How Many Reusable Bags Do You Need?
June 10, 2008 by Jennifer
This is a tough question to crack, but one you may be wondering about if you’re considering buying some reusable bags for grocery and other shopping trips.
How many grocery bags?:
I used to have a bunch of odd shaped bags. Now I have eight that are exactly the same size; 12″ wide x 12.25″ tall with a flat 6.5″ bottom gusset. Plus when I bought them, I got a free bag. Personally, I think I got one bag too many.
When Cedar and I go grocery shopping we GO grocery shopping. I hate wasting gas on multiple trips, don’t like shopping anyhow, and you buy less the less you go, so we go grocery shopping infrequently, but big time shop when we do go. On a major grocery trip, we usually fill a typical sized cart – then we only have to go back a few more times per month for fresh produce. On our shopping trips we grab food, toilet paper, and anything else we might need that month. And it turns out that seven of the bags I got will hold it all.
If you fill a cart with groceries, then seven to eight typical grocery sized reusable bags will likely work out for you. I also like having one extra bag to carry all the bags in. It’s much easier to hand the bagger one bag with all the bags in it.
How many produce sacks?:
When I bought my grocery sacks, I also bought four large and three small reusable Organic Cotton Mesh Produce Bag. I think I’ll be getting a few more. Here’s how we used them on our last grocery trip:
- Pears and apples – we filled two large bags.
- Carrots – filled one large bag.
- Very wet lettuce – filled one large bag.
- Small peaches – four fit in one small bag.
- Green beans – filled one small bag.
- Bulk pretzels – one small bag.
Oops, I’m out of bags. I threw peppers, nectarines, cucumbers, and squash all into the cart without a bag, which was fine, but then needed to put some various berries and bulk sunflower seeds into plastic produce bags. (I brought two old ones along – but still). I could use more produce sacks. I love them because they work for bulk food items and produce, but we buy a lot of those items. While I don’t care if peppers and cucumbers are in a bag at all, cherries rolling all over the cart is not ok.
Estimate high if you buy plenty of bulk and produce items. I may be buying about 10 more, because farmer’s market season is not even here yet, and then we’ll really be buying lots of produce. Also when I get in bread baking mode, we buy a lot of bulk seeds and grains.
The bottom line:
If you go on smaller more frequent grocery trips, you’ll need fewer bags overall. But in my experience about eight odd sized, or seven typical sized bags will bag a cart full of groceries. But, people differ. Tell me how many bags you use in one trip.
[Image by my son, via Cedar's grocery store series]
I use three to four per trip. I hate how the lettuce and carrots are so wet! In one of my grocery stores they play tropical rain forest sounds right as the produce is sprayed.
I think my comment got eaten…
Meijer has nice reusable bags for $0.99 each. They have supports to keep things upright inside that fold flat, and an outside pocket. They are rather strong, too. A lot of other retailers have inexpensive bags as well
1bagatatime.com has similar bags, with no supports or pocket for just a bit more and they claim to be made in china, but fair trade.
So even those of us on the tightest budgets can go reusable.