Everyone loves grocery shopping, right? There is nothing like spending an hour or more playing shopping cart chicken with aisles crowded with the meandering, clueless, and self-absorbed. I mean, I really enjoy waiting on people who park their cart on one side of the aisle and then stand in the middle of the other half of the aisle while staring with glazed eyes at the choices for canned corn totally oblivious to the traffic jam of other shoppers that is piling up as we all wait for them to make a decision. I can totally understand their dilemma...so many corn choices. Or, I also love shopping behind the go-cart grandmas who will not hesitate to back up on a dime and mow right over your toes. And then give YOU the stink eye. It's great. There are also parents who let the kids push the carts (just stop) and people who do not understand the concept of personal space (Hi..maybe we should at least exchange names before you get all up in my business). Who doesn't love dealing with all of THAT, and then getting a cranky checkout person, and THEN getting home only to realize you forgot something.
Grocery shopping can be a beating.
Over the years, I have honed our shopping trips into a streamlined process to try and cut down the time in the store and to ensure we buy the things we need. It all starts with the menu. Jeremy and I do a large shopping trip every two weeks. So, I make a dinner menu for two weeks out. Here are a few things I like to keep in mind while putting the menu together.
1. What is happening in the next two weeks? We have been trying to get to the gym on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. So I know we will have less time for dinner on those evenings and try to plan for something that's a little quicker to throw together. And on every Friday I go to my Grandmas and Jeremy fends for himself for dinner. For your family, it might be weekly sports practice or Wednesday night bible studies.
2. Trade off who is responsible for cooking dinner. If you and your partner share the cooking responsibilities, be sure to mix up meals that you make vs. meals they make. It's always nice to have a "night off" from cooking dinner.
3. Do you have any meals leftover from the last two weeks? Sometimes things pop up and you end up eating out or ordering in. That night's dinner might still be waiting for you to make. You can always rollover that dinner idea over onto the next menu.
Once the dinner menu has been put together, I start making the shopping list.
1. First I go over what is needed to make each of the dinners on the menu. What do I need to make that meal vs. what I already have. During the big shopping trip, I'll only purchase vegetables needed for the menu items in the first week. We do make a small grocery run the following weekend, and I'll pick up whatever vegetables we need for the week after that. It's hard to keep your produce fresh for two whole weeks, so we do it this way to avoid waste and re-purchasing.
2. After the dinner menu has been covered, I list items we need for breakfast and lunch. Do we need cereal, oatmeal, lunch meat, bread?
3. Then we go over misc. food items. Do we need orange juice, coffee, creamer, snack foods, sour cream, ketchup, butter, etc.?
4. Next up is cleaning and storage items. Do we need dish soap, laundry soup, trash bags, paper towels, ziplock bags, air fresheners, all purpose cleaner, etc.?
5. From there we go over bathroom items. Do we need toilet paper, toothpaste, shaving cream, razors, shampoo or conditioner? Do I need to buy more bobby pins or purchase a new blow dryer? Those items would be listed here.
6. Last, are misc. household items. Do we need pet food, greeting cards, kitchen gadgets, dish towels, candles, lightbulbs, air filters, etc?
Now, we only do our shopping at one store. I know people like to go to different stores because of better deals, or better selection. But we ain't got time for that. Since we shop at only one store, we know the layout very, very well. So, for the last step of getting my shopping list together, I use a legal sized envelope and I organize my shopping list based on how we make our way through the store. This helps avoid back tracking, no one wants to be zig zagging all over the dang store because you forgot this or that. This also helps us avoid picking up things we do not need. There are aisles we never even go down because there is nothing on our list down that aisle.
The envelope is also handy for holding any coupons I might need to bring with me or coupons I pick up in the store. I do use coupons, but only to a certain extent. If what I'm already buying comes with a free item, I will only grab the free item if its something on my list or something I know we will use. I have limited space to store my groceries, so I can't bring home anything we don't want or use or need....even for free. Since we are only shopping for two people, if a coupon is only valid if we buy two (or three) of an item to get the discount, I won't buy more than we need or can store just to save a $1. It is OK to walk away from a coupon deal. Stick with your list as best you can.
During the next two weeks, in the morning while I'm getting my lunch together for the work day, I'll check the menu to see if I need to take something out of the freezer for dinner that night. If it's beef or pork, I usually take that out in the morning. If it's chicken, I'll wait to take that out when I get home from work (I get home by 3:30, so it gives me plenty of time before dinner to let it thaw...this might not work for you so you might have to take it out in the morning). If something comes up that day....we are running later or just ran out of energy to be messing with cooking a protein, we will put the thawed item in the fridge to use the next day. Some people are very particular on how they handle their raw/thawed out protein. If the idea of having something out in a sink of water to thaw during the work day oogs you out, you might have to be a day ahead of your menu to allow things to thaw in the fridge. If the idea of putting something that has been out to thaw all day in the fridge to use later oogs you out, you could always cook that protein really quick (brown your beef or broil your chicken while you wait on the pizza delivery guy) and then store it in the fridge to be used in the next few days.
Shew! That's a lot of information. We have been doing our shopping this way for so long that it's more habit now. A lot of the stuff above I can do without having to really even think about it. And this exact thought process might not work for your family. But maybe it will be a good starting point to finding what does work for you and your family.
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