I hate it when my guy goes grocery shopping w/o me

[MissMillie]

You all may have noticed that I haven't been posting much in here lately. It's because I'm embarrassed. I haven't been cooking.

We go grocery shopping at the end of the month when my guy gets his retirement check. This past month, I was sick with a pretty bad cold. Normally that wouldn't keep me from going to the store, but we're also trying to consolidate trips in the car to save on gasoline. (Things have been pretty tight, financially.) So a trip to the store isn't just a trip to the store--it's an all-day outing.

So, my guy went w/o me.

And got very little for me to cook with.

Don't get me wrong, we have food. We're not going to starve.

For protein, he purchased one large bag of chicken drumsticks (there were 14 of them), 5 packages of pre-sliced bologna, 5 packages of hot dogs (50 franks, but only 20 buns), 1 lb. of bacon, and a bag of breakfast sausage links.

He did get several boxes of pasta and a big bag of potatoes. Oh, and 2 bags of hamburger buns (but no ground meat).

One very large bag of shredded mozzarella.

We're running out of bread, eggs, butter. He didn't get anything to make any kind of a pasta sauce with (no tomatoes or cream, or usable cheese.

He's the type of guy that doesn't mind eating bologna sandwiches every day. That's not me. (I will admit that I can eat ramen noodles for lunch almost every day.) But for dinner, I like to have a MEAL.

I like to think I'm pretty good at managing a menu to fit a budget. Granted, when I go, we spend more money, but at least we have something to work with. I don't mind that we don't dine out much, as long as the food at home is more than hot dogs and bologna sandwiches.

( / end of rant )

[JayhawkSD]

1. Just to avoid stereotypes.

We have been married for more then 25 years, and it's my wife who I try to keep out of the grocery store.

I try even harder to keep her out of the kitchen. She can boil water fairly successfully, but what she does to what she calls "scrambled eggs" should be criminalized. All I will say is that it involves very high heat and browning the eggs, and the smell drives me out of the house.

Fortunately, she loves eating my cooking almost as much as I love cooking it, so we get along very well.

[elleng]

11. Lucky!

Sounds like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her husband!

[Ohiogal]

2. Did you make him a list, MissMillie?

Back in the days when my kids were small and we only had one car, I’d send my husband to the store with a list sometimes 2 pages long.... just because I had to describe every item in detail, variety. and what size to get.... this was in the days before cell phones ....I sympathize, though, it’s alway a much better idea for the person who does the actual cooking to do the grocery shopping, as well!

[mercuryblues]

5. When I send my hubby or kids to the store

for something specific, I take a picture of the item and text it to them. I now have a 99% success rate on getting the needed item.

[Ohiogal]

12. How did we ever live

without cell phones!

[mercuryblues]

14. IKR

[MissMillie]

15. There was a list

but the flyer didn't show much in the way of deals on protein. I did say we needed proteins. Chicken drumsticks, bologna and hotdogs.... not much to work with for 30 days.

I've been cooking for him for 4 years now, you'd think he'd notice that we haven't been eating bologna an hot dogs this entire time.

I can make 3 meals (for us 2) out of a lb. of ground beef or turkey.

Thing is... he went to a trade school for high school, and he knows how to cook.

My guess is that he doesn't care so much about what he eats. I care deeply. It's not that I'm a total food snob, it's that I had gastric bypass about 15 years ago, and I have very little room in my tummy. Bread doesn't sit very well, so I'm not prepared to eat hot dogs and bologna sandwiches day after day after day. My stomach real estate deserves a lot better.

[dem in texas]

24. My husband has a list too

ii did all the grocery shopping until we retired. Now I send him to the store a lot because it gets him out of the house. He tells me all the old ladies try to pick him up. Ha! He can read the list and pick out some awful items. And Miss Millie, he does the same, if it is something he likes, why not get a dozen of them even if they only keep for a week, He means well and sometimes he finds new products that I would never have bought.

He is a big help to me, I don't walk as well as I once did, so glad he goes to the store. I go usually once a month and get all the more complicated items.

and he is getting better at it!

[Phentex]

22. This is awful!

but I can SO relate. It's a strange phenomenon. It might be related to locating items in the fridge.

[Polly Hennessey]

3. Let me apologize at the outset,

but what you wrote made me laugh. It read like an I Love Lucy episode. I sympathize with the dilemma of sending husbands to the grocery store. I did it once and he came back with the same illogical items. My difference is that he also came home with six pints of ice cream. Told him I loved him and hoped he enjoyed the grocery shopping because that was the last time he would be left unattended in a grocery store. Hope your cold is better and start cooking again. I look forward to your posts. 😊

[mercuryblues]

4. Please forgive me for laughing

Reminds me of the time I sent mine to get me some hot Italian sausage. He came home with Kielbasa. He has made many mistakes like that, but that one makes me laugh so much.

