Write 31 Days- Day 18 Low hanging fruit

I am totally stealing the idea for this post from my friend Michael Ann over at the OutAndBack blog. We've been friends for years going all the way back to our assignment in England where I was a Scout leader for their son and a photography teacher for their daughter. We've kept in touch over the years and she's a great writer so check her out.

Anyway, you've heard me lament about how much fun grocery shopping is. Fun like a kick in the junk. Yeah, that much. So anything I can do to get me in and out is a welcome idea and one that saves me a ton of time is a shopping list (ground-breaking eh?) with our weekly meal plan on the back. The grocery list is specific to our local grocery establishment: when we arrive in a new location (we move every 2-3 years) we make a new one, so here's how I do it.

I bring a blank sheet of paper and a trusty mechanical pencil and start the zig-zag pattern you do in the store. The first area I enter is usually produce and I write down the items we normally use during the month in the order I find them. I turn the corner, note the aisle number, and begin walking through repeating the process. No need to be super picky, but be thorough enough to get the general idea of where the items are THAT YOU USE. I then make a separate column for non-grocery items but I may cover that at a later date. One final swoop down the last aisle to the registers and I'm done. You can see our current list below:

shopping list for our family at our local store
yours will look different

   Bring your list home and put it into a landscape-oriented 4-column document. Don't get hung up on making it perfect, you'll be revising it occasionally (especially when your local shoppery decides to do a RE-SET which screws everything up. Insert a bad word of your choice <HERE>). Now, flip the page over and write MON TUE WED THR FRI SAT SUN across the top. This is where you'll do your meal planning. DON'T PANIC it isn't nearly as scary as you think. Besides, it is a great opportunity to get the family together and work on something together.

Under MON think of a meal you'd like to have on that day. Let's say spaghetti. The way I make it I need a package of thin spaghetti, a jar of sauce, 2 pounds of hamburger, a can of sliced mushrooms and Parmesan cheese to top it with. Flip the sheet over and circle the things you don't have. If you already have Parmesan then don't circle it; we're only interested in what we need to buy today. Flip the sheet back over and continue on down the line until you're done. Here's a handy tip: we designate Sunday as FFYS night meaning Fend For Your Self a.k.a. leftover night. Anything in the fridge is fair-game but you have to make it yourself. Suddenly junior wants to learn how to cook. You're helping his future wife to have a self-sufficient human so take advantage of it. She'll thank you later.

Now you have your week planned out for shopping. Leave the list on a counter and let everyone know that if there's something they need to get it on the list by Sunday night at bed time (I shop on Monday mornings). If it isn't on the list...I'm not buying it. This is when the kids' cereal appears or if they're out of school snacks for their lunches. Then I make a sweep of the fridge/pantry to see what else we'll need to make it through the week: bread, lunch meat, cheese, etc.

Now when you go shopping, you have a list of what you need to make it through the week. No more lollygagging  and looking at the well-engineered and enticing packages trying to sneak their way into your cart. If there's nothing in aisle 6 you need just cruise through without stopping. In and out, easy-peasy.

After shopping you put the weekly meal plan on the fridge and when someone asks what's for supper you point to it. You do this enough times and they'll stop bugging you and go to the list first. If someone wants something out of order, I might agree to change it but only if they help.

This is not rocket science (which is why I can do it) BUT between this shopping list and paying for our groceries in cash (you know, the green stuff) our weekly grocery bill has drastically decreased. Paying with cash is painful. Watching a big pile of $20s disappear before your very eyes hurts, but that's another topic for another day.

So that's my creativity in-action today. Try it for a week then revise your list. Before too long you'll have it settled down and you'll be a shopping master like me. My record is groceries for a family of four from store entrance to store exit in 27 minutes. And I've got a gimpy knee.

If you have a way to make grocery shopping go quicker please let us know below. Life is too short to spend all freaking day at the grocery store. I've got crap to do!

Be creative kids.