In my "we're happy & stupidly rich" hoods, I'd get delivery for the groceries unless someone in the family has nothing else to do or is in need of meeting people then its a trip to a comm lot. In my apox hood I have to keep buying a new fridge when the old one empties, at least until the sims can finally plant a garden. Once the resistriction was lifted, I do make heavy use of leftovers, while using Mogs mod which allows for leftovers to be portioned out individually. To me that is more realistic than defrosting an entire meal for two people; in rl I cook huge meals once or twice a week, portion out leftovers to freeze or for hubby to take to work.

May I resurrect this thread to ask a related question? How do you decide how much to spend to completely restock the fridge without buying more than it can hold and thus wasting your Sims' money?

I like to keep the fridges well stocked so I don't have to worry about my Sims dying of hunger, but poor families really can't afford to waste money. I presume it is just wasted if you buy more than your fridge can hold. I see from my previous post in this thread I was concerned about this a year ago. But now it's becoming really pressing as I'm about to play (for the first time) the Brokes in Pleasantview, and, if they're to survive and Dustin is to be weaned away from his life of crime, I reckon to have to .watch every penny they spend. I used to think that §2 bought 1 unit of groceries, but now I'm not so sure. Does anyone know how it works?

I didn't think that you were allowed to buy more than your fridge holds. That's why if you buy before the fridge is empty the bar is already filled up part of the way.

Andrew if you were really desperate just have Dustin ring for Pizza, wait for the pizza person to come walking with the pizza and use move objects to move the pizza inside and delete them and the car. Cheating yes, but since Dustin isn't the most honest kid and sims doesn't have a free soup kitchen, stealing Pizza would be something he would do. Brandy will assume he had the money to pay for it. Also remember he will get fed at school, don't waste breakfast on him.

Christianlov's All-In-One Maid orders groceries, checks the mail, and puts breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the table. I have no reason to play a fantasy game like it was reality because this is my fantasy. In my fantasy I have a maid. If I did not have this mod I would probably be using cheat "MotiveDecay Off" after I got tired of ordering so many pizzas.

If I was forced to play the game no cheat or mod I would be always trying to get snapdragons in the house and would keep a banquet table. Some of my castles are so big my sims get lost in them and cannot find the dinner table *giggles* so this is still needed.

Oh, now I look back over thread and see someone wanted to know how to not waste money on food. Fishing fishing fishing. That is how to budget in for food. You stock your fridge full of fishys!

I always buy the full amount I can afford. But then I seldom go to the grocery store until it's almost empty, or I actually get a notice. And I always put back leftovers, so even when they run out they haven't completely run out; but I don't believe Andrew's EPs allow leftovers. That being the case, he needs to not serve food, but have Brandi and Dustin make individual meals when they get hungry. When Beau is a child, buy him the toy oven, send him to school without breakfast, and have Dustin and Brandi make the single meal option and then cancel the eating of it so he can have a plate.

Also, you can use the "check food supplies" interaction often and send someone out to buy as much as the Brokes can afford at that time whenever the food level gets down below 10. That way you at most will waste only a few dollars.

I would really really really like to be realistic and have them go pick up some groceries from the grocery store (that's the reason I MADE a grocery store) but it ends up being they go to the fridge when they are DESPERATELY hungry or in the middle of a party and it's rude to leave your own party so I end up calling for delivery. In extreme cases (like pregnant ladies needing sustenance and there are no fish, garden items OR leftovers) I will just replace the fridge. So ii would break it down to 70 percent delivery, 20 percent shopping groceries, and 10 percent buying new fridge.

I always make sure the fridge is full of food, and if the Sims have children it is a "Must" have. I do have a grocery store I made in my game on weekends I will send one of the parents to go shopping.
If it is a single Sims or just a couple together that good old telephone come in very handy, just call and order. I also have a mod in my game by creator Twojeff's "Low Food Warning" at Simbology
It will popup and let you know when the fridge is getting low. ( Perfect )

I wonder what that would make of the pantry fridge which comes empty. Go berserk with pop ups I guess. Yeah I'm mean to some of my sims.

If you're ordering, Andrew, the game doesn't let you overbuy. I'd assume someone didn't write a check-fridge-home-lot code for community lots because you can buy up to the full amount your fridge would hold if it's totally empty. I think it's 2 simoleans per food point, that is, a fridge that holds 300 food points costs 600 simoleans to fill completely, so you can check food supplies then double to know how much to buy. However, if you have Seasons, fridges can hold a great deal more fresh food--I've never maxed one out even with thousands of fresh food points. So you can have a farmer sim who runs a garden stand and buy as much as your sims can afford without worrying about it being wasted. But that's only Seasons produce that works that way, not regular from the grocery bins.
Confused yet?

