Having transitioned from the "buy supper and breakfast on my way home" to "week's worth of food in the fridge" myself, I see two components to this. One, buying just-in-time is easier when you're single, gets more complicated when you have a partner, and much more so when you have kids. Two, the "keeping fridge stocked" model affords going to a cheaper store less frequently, and buy in bulk, saving considerable amount of money on a monthly basis.
I'm the same as OP, for the most part my parents would be buying the same stuff at the same store. They'll also be buying at the price on their weekly shopping day and if that's on a weekend when a lot of people shop then stores aren't discounting, whereas I can take advantage of daily specials or late night discounts.
> Two, the "keeping fridge stocked" model affords going to a cheaper store less frequently, and buy in bulk, saving considerable amount of money on a monthly basis.
You can do both, most thrown away food is of the more perishable varieties, so you can buy that on an as needed basis and buy stuff like tinned food in bulk.
Probably. They make use of a farmers market heavily too & are probably more eco friendly on amount of packaging. So not really criticizing just find it crazy opening the fridge when I visit (once a year :( ) and am just stunned by how much food they keep for 2 people. At one point they had 2 full sized fridges.
I now fall back on HN's common knowledge about Electron to declare that you are being bad and should immediately seek to maximize the use of the shared storage areas in your refrigerator.
I do actual cooking too, but the turn around between buying ingredients and eating them is like 3 hours. Where my parents do weekly shopping. So tons of 2 week old stuff lurking behind other stuff etc.
>you are being bad
Def am on packaging. Quite difficult to buy stuff in bachelor compatible portions without it being a environmental shitshow.
Meanwhile my parents have a fridge full of food and are constantly throwing stuff out