Back in the days when we got plastic shopping bags, I considered it an art form to see if I could get an entire trunk load of groceries into the house in a single trip. Without squishing the bread.

You can get a lot of bags on your arms, and one or two jugs of milk in each hand depending on how long your fingers are.

It just isn't as fun with the reusable folding bags. Or the paper bags some retailers use -- the ones with handles are the worst, they rip a good part of the time. Actually easier to carry a normal paper bag than one with handles.

Plastic bags were great, I could hook as many as I could lift on a padded carabiner.

With mandatory paper bags they seem to have made them as flimsy as possible. I can't go grocery shopping when its raining any more, the bags just turn into mush at the slightest drizzle.

Always did that. But I keep large, solid, reusable bags in the trunk.

I've pretty much given up on reusable bags. I almost always do grocery shopping at random times, and never bring my bags with me when I leave the house.

That's why if you use a car you have more bags that you need on one run in the trunk. Then you keep bringing them in the house by twos or threes and at some point you drown in reusable bags and put them back in the trunk.

Having developed a hate for all those one use bags clogging your trash also helps. I've started doing this before it was the eco thing to do just because I hated accumulating bags.

Walking to the corner store(tm) if that option is available to you requires a bit more discipline, but I mostly remember to pick a bag when leaving home.