Grocery shopping is an art–like painting–very messy if done with kids! My hubs actually thinks it’s ‘more fun’ to take the kids to the store while I, on the other hand agree with the meme, ” You know your life has changed when going shopping by yourself is a vacation” ~motherhood.
AAAAnnyway…these are some tricks I’ve picked up along the way that work well for us so far…
It starts ways before you hit the store. I have a meal plan that I can scan quickly for the “what to buy” column for each week and quickly jot down the items I need to make dinners (left-overs become next day’s lunch) for each week.
Make your dollar count. Shop deals and price match. Here is a trick I learned from Jordan at The fun cheap of Free Queen. To stay in budget (like us) or really get the most for your buck you can price match at Walmart. Whaaaat? Did you know that you can match ANY competitor’s price with or without the ad at Walmart? You realize what this means?? You can get ALL the deals (see her post for more details) you want from every grocer in ONE place. The most genius way to do this is writing down the deals you want on sticky notes, and sticking them on the item when you go to the store. The ONLY thing you have to do at check-out is say, “I have some price matches, they are on the sticky notes. ” Your checker will be so pleased with how easy you have made it for them… they really are. They mention it all the time when I do it.
Organize Your Grocery List
Having my grocery list organized a bit has helped me be more efficient when I shop. I created this simple grocery list with basic categories (see and download below). I print out a couple at a time, slice them up, staple it at the top to a piece of card stock about the same size as the paper and tape a magnet to the back, whala- custom made grocery list fridge magnet. Having it as a fridge magnet helps us just write things down right as we realize we are out of something during the week.
I included lots of lines and made it double column so you can separate the sections even more if needed (pantry on the left, frozen on the right). If enough people think there is a better way to organize it, I might just re-post an improved one. I’m all about improving the system! (Aug 29th 2013 edit– I changed the grocery list a bit, wider lines, condensed other/household. I hope it works better, if for some reason you liked the old list, here it is)
Tell us your tricks of the trade when it comes to grocery shopping, we all want to know how you do it!
Click on image or link below to download.
Download “grocery-list-improved.pdf” grocery-list-improved.pdf – Downloaded 152 times – 270 KB
Enjoy!!
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