Comments on: Tips for quick grocery shopping

By: Taylor at Household Management 101

Taylor at Household Management 101 — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:08:05 +0000

These are some great tips, and I use many of them myself. I find the easiest way to separate your list into sections is to use a master grocery list. I think it is best to create your own because every household is different in what they consider staple items and what they like and dislike to eat, plus all grocery stores are laid out a bit differently. However, if you need to see an example you can check out a free printable grocery list at:

http://www.household-managemen.....-list.html

By: msh

msh — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 03:18:09 +0000

Great minds think alike! I too am a list maker, it’s too easy for me to forget things, especially if it’s something I don’t buy all the time. It’s sorted by aisle as well. The sale ads are great to get ideas for meals not to mention the savings.

I don’t dislike grocery shopping but on the other hand, it’s not on my “fun things” to do list.

A Happy New Year to everyone as well!

By: Leslie Cook

Leslie Cook — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:19:47 +0000

There’s an online tool that helps with tip #3. The site, http://www.clanjive.com, allows you to create a shopping list online for free. It keeps an internal database, so when you all something like mayonaise or oranges, it add aisle information.

Later you can send the shopping list to you cell phone and the list is ordered according to the shopping aisles making it easy to use the list as you go. Look at http://www.clanjive.com.

By: Carmella ella

Carmella ella — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:44:16 +0000

I love grocery shopping!! It’s the first step to creating something delicious and wonderful for your palette! I think it is crucial to have a list so you don’t forget items but also look at sales.. Yogurt could be on sale so you want to stock up this week and save possibly $10. You never know!!

By: Hnurre

Hnurre — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:19:04 +0000

Use Future Girls
http://www.futuregirl.com/craft_blog/

Meal Planner:
http://www.futuregirl.com/craf.....anner.html

A great way to make your shopping more efficient!

By: Bakari

Bakari — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 05:27:44 +0000

Not sure if someone else has said this already, but avoid using shopping bags (paper or plastic) when going to grocery store. I purchased 5 re-usable bags from my grocery store which pays back about 5 cents/bag each time I use them. I try to keep them under the seat of my car so I can just crab one or more of them when needed.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 11:31:06 +0000

I work in a grocery store, and I am crazy about organizing. Here are my tips:
I made a master grocery list in Excel, by sections of the grocery store. Each section has blank space, so you can fill it in as you think of it, but it still ends up categorized. Ground beef goes under Meat, fries and milk under Dairy/Frozen.(they are always together) Also I made the space under Produce much bigger than Snacks and Pop.
As for times of day to go, you can work Mon-Fri and still have quiet times. Saturdays the store is dead from 7am to 9:30 am, and again from 7pm ot 10pm. Sundays 8am til 10:30 and 6pm-8pm are great times to shop. Monday and Friday are the busiest weekdays, but any night after 7pm is quiet.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:38:12 +0000

I do my shopping once a month with occasional side trips to the store on the other weeks IF a weekly sale is outstanding. I usually shop on the second Thursday of the month because most of the local grocery stores have their 12 hour sales during that time and those sales are pretty good. I have a big freezer and a pantry and a make shift root cellar that I check before heading out to the store. This appraisal only takes a few minutes before I leave home. Then I walk down each aisle and gather only what I’m out of. I don’t make a list but I look at everything on the shelves and that usually reminds me what we need since I just took inventory before arriving at the store. Then, through the month I make my meals according to what I have on hand, not the other way around. I have a $150-200.00 month food budget for the 6 of us that I rarely go over unless I run into an amazing sale. Then I stock up. This way has worked for me for years. I now rarely go over budget and we eat pretty well!

By: Nikki

Nikki — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:40:46 +0000

I don’t worry about sorting my list by aisle. I wear a pedometer to the store and consider backtracking as bonus steps toward my goal!

By: Caroline

Caroline — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:02:03 +0000

Arranging things by aisle, even roughly, really works.

Once I was visiting a friend who lives in Boston. She is carless, so she grocery shopped by renting a Zipcar for 1 hour. That meant she was time-constrained — if you don’t return the car on time, you pay a serious penalty. Since we were both poor college students at the time, we planned to eat in for the time I was there, so we agreed to just go shopping together and split the bill. I made the grocery list having never been to the Star Market (now Shaw’s) before, but knowing that canned goods were likely all on one aisle, dairy products likely all together, etc. We were in and out of there inside of 30 minutes, and she was amazed.