But if he's ordering, he gets a $25 delivery charge - very important to skip if he's anxious to save money. However, he could call for delivery, make note of how much he's allowed to get, cancel the action, and then go shopping.

Charmful, if you get into the habit of checking the food level before you call for the party, you should be able to cut out at least part of that delivery problem.

The vast majority of my Sims are either super-wealthy, and can afford delivery easily (or just afford a new fridge, if I'm feeling particularly lazy! ), or are in one of my medieval, colonial, primitive, or farming hoods, and get their foodstuffs from farming, harvesting, and fishing... I'm not sure I've ever sent a Sims to a grocery store (except my millionaire who owns a chain of supermarkets in almost all the subhoods of my main neighborhood!)

The Sim Manipulator has an option to pick up free (yes, free!) groceries to fill up the fridge. I use cheats to adjust the family's money supply if I want them to actually "pay" for their food.

In most cases, I usually have them run down to the store across the street to pick up a basket. If the family is wealthy, they ring up the delivery man/woman and have food delivered to their doorstep.

If I'm in the middle of torturing them (give them food, nothing else, and watch the rest of their motives drop), and I don't want them to leave the prison, er, house, and if there's too much trash to the point the delivery guy may as well be eaten by flies on the way to the door, and I'm too lazy to use the Sim Manipulator for whatever reason, I buy a brand spanking new fridge. Not only does it fill my Sims' stomachs, it also contributes to the trash on the ground. And then the flies come... we know hunger isn't a problem at all in this household!

I hate having to visit community lots (loading is slooooow, and I don't like the auto-saving), so I usually buy a new fridge. I may have a sim call delivery, but I hate waiting. Buying a fridge is less time consuming. If I remember it's possible, I might cheat the fridge full (I think Insim has the option as well).

My Sims also don't go to community lots too often, unless for social interest, just because I hate the slow loading time. So. For me food delivery is a nice way to go.
If they have a very cheap fridge and enough § they may buy a new better fridge instead. But if they already have a cool fridge which matches the kitchen design, they order food.

So, as other mentioned, you can't buy too many groceries. The game won't allow you.
What I've found rather amusing is that you may have more than a fridge in the same house, and in that case you may buy enough to fill up both fridges.
Same goes for leftovers. You put them in one fridge and you may take them out of the other xD
(Or, to put it simply, two fridges are considered as only one huge fridged.)

Thanks for all your suggestions. I would cheat if that were the only way to save a Sim from starvation, but I would prefer to sort out the Brokes' problems legitimately if I possibly can. (I reckon I'd steal in real life to save myself or a loved one from dying of hunger!) I see rescuing the Brokes from their current mess as a challenge worth undertaking. I don't have Seasons so I can't grow produce or catch fish, nor do I have leftovers, but I do have Neder's Variable Meal Servings mod, so I hope Dustin and Brandi can have some meals together without wasting food. (In my Veronaville, I'm sure that eating lots of meals together is one of the things that built up the strong bond between Andrew Jones and his mum Gloria.)

Probably my main approach will be to try to persuade them to sell some of their furniture and stuff, and if necessary replace it with cheaper stuff. I haven't opened their lot yet, but I see they're valued at over §25K, which is a lot more than any of my own poorer families, so they must have some expensive kit in there! I have moved a similar CAS family into the lot across the road from the Brokes, and they're only worth about §15K after 3 days depreciation. I don't know about Brandi, but I see that Dustin's aspiration is fortune, so he certainly won't be happy about selling their dear stuff, but surely it's better than starving! Plus you're better to sell it for money than for the repo man to take it! So I'm hoping that the new family across the road can befriend them and help them to see sense. They are living comfortably within their means despite having §10K less than the Brokes. Other things I might try is for Angela to try to help out from her own quite limited means, or for Dustin to drop out of school (at least temporarily) and take an adult job (hopefully not as a criminal!).

