I know I'm a broken record, but grocery prices have gotten astronomical over the past few years. At this point, I know I'll spend at least $40 at my local grocery store just to make dinner, making me question why I didn't just place an Uber Eats order instead.
I live with my partner in New York City, and we try our best to avoid the local stores since they wildly overcharge for everything. But nobody's perfect, and more often than not, we forget to carve out time for our weekly Trader Joe's run — meaning we have to quickly run to the grocery store down the street to grab stuff for dinner. We try to cook most of our meals at home, but the delivery apps start calling my name when I notice we just spent $3 on a single red bell pepper.
But hey, that's just a little snippet about how I grocery shop. Now, I want to hear all about how you approach grocery shopping where you live. Rather than posting a short comment, I'd love to get more details about your grocery habits and who you are via this form; just fill it out with some basic info and a quick snippet about how you shop. From there, I'll reach out to folks via email to provide some more details.
We hope that by sharing stories from the BuzzFeed Community, we'll be able to help readers who might be struggling with grocery shopping amidst rising prices or their own major life changes.
Maybe you're a young person in a big city who's struggling with the cost of literally everything, and you have to be very strategic with your grocery runs to fit your budget — like this 24-year-old I spoke with who sticks to her $125 a month grocery budget in NYC and buys tried-and-true staples from Trader Joe's.
You might live in a rural area where your nearest grocery store is an hour away by car, and you don't have the luxury of just walking down the street to pick up that onion you forgot for dinner. Grocery shopping might even mean a larger monthly haul to save you some time.
Maybe you're a new parent, and your cooking and shopping habits have completely changed. Perhaps you stick to online groceries to avoid the stress of shopping with a newborn. Or, you're buying ingredients for easy meals now that you don't have time to cook those elaborate dishes that take over an hour to make.
