How many reusable shopping bags should I buy?

Question

I'm not sure how much one bag fits. How many do you have? We usually go shopping once a month to buy everything we need then a few times to buy produce, water, and snacks.

Answer 1

We have 10, but shop on a weekly basis. If you are doing monthly, you would probably need close to 20.

Answer 2

Marissa,

We have reusable shopping bags, however, we started several years ago using dinghy bags.

Living aboard our boat presented us with several problems and solutions.  Since we did not want to bring aboard various pests that lay their eggs in cardboard and paper bags, we started using what we called dinghy bags, actually canvass bags that we could schlep our groceries from the store to our boat.  They use to be sold only in marine stores that catered to the cruising boaters.  Now, they are more readily available.

These bags will carry about 5 times what one would put into a normal plastic bag from the store.  They do come in various sizes, we have about 6 of them.

Answer 3

My reusable canvas bags hold about 2-3 times as much as disposables. I shop for 2 people once a week and 2 bags is typically sufficient but not always. I do tell them to leave out things like milk that don't need to be bagged. The vinyl $1 something bags by the checkout line don't hold quite as much so it depends on teh bag you chose.

Answer 4

It depends on how many people you are buying for.  And what type of reusable bag you buy.  The canvas bags aren't stretchy, but others are so they can hold a lot more stuff than a plastic bag.  I got mine from www.sexyoldbag.com, their bags are stretchy and fit about as much as you can put in 3 plastic bags.  Figure the average number of plastic bags you usually use on a big shopping trip, and divide that number by 3.

Answer 5

probably around 10.

Answer 6

depending on how much u actually but in a months time i would base on how many reusable bags to buy on how many plastic bags u usually come home with but don't get that many because reusable bags are usually a little bit bigger than plastic bags and not everything has to be in a bag(like ur milk and laundry detergent)

Answer 7

If you go shopping once a month you will probably need several. If I know I'm buying a lot of cold or frozen items I also bring in my rolling ice chest. I have dozens of bags that I've collected over the years, I carry a variety in both cars. I have a couple of large ones that I got at costco that are great for light boxed items, I have several that are the same shape and size of paper bags, some that are a stretchy mesh which are great for odd shaped things. I also use thin cloth with pull string top for produce. My favorite is a nylon bag I got from Safeway that folds up to about the size of a wallet, I carry one or 2 in my purse for the mall or department stores.

To decide how many you'll need, just count the number of bags you brought home last time. You can always start with a few and add to the collection over time.

Answer 8

We like to support different stores that carry their own bag inexpensively, and we've been given a number of totes as volunteers, so we actually have about 8 or 9.  Some in my car, some in my husband's, some around the house .... you need as many bags as works for you and your family.

Three or four in each vehicle works for us.  We use paper bags for all kinds of things, like bagging up papers for recycling.  So whatever we get when we don't have a reusable bag gets used, too.

Answer 9

Reusable bag hold the same amount as the plastic ones do, so count how many bag you use on your monthly trip and replace them with reusable ones.

our grocery store sells them for 99 cents a piece, and then gives a 5 cent rebate every time you use the reusable ones.

Answer 10

Try a few at first and if you end up using plastic bags then get more. really it depends on how much you buy.