my main groceries at the HEB which is your basic Safeway/Randalls/Piggly Wiggly/Kroger store. I go to Central Market for specialty items like French Breakfast Radishes or for olives or sauces by the ounce. I go to Sprouts for their cheap, but good produce. I go to Randalls because they have 50% off sales of meat on Sunday mornings.
I have two shopping lists - One holds things that I’m out of or that I need for that weeks meals. The second is items that I buy on sale only that I am getting low on and should buy if the price is right.
The second list is supported by the shelves in our cold cellar and mean that we never pay full price for paper towels, toilet paper, peanut butter and condiments of all types. We have also started canning to fill those shelves, so far on our yearly (1.5 years into this tradition) schedule we have jam, smoked tomato sauce, pickled beets and dill pickles. We’re looking to add a few more flavours of jam and possibly different pickled vegetables this fall.
I also periodically have cooking weekends where I will package meals for the freezer. Some of these will be precooked and some will just be prepared and packaged.
My goal for the weeks meals is 1 - neighbour cooks, 1 - use a prepared meal from freezer, 3 - cook from fresh, 2 - leftovers, takeout, sandwiches or eggs. One of my cook from fresh meals each week is for both us and the neighbours.
We go through periods where we do very well at this, and others where the take out delivery guy starts calling us by name, but it’s always the goal.
One thing I have noticed is that I cook better for the neighbours (and they cook better for me) than we do for ourselves. So not only has this trade deal given us a night off of cooking each week, we both eat better at least two nights a week.