Trolley Treats

My shopping habits have changed quite dramatically recently. While I was always a once a week kinda gal, for a while I found myself wandering around the shops most mornings after dropping Finn at nursery, because it was just a stones throw from a walk into town and a cinnamon latte with Kath and Diane.

But now those days are gone and I can practically lean over the garden fence and catapult Finn into the "Big School" five doors down the lane, I find myself running out of essentials like milk and sugar on a regular basis and feeling cross with my own inefficiency. (Though coffee deficiency may have something to do with my general mood!)

Now that everything I need is within walking distance, (school down the road, post office around the corner) and I am committed to keeping a running shopping list for the following weeks whizz round the supermarkets and deli’s of the region, while I busy about running BrocanteHome, keeping the house to a standard that doesn’t make me shake and getting Finn into school with tie, gym kit and required permission slip of the moment, I don’t really want to be making impomptu visits into town if only because it eats both time and money, though to this day it sticks in my mind that Nigel Slater once said that the only truly efficent, frugal way to cook was to always have an empty fridge at the end of the day and buy what it is you need to cobble together your next meal the following day …

So help please! How do you organise your shopping? Do you buy in bulk? Do you shop online? Do you go daily, weekly or monthly? Do you wait for the farmers market, have a box delivered or drive to the local farm? Do you take a basket and wander round the local purveyors of all things yummy or sell your soul in the hallowed halls of Tesco? Do you remember to chuck in a weekly treat for yourself my lovely Vintage Housekeeper? Which supermarket do you prefer and why? Do you live for Bogoffs or only ever buy organic?

Do share your wisdom, if not your routines Ladies. Apart from the fact that I am interminably nosey, I suspect we could all learn something from each other…