Shopping Lists
Free Money Finance has a post today about using a shopping list at the grocery store. I was going to comment there but realized I actually had a fair amount to say on the matter. You wouldn’t think there was that much to say but like Walt Whitman, I contain multitudes.
I keep a notepad by the computer in the kitchen all week long, and as I think of things or as we start to run out of items, I add them to the list. My brain just won’t keep that sort of thing in memory for very long anymore, I have to write it down right away or it’s gone. Then the night before I go shopping, I select a menu for the week either based on what’s on sale wherever I’m going to do my primary shopping, or what’s in the freezer, or what we have to use up. I have almost all of the recipes I use on a regular basis on the computer, so if I’ve got sour cream that’s going to go bad, I can just search on "sour cream" or whatnot and find a selection of recipes to choose from.
I used to jot everything down that I needed to buy and then rearrange the list by where it is in the store, but that was a pain and only marginally useful because my lists are usually so small. [Every week is pantry/freezer challenge week at our house!] Now what I do is bunch things together by recipe and mark a line between bunches. This way if I get to the store and they don’t have one of the items for that recipe, or if the quality of an item is particularly subpar, I can easily tell which other items to not buy.
The most important thing that I do to make shopping easier, though, is keep our toddler at home with my husband while I shop. I used to always bring her with and get it done during the week, but, man, it’s so much easier to do it alone. I tend to go early in the morning on a weekend before it gets crowded, but even if I go when it’s mobbed, it’s still my only child-free time for the week so it feels like a vacation nonetheless.
Tim MMF said,
March 15, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
That sounds like an interesting way of organizing your list. I’ve never done that. Good post!
diane from Pa said,
March 16, 2006 @ 9:50 am
I agree with Tim. What a great way to organize your list!
We keep the list close by so either my husband or I can add to it. Because there are things he eats that I do not I rely on him to keep me up to date on what he will need for the next week.
Jenn said,
March 20, 2006 @ 6:31 pm
I keep our list on the fridge. The minute I realize we are out of or low on something it goes on the list. For the longest time I had a dry erase board in the kitchen that the list would go on, but since we moved there isn’t a convenient place for it.
Free Money Finance said,
March 21, 2006 @ 5:31 am
Festival of Frugality…
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Festival of Frugality. For those of you who don’t know, this carnival is about frugal living and saving money. Somewhere this got lost in the translation since I received entries that weren’t about…
Dale said,
March 22, 2006 @ 2:40 pm
If you have a PalmPilot, I personally love a little freeware application called HandyShopper (http://www.freewarepalm.com/database/handyshopper-english.shtml). You can keep multiple databases, so you can separate the grocery list from your holiday gift list. I even use it to keep of list of books I intend to check out from the library.
Swan said,
March 22, 2006 @ 3:34 pm
Enjoyed reading your post. Inspired me to write how I make my lists. Thanks!