Material Girl: The weekly shop just requires a little more planning but much less time

A marathon, of sorts, for those of us not much into sports. It was never, however, a sprint!

After dropping your youngest to tennis on Saturday morning, you'd hit up Albury-Wodonga Farmers' Market at Gateway Village in Wodonga.

Here you'd grab Butts Gourmet Smokehouse bacon, Rutherglen Berkshire apple and sage sausages, Willowbank South Albury and RAD Growers vegetables, BBB ciabatta, Milawa Bread pastries, Soul'd on Life granola, Goulburn Valley walnuts and Beechworth Berries strawberries.

Then you'd divide and conquer (if numbers and circumstances were on your side that weekend).

One person to manage dance drop-offs and pick-ups and the other to grab the remaining essentials at supermarkets.

If IGA East Albury didn't have something on your shopping list, you'd push on to Global Groceries or Woolworths and Coles, where you could also offload your weekly soft plastics into the REDcycle collection bins. #winning

Then you'd meander over to Meat Talk for some Mitta Valley Beef for dinner that night.

Just as dance lessons wound up around 4.45pm, you'd have enough supplies to see you through the coming week.

Bearing in mind, you had picked up fruit and vegetables at Almar late in the week and swung by Ebden & Olive and Nord for cheese and bread on the way home.

IN OTHER CORONAVIRUS NEWS:

I often wondered how other people managed to fit so much recreation into their weekends when half of ours was spent hunting and gathering protein and produce.

Obviously grocery shopping was more than a chore for us; it was a way to connect with producers, bakers and makers.

Now amid the coronavirus pandemic, the game rules have changed around everything including grocery shopping.

We all know this.

It's vital we catch up if we're to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Therefore we all need to review how we replenish our food supplies during the coming weeks.

For those doing their best to stay at home, it's understood it's reasonable to go out once a week for food essentials. (Not so for those in quarantine! There are other ways.)

This requires a major rethink for many of us, who either previously ducked to the shops daily or took the Saturday-long, eventing approach.

Luckily, fruit and veggie boxes can be delivered to our doors in Albury-Wodonga and surrounds by Border suppliers. These stores often offer pantry staples such as eggs, canned chickpeas and curry paste.

Payment and delivery can be contactless.

For those who prefer to choose their own fresh produce, Albury-Wodonga Farmers' Market allows you to do that in the open air with plenty of room for social distancing. Payment is contactless too.

With fruit and veg in the bag by thinking outside the box, pantry staples can be picked up post haste.

With an up-to-date shopping list and no distractions (ie. fewer shoppers out at once), I managed to get my weekly essentials in 15 minutes late on Saturday.

Even grassfed beef mince and free-range chicken breasts had returned to the shelves. (For the record, I only took one of each. Sharing is caring.)

Strangely, I did feel a bit hot under the collar by the time I got home.

Speed-shopping was a new ballgame for me; I seemed to have spent a fortune on three bags of food (my husband is a far superior shopper) and I knew my daughters would be less than impressed with the lack of treats in the mix.

Luckily, wine and Remedy Gin can be delivered right to your door.

In coming weeks, we can still support our producers, makers and bakers as many of them now offer takeaway and/or delivery.

And while weekly shopping will remain a mini-sprint, we will really have to pace ourselves for what may be a marathon.