The part that sucks the most about not having a car is grocery shopping. Doing it by bus means carrying a lot of very heavy stuff several city blocks not to mention balancing it around the bus, making sure the bag doesn't rip, etc.
And that's in normal weather. In hot weather, much sweating is involved. In rain...well, let's not go there. In snow...well, who wants their food all snowy?
In the cold, you alternately freeze and bake.
There are ways to reduce this, of course:
Doing a lot of small grocery runs to distribute the weight over multiple trips. That I can't really do because of the time involved in getting to and from the store. Even going to a store that's relatively convenient (being on my bus route back from work..more or less. No store is actually right there next to the bus stop. They all have gigantic parking lots and streets and such in between.) can take an extra half hour per trip.
Waiting for a ride and then buying a fuck-ton of stuff all at once to last me for a month or two. Can't do that because I can't *store* that much food. A significant part of my groceries are either rapidly perishable or at the very least require refrigeration, and having only a rather small mini-fridge rules that out. I have plenty of freezer space, but freezer food comes in four basic varieties: burritos (which I do get regularly), frozen dinners that are too small, not very tasty, and overpriced, frozen food that requires an oven, and frozen food that requires frying. I can't do oven or frying. And I do stock up on dry food that I can cook on the hot plate, but I don't always have time to cook food, so I still have to have the quick stuff.
If I'd been the one to pick where I'm living, I could live within walking distance of a store. That'd be nice. Unfortunately, I wasn't, and moving is not a viable or desirable option at present.
Or there's delivery. I did, in fact, use delivery early on, but the delivery fee and higher food prices really cut down on what I could buy, and for the reasons above it wasn't practical to do one big delivery every few weeks.
And that's in normal weather. In hot weather, much sweating is involved. In rain...well, let's not go there. In snow...well, who wants their food all snowy?
In the cold, you alternately freeze and bake.
There are ways to reduce this, of course:
Doing a lot of small grocery runs to distribute the weight over multiple trips. That I can't really do because of the time involved in getting to and from the store. Even going to a store that's relatively convenient (being on my bus route back from work..more or less. No store is actually right there next to the bus stop. They all have gigantic parking lots and streets and such in between.) can take an extra half hour per trip.
Waiting for a ride and then buying a fuck-ton of stuff all at once to last me for a month or two. Can't do that because I can't *store* that much food. A significant part of my groceries are either rapidly perishable or at the very least require refrigeration, and having only a rather small mini-fridge rules that out. I have plenty of freezer space, but freezer food comes in four basic varieties: burritos (which I do get regularly), frozen dinners that are too small, not very tasty, and overpriced, frozen food that requires an oven, and frozen food that requires frying. I can't do oven or frying. And I do stock up on dry food that I can cook on the hot plate, but I don't always have time to cook food, so I still have to have the quick stuff.
If I'd been the one to pick where I'm living, I could live within walking distance of a store. That'd be nice. Unfortunately, I wasn't, and moving is not a viable or desirable option at present.
Or there's delivery. I did, in fact, use delivery early on, but the delivery fee and higher food prices really cut down on what I could buy, and for the reasons above it wasn't practical to do one big delivery every few weeks.