How to optimize grocery shopping process?
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Anonymous
| Currently, our grocery shopping process is a mess. We go to the store at least once every day to buy what we need for food that day. What are some tips and tricks you use to improve this process? |
Anonymous
mealkits, delivery (shipt, freshpass, instacart), meal-prepping, grouping (protein rotation, carb rotation, acid/veggie rotation, backups (cereals,frozen/ezprep/sandwiches) in storage). |
Anonymous
| In your case. I’d start by planning two days of meals at a time. Baby steps. |
Anonymous
| Menu plan. My goal is to buy enough food for the week. If necessary, a small shop during the week for produce and milk. |
Anonymous
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Ideally, one day a week you make a list of your meal plans for the week, then shop for the week. If you want fresh food (meat, fish), you do it more often.
The way we do it is to once a week get a bunch of stuff. Over the next few days, we eat the fresh stuff, and then the rest of the time use frozen or shelf stable. Pasta, frozen meatballs, etc. We also go once or twice during the week for a few more things, especially milk. |
Anonymous
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We make a list and go on Saturday.
I can't believe people go every day. What a waste of time. |
Anonymous
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Simplify what you eat. We have ten or so dinners in rotation and buy the same general list of things when we go shopping. Same 5 proteins, same giant bags of broccoli florets and kale and brussels sprouts, whatever fruit is in season for DD to snack on, the same frozen staples (meatballs, chicken nuggets), eggs, milk, etc.
We still sometimes swing by the grocery store mid-week if we run out of half and half or salad greens, but there's no reason to shop every day because we can make a meal out of whatever we have on hand. Agree with PP that you should start by planning one day ahead. We also have a shared google list of grocery needs that we add to as we notice we're out of something so if one person does go to the store they get everything we need and we wouldn't have to go back for something the other person noticed is running out. |
Anonymous
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My grocery shopping list falls into three buckets: meal planning, a standard list of weekly staples, and stock items that we always have around.
Stock items: I keep a running grocery list on the fridge. I've finally trained the whole family - even my kids - when an item starts getting low (not out - but low enough that they expect to use it up within a week), add it to the list if they want more. I go shopping once a week. If it's not on the list, I don't know to buy it. So whoever notices that we're running low on butter, crackers, salad dressing, etc adds it to the list. If something runs out with nobody putting it on the list, then I guess nobody cares whether it gets replenished or not. If someone wants more after it runs out, we'll live without it until my next grocery run. Meal planning: I do this once a week, but I agree with a PP that you could start with 3-4 days at a time. Once I have the meal plan, I check the kitchen for all of the ingredients, and add whatever we need to the running list. Then there are all the perishables that we restock every week: milk, lettuce and other salad veggies, fruit, etc. Those used to go on the list, but now I know them well enough that I just shop by habit. Last piece of advice is to organize the list by location in the grocery store, rather than by meal. Put all of the produce in one section, all dairy together, all bread products together, etc. It makes shopping much easier, less running around the store and less likely to miss things. This makes it much more likely that I'll actually have everything in my cart when I go to check out. |
Anonymous
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Agree with PP -- I always order my shopping list in the order I walk through the store. I also keep the list ongoing on my laptop and add to it constantly, so I don't have to try and think about what we need just before i head to the store.
Some days I just say "We're not going to the store. We're eating what's in the house." even if that means leftover spaghetti, pizza and waffles for dinner. |
Anonymous
| +1 to planning a few days of meals and organizing the list by section of the store, roughly in the order they are laid out inside. |
Anonymous
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Meal planning! I tend to go to the store twice a week. The first one is for 4-5 meals I've planned, and then a second, smaller trip for 1-2 meals, if necessary, plus any pantry staples and perishables that we've run out of (milk, fresh fruit, etc.). I keep a list on the fridge for people to note that we're low on something.
I also organize the list by store section: produce, meat, dairy, etc., to speed up the actual shopping. |
Anonymous
This works really well with delivery or sites. For example, if I like Giant brand ricecakes, I'll log in to giantfood.com on my laptop and add to cart the ricecakes for in store pickup. If I like Safeway pizza dough I'll log in to safeway.com and add to the safeway cart the pizza dough. If I like name-brand milk, I'll add it to both sites. Then when I'm at the grocery store, on my phone, I use the app or log into giantfood.com, harristeeter.com,safeway.com, etc and click on cart. I see my whole list and won't leave the store without my thing. |
Anonymous
| I plan all the meals I intend to cook for the week. Then I lay out my list in the most efficient order of aisles in the store. We have a running list of things that need to be restocked, apart from the main list. I wake up early on Saturday and hit the store first thing all by myself. We seldom need to go more than once a week. |
Anonymous
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Meal plan and order groceries online. The ability to "add items from previous order" is a game-changer for our household (we rotate the same 10 meals).
We also cook double portions on the weekends to have as leftovers during the week. |
Anonymous
| Keep your house stocked with basics as they go on sale. Plan 3-4 meals for the week. Fill in with leftovers and things you already have. If I have to go more than once I feel like I did not do a good job. |