There's no need to buy in bulk when the shop is a 2 minute walk away. You just pop in whenever you want.

A few ideas, which may or may not work out for any given situation:

• Bike with panniers/baskets/trailer or a fully fledged cargo bike - these can pack a surprising amount of stuff
• Order your groceries delivered
• Skip buying in bulk - it's not necessary in a context where the nearest grocery store is within walking distance.

For reference, I live in a country with decently well designed urban environments, and my nearest grocery store is less than 200m away by foot. I could just do all of my shopping there, but it's a bit more expensive, so I bike to a cheaper store that is 3.5km away, taking me less than 10 minutes. There I fill up a basket and maybe a pannier, which gets us enough groceries to last for a week or so.

If I need to transport anything larger, I primarily look to have it delivered, or as a last resort, I rent a car. Renting a car is almost never necessary, though.

Hey!

I can answer this pretty well as I grew up and lived in a pretty car dependant Minneapolis until I was 23, where then I moved to NYC with no car in 2018 and have lived here ever since.

The TL;DR to this question is that you transport everything in a grocery bag on person, but the longer answer is that your buying and cooking behavior changes.

Back in Minneapolis I relied on buying in bulk, since I wanted to limit the number of trips in the 15-20 min drive between my apt and the Costco. Variability with the weather affected this too, as I would buy extra if it was in the winter time. I'd make this trip by car around 2-3 times a month. This also affected my buying and cooking decision making as well. Buying groceries first then figuring out what I wanted to cook.

Once I moved to NYC, I would always have a grocery store several blocks away from me. At most being a short 5-10 min walk. This changed my habits as I always had a grocery store I could quickly pop in without having to think about traffic, my car, etc. So although I would go more frequently (~ 2 times a week), I would also find this a lot easier and would buy less.

Nowadays, whenever I think of wanting to cook something, I either head over to the store on my way back to the office, after the gym, etc. and then cook that very same day what I bought.

In my mind, that big fridge I used to restock with my Costco runs has been replaced by having that quick grocery store within walking distance.

Purely anecdotal, since I know some other people in the US may be living different than a single guy living in an apt in NYC, but this is also how it is in many cities I've traveled to in Asia and Europe.

Public transport, cargo bike, walk/public transit to go & taxi to come back, buy smaller quantities more often...

It really depends on where you live, the infrastructure and transit available to you, and any other circumstantial factors.

First off, a big part of what !fuckcars@lemmy.world wants to fix is the problem that many communities are simply designed with the assumption that everyone will drive everywhere, which often means most people aren't within walking distance of shops (because it's literally illegal to build grocery stores in many residential areas). It also often means very shoddy pedestrian infrastructure, sketchy (if even existing at all) bike infrastructure, and little to no public transit.

If you live within walking distance of a grocery store, you're in luck! Something like a granny cart (pictured below) can allow you take pretty heavy loads of groceries on foot.

If it's too far to walk but you have decent bike lanes or paths that you feel comfortable riding on, you can attach pannier bags and/or crates to a bike (an e-bike makes it even easier) to carry pretty big grocery hauls home.

If neither walking nor biking are options but public transit is, you can take a granny cart on the bus or train easily as well. Of course, a limitation is none of these three options can take nearly as big a haul in one trip as a car can, but the idea is you can make smaller, more frequent trips. For example, I live a 5-minute walk from the nearest grocery store, so I can pop on over a couple times a week to get a few items, which is light enough to carry. Of course, if you need to feed multiple people and it's a kind of long, onerous journey to get groceries by foot/bike/transit, this might no longer be feasible, unfortunately.

If none of those are feasible, there's no shame in having to use a car. The villain here is the system that forces people to drive even if they'd prefer not to, not the people being force by circumstance to drive.

The thing with walkable urbanized area is that you don't have to buy in bulk for groceries, because a grocery stores are just minutes away from home. I myself shop in a traditional market which is only 5 minutes bicycle ride away from home. Plus there are many convenience stores within 1km radius.

When the store is walkable, your bulk buying turns into one bulk item that you walk to and get.

Basically its the same way you get something bulk from your trunk into your house. Which is probably your hands and arms.

I used to take the subway to work, and usually walked past a grocery store or two - one downtown, and one a block from my apartment.

Because the overhead of shopping was lower (it was at most thirty seconds out of the way, on foot), I'd stop in a couple times a week, and picked up a bag or two of groceries that I'd just carry home by hand. It made it easier to be spontaneous.

For bigger trips, you could use a cargo bike or panniers. But I rarely felt the need. Buying in bulk was much less convenient than just buying an amount I could carry by hand, because it requires a special, deliberate trip.

I haven't seen this option mentioned yet but you can also order your groceries online, and have them delivered. That's what I do at the moment, because I live outside the city and my nearest grocery store is 2 km away. I could bike or hop on a bus, and I do sometimes, but ordering online is just really convenient.

For trips like that, I have a fold up cart and a strap backpack thing that lets me carry the folded up cart on my back. The second part is optional. You could just pull the cart both ways.

If i want to buy something. The closest shop is around 10 minute from my house. If I buy in bulk put everithing into my bicicle and walk home. Its just me not everyone want this I understand, but if we didnt have cars we just solve it in other ways