By: Lib4

Lib4 — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:25:21 +0000

Very simple trick….you go to the grocery store to buy a milk and end up spending $50.

Next time you go shopping buy 3x the amount of milk you will need and avoid running to the grocery store twice a week. You may spend an extra $3-$4 on wasted milk but at least you save $40/wk

By: John

John — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:12:52 +0000

First my setup. I have downloaded the specs from my local grocery store to my PDA. My home PC is setup to automatically link to the store the night before I plan my food shopping. That way I have an up-to-date layout of the store, and any grocery rearranging that might have occurred. After having a family meeting, meal planning, and feeding this into my PC for automated list generation, my list is automatically printed out at 7:00 am on Saturday morning. After checking SmartRoutes for the most efficient route to the store, I head off. Once at the store, I don my heads-up-display and head into the store. The display gives me instant readouts of any potential sales of items that are on my list, or of any items on my list that are low in stock. From there it’s easy. I love shopping.

By: Joel

Joel — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 19:05:43 +0000

Planning menues is simple if you keep a few simple steps in mind:
1) Buy whatever main course is on sale and use it. A lot. When boneless chicken breasts are on sale, which they are about every three months where I live, I buy enough for two months and keep it in the freezer. There’s a kajillion different ways to prepare chicken that keeps it tasting new and tasty.
2) Stock up on canned goods like soups, sauces, veggies and so forth when they go on sale…which is usually two to three times a year. Nothing is simpler than coming home after a day of work and throwing together a qucik meal in under 30 minutes.
3) I buy in bulk only if I’m truly sure I’m going to eventually use the item. I use an online company called http://www.bulkfoods.com Great company, good prices, a fair shipping policy and some of the best prices I’ve seen for foodstuffs anywhere. I always bulk my order together so I get free shipping.
4) I also do my grocery shopping on the weekends…usually Saturday morning around 9AM or so…and the store is usually quite empty. I tried shopping at places like Trader Joe’s but found their prices are not worth the trip.
Hope this helps!
Peace

By: SavingDiva

SavingDiva — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:07:04 +0000

I really struggle with making meal plans (at all and ahead of time), but I’m working on it.

I think a lot of people that shop at Trader Joe’s took your advice (#6). Last week, a woman hit me with her cart while cutting the checkout line (I have a bruise on my shin to prove it).

By: Josh Forman

Josh Forman — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:19:19 +0000

If you have a Palm or WM device, you can get Handyshopper, which lets you enter in the aisle for each item at various stores. When you’re in a store, you change the view to that store, and the aisle numbers (and last price if you decided to enter it) appear.

Additionally, I asked for the list of aisles (by category) to take home and enter in for each item. This could be useful even if you don’t use a mobile device.

By: The Chatty Housewife

The Chatty Housewife — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:32:21 +0000

The “crazy ebay mom” link on the post below titled “a year ago on unclutterer” doesn’t work. It takes me to an auction advertising website.

By: Sara

Sara — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:27:17 +0000

I am shocked that some of you are saying you find weekends the quietest time to shop. Where I am, the stores are a zoo on the weekends! I try to go Friday night while everyone’s out to happy hour or dinner. If not, another weekday night is usually good.

As far as strategy, I have a notepad magneted to my fridge. When I run out of something I put it on the list. Then I plan meals for the week and put those items on the list. Then just before I go I rewrite the whole list in the order that I walk through the store. Just this week I also updated to be a little more “green” and got a wipe-off board for the first phase of this process, so I only need to write one paper list per week instead of two.

By: TC

TC — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 20:29:49 +0000

You guys are making me want to CRY. I ADORE grocery shopping. It’s one of my favorite things to do! I also combine it with my walking-for-exercise obsession, so that I end up going several times a week and only buying as much as I can carry at one time. No burning of fossil fuels on the way to the store for me! Plus I bring my own canvas bags, because I’m only going to need one or two anyway! But that’s for an eco blog, I guess, not here. Here, I can say, however, that when you only buy what you need at each time, you never overclutter your cabinets. Or at least in theory you don’t.

By: Elaine

Elaine — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:44:02 +0000

I find early Sunday morning to be the best time for me to do grocery shopping. My totally unscientific theory is that all the partying-people are still asleep, and many of the early-risers are in church. Saturday afternoon, OTOH, is a nightmare, and that’s from someone who enjoys grocery shopping.

By: Gayle

Gayle — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:58:06 +0000

Are you kidding? Grocery shopping is the most fun I have all week!