Do you prefer to shop alone?

It is a bloke thing .....

DH shops with me and I like it. If he sometimes gets a bit 'antsy' occasionally with too many crowded trolleys or 5 people having a conversation in the middle of an aisle, I suggest he goes outside and has a cigarette (yes vile I know).

He knows the aisles, lifts the routine stuff. And always does the packing.
Even when there are packers raising money for something.
He puts something in the bucket but still does our own packing.... they don't do it properly.

It suits me very well.

I hate shopping with DH as he distracts me with "helpful" reminders so that I lose my train of thought. He trails after me when I want to browse then disappears just as I want to go to the checkout.
He has now taken over the food shopping and does that without me but has taken some training. He was a bit too impulsive at first but he now sticks to a list and is quite good at checking for freshness, etc. He seems to enjoy finding a bargain and often can't resist stocking up.

I said to DH yesterday 'I am only going to Waitrose with you if you don't faff about' and for once he obeyed instructions.

I have a girl friend who loves clothes shopping, which I don't. I recently said I needed to buy some item of clothing and she said it would be fun if we went together . I couldn't think of anything worse.

I hate it when my DH picks up some G' awful item and says 'this would suit you' and then I have to justify why I don't like it.

One thing that annoys me intensely is when my husband seems to have the capacity to vanish into thin air, as if he has been abducted by aliens! One second he is there, and I am talking to him (admittedly not face to face, as it were), the next, he is gone. Then I have to trawl the aisles looking for him, which wastes no end of time. If I just walked off and hoped he'd catch up we could be there all day. When he does turn up, he is usually clutching half a dozen things we absolutely don't need ("but they're on offer!") or already have a cupboard full of (from previous ill-fated expeditions!). We can't seem to walk out of any supermarket without at least one carton of custard (if there is ever a custard famine, ladies, you know where to come!).

On the one occasion DH came with my he wandered off with the trolley. I didn't realise this and as there was a man (same size, similar build as DH) with a trolley near me, I continued putting my shopping into his trolley with little comments such as 'that'll do for tea tonight' and 'remind me to get dog food'.

It wasn't until he pointed out he didn't have a dog, that I took a good look and found I had commandeered a total stranger and his trolley .

Luckily he was amused!

Yes, yes, yes.

My DH never came shopping with me, which was how I liked it.

When visiting my brother and his wife he has to come as she doesn't drive - he is a nightmare! He makes a list before they go, then strides up and down the aisles collecting things, SiL is very short and finds she has to run after him, if she stops to look at something she loses him!!

petra!

I never food shop. OH does all the cooking and he loves food shopping.
I go on my own to get the nice things: Magnums, ice cream, cake, biscuits etc.

How Much indeed Teetime you OH must be related to my OH thats his favourite saying when he comes shopping which by the way I try to keep to a minimum The best one is "there are only two of us" well yes and there has been for a long time now so where do you think the housekeeping budget goes ? I have suggested he buys himself 7 x frozen ready meals for a £1.00 at Iceland if he does not stop moaning,off to collect xmas order with just future DIL on xmas eve he will be no where in sight I can assure you.

If DH comes with me he never puts anything in the trolley save batteries and show polish but the infuriating part is at the cash desk. He wants to do an entre trolley through the self service one which is impossible and whatever queue I join the pulls the trolley over to another one. He then throws everything in the bags at random so all the those things which should not be squashed are. in the main I have it delivered but occasionally have a leisure shop but its better on my own. In M & S all I can hear from him is 'HOW MUCH'!!

Reading all these replies, I don't feel so guilty now. Husband comes with me occasionally and we always end up spending at least twice as much as when I shop on my own. So I tend to nag him, no, we don't want that, too much sweet stuff, waste of money etc. And I end up all tensed up inside.

I'm on my own then in enjoying DH's company when food shopping
Maybe it's because he behaves himself. He is happy to just follow me with the trolley. He never questions what I'm buying and never puts items in that he's chosen, It's all left to me. I find it handy to be able to ask 'Do you fancy X or Y this week '

Just to add that when they put their 'weird' stinky stuff in the trolley, they NEVER look at the 'sell by dates' .......arghhh!

Just a thought...is this a deliberate ploy by the male species to ensure that they rarely get a chance to repeat the exercise!? (Lightslowlydawning...)

I usually shop on-line but on the rare occasions when I shop in real shops I try to persuade OH to spend time in the nearest coffee shop. He just keeps filling the trolley with anything he sees, especially things with a short shelf life, and then cannot understand why everything cost so much.

When DH retired I made it clear I prefer to shop alone - and I do.

We do shop together (as distinct from 'coming shopping with me') for the immediate pre-Christmas shop. At Waitrose we have two trolleys. He does drink and nibbles. I do the rest. We go through the till together as I have the Waitrose card and JLP credit card.

After that we go to the farm to collect the (pre-ordered) turkey and the Farm Shop for the (pre-ordered) gammon, sausage meat etc. The occasional extra finds its way into the trolley, but not often.

We actually have an enjoyable and festive morning and we are back home for breakfast, coffee and the papers by 9.30.

hi hi hi - that seems to have struck a chord with many of us ;)

Oh how I agree! I get 'do we really need that? Do you realise that is cheaper in so-and-so? We've already got one of those. Why don't you get a bigger one, it's more economical. Have you checked the sell by date'. Aaaargh. I worked in the city centre for over 30 years, he hardly ever ventured there. Then, when he retired a couple of years ago, he got a part time job in the city. Now he knows every nook and cranny of it, orders me about, telling me the 'best way' to go. He also knows the full timetables and routes of the buses that I had been travelling on all those years while he swanned off to work in his car. He's lovely really though

I don't mind DH coming to Aldi with me because he can wander off down the middle bit and buy yet more screws, torch batteries, fingerless gloves, fishing tackle, bird seed and yesterday, a plastic belt

He knows he has to catch me up before I go through the checkout so I can shop in peace.

Anywhere else he's a nightmare.

Mine's favourite is - 'why don't you buy this instead, it's much cheaper?' I only take him when it's for important stuff like buying wine etc at Christmas!

Even worse is when he insists on pushing the trolley and then vanishes leaving me with an armful of shopping ! Takes me so long to calm down it's never worth it!

Heaven forbid tanith DH should ever come shopping! Even once a year is too much - he's got out of it this year because a friend and I scarpered off the Waitrose early this morning (he was meant to be taking me on Monday)
Also gives me a chance to sneak off for a quiet coffee too with no incessant questions about contents of trolley and ending up with extraneous extras like ultra posh instant coffee and slabs of stinky cheese!

When DH retired he decided he would come shopping with me. It took twice as long as he just kept wandering off, bit like shopping with an inquisitive toddler. When we got to the end I loaded the shopping on to the belt and he just stood there! Everything piled up, still he stood, no packing action, in the end I had to tell him to put the shopping in the bags!! Only took him once, couldn't stand the trauma!