Ever since I got two privileges (driving and disposable income), I realized I had a choice what my diet was. It’s not to say homecooked meals aren’t nourishing or delicious, sometimes you just want to indulge in variety or junk food. It’s like when you were a kid grocery shopping with your mother and you see that bright, colorful box of fruit chews but you can’t get it because it costs too much. Well, now that you’re a grown 27-year-old man, you can actually pick up a box of Roundy’s Sharks fruit chews and say you’re buying it for your little cousin (the box will be empty by the time you get home, of course). There are no rules to grocery shopping, but here are some of my observations of the whole thing.

Something I noticed about how single guys like myself shop is choosing food that isn’t necessarily healthy. We shoot straight for the soda, potato chips, frozen pizza, pretzels, candy, booze, etc. I don’t know if it’s a matter of not knowing how to put together a balanced diet or that it’s more efficient to get food that is ready to eat ASAP. I don’t mind cooking, which isn’t that hard as long as you know the basics, but getting all sorts of ingredients just to put together one meal to sit down to (for a single person) seems too much of a burden. But then again, you do limit your choices if it’s pre-made. And if it requires heating, it won’t be the same as fresh hot.

When I’m waiting in the checkout line, sometimes I look at what other customers buy. You’ll see those stress-out mothers buying their kids orange juice, bananas, Totino’s Pizza Rolls, chicken wings, stuff like that. The more juice they buy, the more safely I can assume she’s got younger children. If she’s buying a lot of soda, it’s probably teenage kids drinking that stuff. If she’s buying healthy stuff, either she’s single or going on a diet.

Then, there are the first-time shopper fathers. It kinda makes me laugh because they’re easy to spot. They don’t shop like single guys. They’re used to their diet (whatever their wives cook for them) and it’s safer to stick with the usual groceries: milk, bananas, and white bread. If for some out-of-the-norm reason he wanted to buy Jell-o (for his kids, of course), he wouldn’t even know what aisle it was at and he’d be too proud to waste his time getting it. So by the time the dude’s in the checkout line, it looks like he’s forgotten sometime even though he’s only got milk, bananas, and a bag of white bread in his hands. I’m sure there are some newbs who shop big without even realizing shopping carts are there for their convenience until they reach the checkout line. Was there a scene like that in Mr. Mom?

Eventually, when you shop for yourself, you start to realize that groceries cost money. So unless you’re making mad bank, sometimes you just can’t get that sweet tooth fix. You’ve worked hard in the last two weeks and you want to drink namebrand soda, but you have to settle for generic. At the local Copps, a 12-pack of namebrand soda is at average $5. Every now and then, there is a sale and you can get four 12-packs for $11! That’s about $2.72 for a 12-pack! Of course, that’s if you’re a heavy soda drinker and carry a member card for discounts. But when you can’t afford namebrand, you have to learn to be content with generic or inhouse brands.

Generic groceries that are proven to be just the same as their namebrand counterparts are things like bread, peanut butter, pasta, water, sugar, flour, salt, eggs, orange juice, American cheese, things that don’t take a trade secret to produce. But if you want good generic soda, that’s going to take some experimenting. Of course, once you find that magic generic product, and times get tight in the pocket, at least you’ll know which generic product to fall back on to get your foodie fix.

Meat. If you’re not a vegetarian, you need meat. Pork and chicken should be relatively cheap. I don’t buy it regularly, but when I do, I learned that you go for the cuts of meat that are least desirable by the consuming population. Beef cuts are categorized finely. If you want a steak but can’t fork over the money and your diet really calls for beef, expect to be eating cow tongue or stomach. Pig brains or feet aren’t bad either. Compared to preprocessed deli meat, I think cooking your own meat might actually be more nutritious and possibly be cheaper. If you partition a value pack of meat up, it could last you a week compared to that $5 pack of thinly sliced pastrami that you use up in a hogie in one sitting.

Vegetables and leafy greens. I haven’t developed a habit for shopping for these. I know I will have to eventually. I find myself feeling more energized with a balanced meal than binging on junk food. Plus, those leafy greens help you with your bowels which is vital to how your body recharges itself. I don’t know how much a head of lettuce costs, but I can foresee myself eating it if I have too. If you don’t want to munch on lettuce with your eggs, green onions are perfect. Cilantro rules countries too.

At the end of your shopping day, you want to make sure you only buy what you’re going to eat. Sometimes, you get shop hungry and buy all sorts of things that just rot away on a shelf or inside your refrigerator and that’s practically flushing money down the toilet. If you can shop weekly, it’s probably more consumable than if you shopped monthly. It depends on your work schedule and lifestyle.

Of course, if you’re the shiznit, you don’t grocery shop. You eat out. Does that Starbucks taste any better than a pack of Swiss Miss? I’ll have a few dollars left to buy some fruit chews.