Whatever they do though, they'll still have to be careful not to waste money, hence my question about groceries. As I understand it from your answers, the game won't let you buy too much if you get groceries delivered, but it will let you buy too much if you go to the shops. So to avoid this, and also avoid the delivery charge (§50 in my game Peni, not §25!) either start to order on the phone, take a note of how much it would let you spend, cancel the delivery, and go to the shops and spend up to the same amount, or check the food supplies: then the maximum amount you should buy is the capacity of the fridge minus the current stock multiplied by two.
MaximumSpend = (Capacity - Stock) x 2
In this computer game it clearly helps if you can do mental arithmetic!

Usually I just use boolprop, but I've been trying to make it harder for Sims to have money (because they always end up with waaayy too much. I try to play a poor family and by the end of 1 generation they have like $10,000 just sitting around ) so these days they use the phone. I'm too lazy to make them go to community lots. I haven't even got round to making community lots for my newest neighborhood because whenever sims go to community lots my game has like a 70% chance of crashing.

The Broke trailer has some of the most WTF contents of any household in the game! Somebody has been making a lot of bad decisions there; so you'll probably find that deciding which one has been doing that (Brandi? Dustin doing his thoughtless teenage best while she was crazy with grief? Skip because he was a moron, as you'd have to be to jump into that pool which why is it even there?) and putting the other one in charge of finances will lessen their load quite a bit. I learned a lot about what not to do playing the Brokes in my experimental game.

Its been awhile since I've played the Broke trailer, but if I remember right, Brandi has expensive furniture in her bedroom, and Dustin has cheap furniture (except for one item.) They may be able to get more money for groceries and bills by selling Brandi's expensive furniture and buying cheaper for her bedroom. (I personally use money cheats, but each person's style is different.)

I always end up convincing Brandi Broke to sell ALL of her posh bedroom frunishings and decor as well as the pinball game in the boy's bedroom. All she really needs is a cheap bed and dresser; this also makes room to move the baby cot into her room. This does give her a tidy sum to make better use of at the start. (I find it more challenging and interesting to not use money cheats.)

When there are teens in a home one of thier chores is to get out and do the grocery shopping. This offers them more social oportunity. In fact, my Sims rarely order groceries simply because they enjoy chatting up folks at the shops.

I am right in thinking that Brandi is pregnant with Skip's third child when the game opens? If so, I think I'll keep her in a decent bed for the sake of her motives. I've only played one pregnancy so far, and found it scary at times, even with a husband and two teen children all falling over themselves trying to help.

I used kaching a lot in my earliest days, mainly to simulate a family living on benefits, but I try not to use it too often now. Even when I did use it for the Moltkes, I really only gave them enough to pay their bills and buy food. They had very few luxuries. I suppose I could do the same for the Brokes, but I think it will be more interesting if they can pull through on their own resources. From a story-telling perspective, I think it unlikely that Brandi would sell her stuff without some friendly advice, and the Lister family across the road will I hope be just the people to give it. Annabel Lister is another single parent with two boys (one teen, one child) but she is coping well with living on her modest income. She does of course have the advantage of not being pregnant, and of course not being a new widow. The Listers replace my original plan of bringing Andrew Jones from Veronaville to befriend Dustin. Now that I know Veronaville is still playable, I'd find it too confusing to have him with his family and friends, active in two places at once.

Brandi is in early (non-showing stage) pregnancy with Skip's third child when the game opens (if you don't have cleaned templates, its always a opposite gendered clone of Brandi, if you do have cleaned templates, Skip was re-connected to the pregnancy and it has the usual chances of being a boy or girl.), so giving her a decent bed is a good idea.

I suppose she could sell and replace the bed after the baby arrives - or replace it in the first place with a less expensive, yet comfy bed. ( And she really only needs a single bed which costs less in the first place) In my game she will often decide to sit in thier only chair to watch telly which ups comfort and fun. Bubble bathes help with comfort. To help with bills and groceries Brandi and/or the boys can dig for treasure (I beleive that option comes with Bon Voyage or Seasons?)

I like to be sure the Broke household fridge is full before the new baby is born and have them start a veg garden to help stock the fridge.

I believe the dig for treasure comes with Bon Voyage, but AndrewGloria doesn't have that option, (just has Double Deluxe with no extra EPs, so gardening is also out).

I beleive the painting easel is a base game item. Brandi should be able to "sell' an item or two to cover the cost allowing her (and the boys perhaps) to sell paintings to help with groceries, bills and perhaps to even save for a new home. To save on delivary cost either Brandi or Dustin can shop for gorceries. (Not sure which EP gives the "walk to option", however, I'm pretty sure taxi rides are free.)