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Welcome to Meal Planning Made Simple! If this is the first time you’re visiting this series, you might want to check out:
- Week 1: Meal Planning Made Simple
- Week 2: How to Meal Plan
- Week 3: A Well-Stocked Kitchen
Last week we talked about how important a well-stocked kitchen is to meal planning. It’s imperative to keep the foods you use most frequently on hand.
This week, let’s chat about streamlining your grocery shopping. If you’re like me, you love to go to the grocery store. I like to look at the produce, browse new specialty ingredients, and stand in the aisle just thinking about what I could create with this or that.
Not the most effective use of my time, especially when I have to go to three, sometimes four, stores to get everything we need. It’s one of the pieces of being on a ‘special’ diet that I haven’t been able to avoid. Yes, I order many of the foods I stock on-line. But there are certain items I can only get at one particular health food store.
Here’s how I streamlined the process:
- I made a master grocery list containing the par stock items I keep on hand and organized them by store and where they’re located within that particular store. (This is where the list you made from last week comes in!) That means all my produce items go in one category, my bulk items in another, meats in yet another, and so on.
- I make multiple copies of my master list and hang them together in my pantry on a cork board. As the week goes by I simply note what items I’m running low on. By the time I sit down and meal plan, half of my grocery list is complete and I can go to the store knowing I won’t leave without something I need. And, I don’t have to bother printing another list because I already have more lists hanging in the pantry that I can use for the coming weeks.
No, I haven’t been able to train my husband to mark off what he needs on a consistent basis. So, I check the refrigerator and pantry for his staple items, like his snacks, and add them to the list. I ask if he needs anything, too. It helps avoid an extra trip to the store.
I’ve got two free printable versions of the grocery list for you – one is a big master list if you can do most of your shopping at one store. The other is divided into four sections so you can list items by store in case you shop at multiple stores like I do. My brain needs very explicit categories, which is why I like to divide my list by store.
Free Printables!
How do you streamline your grocery shopping? What items do you buy on-line?
Next week: Inventory Your Freezer
Much love,
Amy
Christine B
posted on February 10, 2012 at 1:09 pm
I streamline my shopping by keeping a running list of both the upcoming week’s meals and needed grocery items (based largely on the meals listed) on a whiteboard. That way as we think of meals for the next week or run low on stock items it can simply be listed and I don’t have to go through everything each time I want to get groceries. I’m also fairly good with a mental list of what we need each week based on what we’re having, which I’m thankful hasn’t been hit too hard by pregnancy brain. It helps that I primarily shop in only 3-4 parts of the store, so I can mentally go down the aisles and think if there is anything else I need to add to the list w/o actually being in the store. I do some internet shopping – mostly items that we use a fair amount of, are non-perishable, and I can get cheaper online. There are also certain items I can only get at our health food store, or that I buy in bulk at a wholesale store, and those get added to the whiteboard as we run low (I usually stock up on the items at the health food store, assuming they aren’t perishable.) When I go to actually write my list down on paper to take to the store, I categorize by department or aisle, which streamlines my actual trips.
[Reply]
Wendy Cuba-Danca
posted on February 11, 2012 at 9:00 am
I am EXTREMELY impressed with this website and I have shared it with my friends who focus on gluten-free issues. Your design is also amazing as well. I look forward to following you and learning from you as I live a gluten free lifestyle too.
Best,
Wendy
[Reply]
Robyn
posted on March 1, 2012 at 9:57 pm
I also streamline my list by aisle and I pretty much refuse to go to more than one store (we have an excellent, albeit small Natural Grocers here) oh and the farmer’s market… Because of meal planning, we have cut back our shopping to just once/week, even once every 9 days! Online shopping really saves me time and $$: raw cacao, chia, gogi, almond flour, olives.
[Reply]
Wendy MacLean Reply:
March 29th, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Would you mind sharing where you buy your raw cacao, chia, gogi and almond flour online? I’m searching myself for great suppliers but haven’t yet found any.
[Reply]