Adventures in Being Prepared when Grocery Shopping

I made a menu for the week, made my grocery shopping list, and when I arrived at the grocery store I realized I had forgotten my list!  What a bummer!  I always advocate shopping with a list and here I am racking my brain to remember what I was going to buy!  Thankfully my list was short and when I checked my list after getting home I remembered everything.  

Something I believe helped me remember what I needed is that I have created a spreadsheet of my grocery store by aisle.  I obtained a list from the customer service desk at the grocery store I shop at most frequently.  They offered me a list of products in alphabetical order with correlating aisle numbers.  This did create some work for me as I had to translate that into aisle format, but it enabled me to determine which items I felt should be on my regular shopping list.  If I do not purchase lima beans often, I should not have them be a consistent fixture on my shopping list?

Why Creating a Standard Grocery List Helps

Creating a grocery list that flows with the store keeps me from backtracking in the store and ultimately saves me time. Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite tasks, so anything I can do to expedite the process is worth it to me.

Because I use the same template to create my grocery list each week I was able to better remember what areas of the store I needed items from, even when I forgot the list at home.  While I would not promote shopping from memory all the time, it did help in this fluke situation!

Sticking to a grocery list helps in many ways:

1. Keeps you from impulse buying.

2. Keeps you out of aisles you don’t need items in to further avoid impulse buying.

3. Avoids excess purchasing resulting in lack of space to store food at home.

Must I go on!  You get my point!  

Take a little time to create a grocery list spreadsheet for yourself.  You’ll be glad you did!