3 Super Reliable Bags to Make Hauling Your Groceries So Much Easier

After going to college in New York City for three years, I can confirm: The schlepping is no joke. Living in a high-rise dorm building, I’ve had to drag grocery bags across Manhattan, carry them through busy streets, onto elevators, and (on the worst days) haul them up flights of stairs.

Fortunately, through trial and error, and along with witnessing how NYC locals manage their things, I’ve found better ways to go about the grating task of carrying my groceries — without killing my arms and back. I’ve landed on three hacks that have made everything so much easier, and they work whether you’re navigating a city or lugging snacks across campus. 

For heavy-duty groceries that are just too difficult to carry, wheeling them around is the answer. You might have already heard about the Hulken shopping bag, which is like a giant tote bag on wheels, but there are tons of slightly more college budget-friendly options on the market, too. 

Living in NYC, I’ve noticed tons of people leaving supermarkets and walking down the sidewalk with folding shopping carts, and I see them for sale at discount stores all the time.  You can go for a plastic crate-style cart, a trusty metal utility cart, one with a built-in cooler for frozen groceries, a rolling wagon-style cart, or a traditional folding shopping cart. Whichever you go for, it’s a brilliant way to get your groceries wherever you need to go, even if that means bumping up and down some stairs. 

After my third paper Trader Joe’s bag broke on me, I realized it was time to get some more durable reusable grocery bags of my own — and they’ve been a game-changer. Not only do these tote bags do a great job of holding my things, but they’re so cute, they actually motivate me to run errands.

Baggu has a ton of adorable totes of different sizes that fold up to be super compact, making them ideal for tucking into your purse and pulling out when you need to grab some ingredients for your next meal. Nook Theory’s canvas bags are big, with a flat bottom and lots of great pockets, and some mesh cotton bags are perfect if you’re just picking up some produce or doing a small grocery haul. But I’ve also found that I enjoy collecting cool tote bags at museums, while traveling, or whenever I see a cloth or recycled nylon tote I really like to add to my reusable bag collection.

Sometimes, the perfect grocery bag is closer than you think. If you’re a student who uses a backpack on a daily basis, you can get even more out of it by using it to carry groceries to your place.

If you’re not a backpack user, it might still be a handy purchase to make, since it’s able to disperse the weight across your body, instead of putting it all on one of your shoulders, like a tote. Can’t quite decide? You can also invest in a two-in-one bag like this one from The Container Store, which has straps that can convert it into a tote bag or backpack depending on how big your grocery haul is.