[Broken_Hippo]

not who you were asking, but I walk to the store and carry my groceries home. Usually, twice a week or something. It's great. 10 minute walk each way, approximately, and never more than I can easily carry. I buy for two people. I'd go more often if I shopped for more. I do occasionally visit other stores - once or twice a month - because they have different selection of goods. To be fair, I'm still carrying the stuff because I walk or use a bus for most of my transportation needs.

It means my fridge can be smaller because I don't need to keep as much in there. It means it is really easy to shop whatever is on sale - I have two grocery stores near me. I rarely have vegetables that go bad because I can just buy the stuff I need. I can just stop on the way home from work if I'm working the day shift.

I did this for a while when I lived in the states, too, in a small town. I had a similar experience, but it was far less convenient and really only doable because I was in such a small town and lived alone.

[yw3410]

Similar - realistically, unless you're stuck at home in a city, you can also plan to stop off somewhere on your way back from some event. If you mostly walk/public transport the overhead of this is very low.

If your events are regular, then you don't need to do the research each time either; and it becomes maybe an extra five or ten minutes.

[frrlpp]

You clearly have no family

[Broken_Hippo]

I clearly said I buy for two and would go more often if I shopped for more. Many, many people with families do this.

I'm in Norway. Vehicles are expensive, children (regardless of age) are used to going outside and going to the stores. It is a common situation in larger cities. Heck, elementary children are often enough at the store unsupervised. I'm not sure why you think a 20-30 minute car ride plus at least an hour at the store is worse than a 20 minute round trip to the store with a 10-15 minute store break is bad, even if it is a few times a week. And even that can be avoided by just spending a little time on your way home from work.

[tstenner]

I have a family of four and we manage just fine. The kids aren't toddlers any more (which only means that we can't put everything in the bottom layer of the stroller), but when they come to the age where they eat a week's shopping in a single sitting they will be old enough to take over a few shopping trips on their own.

[s1artibartfast]

yeah, I think people come at this from very different life expectations. It is hard to take a toddler, a weeks groceries, and 50lb bag of dog food on a bike or bus.

Living without a car is easily possible, lots of parts of europe do it. They do it by living in small aparments, consuming less with more staples