Grocery shopping has ALWAYS been one of my least favorite “chores” as a mom/wife. Seems like such a waste of time and money! But everyone in this household anyway, think they need to eat…every.single.day. LOL

Stress is the #1 trigger for flare ups for autoimmune diseases. The first fewe months every grocery shopping weekend was a rough weekend for me. So, in trying to figure out ways to make it a little less stressful, we have found a few alternatives. Now mind you…eating healthy, for some crazy reason, is more expensive. So the alternatives still need to be worth it. Here are my tips as of now. I will keep you updated on things as I find stress reducing tactics.

1. Take someone with you. David is off every other Friday. That is typically grocery day. Granted… this is not really a cost effective measure,😂 but his help is worth the few extras he grabs! He drops me off, loads groceries, pushes the cart, whistles at me💕…

2. Thrive Market! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Thrive Market! It’s like Christmas when their box arrives. 😀 Their prices seem to be very comparable to the local health food market, and it will be shipped right to my door. Use this link to get to get a discount on your first order and a free 30 day trial! If you decide to sign up, I will then get a discount on my next order as well! Win win! 😉 Seriously! I order EVERYTHING I can from here! Plus you get freebies every month. 🙂

3. I’m joining the Kroger Clicklist community. I’ve drug my feet on this mainly because I love Meijer, but I have to find ways to help myself. And lately, Meijer is disappointing me! I can’t tell you how many times I have gone in there lately and ended up having to go to another store because they were out of what I was after. Running to 14 different stores is just rough! Here again, for those of you who are not familiar with it, you make your order online and schedule a pick up time. This works very well for me because, A.) I can schedule pick up time for David to stop and get it on his way home from work. B.) It also prevents sporadic shopping. So while a few items may actually cost a little more, I avoid the “extra expenses” from grabbing “extras.”

4. Invest in a beef from a local farmer. Having your freezer stocked with meat helps a ton! In fact we just picked up our beef a couple weeks ago! We plan to do the same with pork, and we are looking into getting chickens. For now we get our eggs from a neighbor up the road, and I love them! It’s nice knowing where your meat came from and what’s in it!

5. Now, I’m still not ready to turn my produce over to someone else to pick out. I’m very picky about my fresh foods. Besides you can get most of it cheaper at Aldi’s so I will continue getting a few things at Aldi.

6. Costco. I hated to get a Costco membership, but I kept seeing that they had organic products and this healthy item and that healthy item. So one day, David and I took a trip to check them out and see if it would be worth the membership. Our Costco is about 40ish minutes away so it really would have to be beneficial. Well…lets just say…we have a Costco membership. LOL BUT! I try to keep a list of what is needed from there and keep tabs on what we are getting low on and only go about once a month. I go on a day when either my Middle Man is rained out of work, or a day when David can go with me. I avoid Saturdays, and the first Friday of the month if I can help it. For whatever reason those days are a nightmare! I have found some amazing healthy options there!

7. And…there are still a few things I need to get from Meijer, although, I seriously am trying to avoid this stop and Sams. (My boys like certain things that we can only get at Sams, not really a whole lot I get from there that are beneficial to me personally, but for the rest of my family. And of course…I love checking Home Goods for healthy ingredients. Of course that may not be the only thing(s) I will check there.😉🤦‍♀️

8. I made a list of all my vitamins and supplements and found that I can get most of them a lot cheaper on Amazon.

I hope this list is helpful to you! What are your stress reduction grocery shopping tips?