You can make mini pizzas on the hamburger buns. Freeze the mozz to use in the future. Any kind of red sauce will work. If using tomato paste I would water it down a bit and add Italian seasonings. You can also use the bologna on the buns. Fried bologna sandwiches?

Pasta carbonara? I use broth instead of cream. But you do need parmesan cheese and an egg. You can boil the chix bones for a broth, so save those chix bones in the freezer. Pull then out when you have enough to make broth.

this recipe is for 6 servings, so cut it in half, replace the cream with broth. (I use chix or Vegetable) Just don't forget to save the pasta water.

https://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/pasta-carbonara/

You can take the hotdogs and slice them lengthwise, cover with BBQ sauce and bake. Serve with homemade fries. No bread needed. But if you want them on bread toast the rolls and slice the hotdogs again to fit them.

[Sherman A1]

6. I worked in the grocery business for 43 years

So I knew the deals And I would drive my wife nuts 🙃 with my shopping and enjoyed every minute of doing so. Got the overshopping gene from my Mom.

[WhiteTara]

7. I got a loaf of inedible bread

some crackers, no mayonaise, celery and some soda water. I even gave him a list of what I needed. He kept my 20 and I have to go to the store again today for food.

I'll never do that again. I'll go no matter what is happening or how I feel.

[Laffy Kat]

8. My ex once berated me for how much I spend at the grocery store.

We had two growing boys and I would try to buy for a week at a time. After one grocery bill argument, I ended up sending him instead. He came back very proud of himself, having cut our bill by two-thirds. I looked at what he got, smiled, and congratulated him. Of course, we were out of food by noon the next day.

[dhill926]

9. being kind of "that guy"....

we need a list. Specific list...and a phone for when we're confused, which will be often... .

[Phentex]

23. Ha!

Thanks for admitting this.

[elleng]

10. That's a lot of hot dogs!

Batter UP!

Be well, we're thinking of you!

[Lars39]

13. Some grocery stores and Walmart have a click list service,

where you shop for your groceries online @nd then pick them up. You don’t even have to go inside.
I know it’s too late, but it might help next time you’re sick.

[csziggy]

18. From what I have read here, those services charge more for the groceries

So if you are on a very tight budget, that is not practical.

[Lars39]

19. Delivered groceries might cost more than

those picked up, but our local Kroger charges around $5, and Walmart pick up is free. I haven’t had groceries delivered yet, just picked them up.

[csziggy]

20. I live beyond delivery services - except for horse feed

So I've never tried having groceries delivered.

Right after my husband got a job in town - we'd leased our farm facilities to someone else - I blew out my knee. So I trained him to go grocery shopping since it was easiest for him to do it on the way home. Over the years since he's had to do the shopping as I have had a LOT of operations since 2001. Much of the time the store was on his way home, so it was very convenient for him to pick up the groceries.

He's now gotten very good at it as long as I provide him with a list. Even now that he's retired, he does most of the shopping alone - and he's better a selecting fresh produce than I am. Most weeks I go through the online weekly ad for the local chain, check my pantry and freezer, and make a list for him. We both do better shopping from a list since we are less tempted by impulse buys. His "worse" habit is checking the clearance shelves but sometimes he comes home with some good stuff.

If I need something unusual, I do have to be very specific as to brand and size but that is a minor irritation.

[Lars39]

21. I joke that if we need more than 3 things we better have a list!

My husband’s gotten really good at grocery shopping, too, out of necessity. This winter was horrible...I had pneumonia then a really bad cold. We were scrambling for food there for a bit, until I started shopping online. Good thing I didn’t have much appetite anyway.

[spinbaby]

16. I feel for you

Hot dogs get old quickly. Something I used to do when the kids were little is fry apple slices in a little butter, then add a spoonful of brown sugar and sliced hotdogs and cook a bit longer. Sounds odd, but the kids loved it.

[Kali]

17. oh man, I hear ya

can we have some freaking vegetables and less crap from the bakery section PLEASE? I try to get him to take a detailed list, but that doesn't always help.

my budget has been a little better the last couple years but, we raised the kids on a pretty tight one, so I know the planning and care it takes to make that stuff last until the next check.

(for his info, regular white bread is cheaper and goes farther than any kind of buns - we "fought" over the heels and only got real buns if there was company coming LOL)