List your top 5 grocery store items.

My top grocery items are actually really simple though the question and my reasoning behind why these items and why not other items, takes a bit of explaining…

Butter – I stopped using too much olive oil because while it was claimed that olive oil and vegetable oils were healthier, butter has a lot of benefits, and I believe that butter is not as bad as doctors make it out to be. I buy unsalted butter because I can always add salt and you cannot easily take salt out of butter.

Milk - we used to go through perhaps a half gallon a week between me and my husband but since we have a new amazing DeLonghi Eletta automatic coffee maker, we go through milk like crazy because we make cappuchino and flat white coffees all the time.

Eggs – they are just so versatile, you can eat them in so many ways! I make sure to keep stocked up on these.

Flour - I love to cook and bake so I keep different kinds of flour on hand and so these are a frequently added item that I tend to stock up on.

Cheese – this is probably a Dutch thing, but cheese to me is important. I can use it in recipes, on bread, as a quick snack or as a fancy cracker topping! I love a variety of cheeses. I am actually thinking about venturing out into cheesemaking this upcoming year because I would love to learn this and start making perfect little cheeses preferably with herbs!

When you look at the list above, I appear to have the basics covered for food. Now, a few other things I regularly buy are toilet paper, vinegar and bakingsoda. These items are priceless! Toilet paper is ofcourse for obvious reasons good to have though you can make seed tape with it and plant strips with seeds in your garden! Baking soda and vinegar are also used in my garden, and for cleaning, for laundry, or in food- I would say that I use these three items daily. Also, you may notice produce is not at the top of my list and while I will buy produce, I tend to can and freeze my own, because I grow my own food. I used to own chickens in Florida, but I cannot have them here, which is the only reason that eggs made the list.

I am a very conscious buyer of groceries. I like to shop sales, and get deals, but I also shop and will spend to stock up on bulk items such as rice, flour, etc. Reasoning being because you never know what happens where your only option is to make stuff out of your pantry. My pantry here in Virginia is much larger and I am really trying to stock it with a purpose; a bit with a prepper mentality, a bit with common sense, and a bit with convenience. Between the three I have a healthy inventory of a large variety of items!

How do you shop for groceries?