5 Tips for a Quick and Efficient Grocery Shop

I HATE wasting time in grocery stores.

Shopping is a necessary evil as cooking your own food at home is more economical (and most times healthier) than eating out.

There’s my husband and I, our two sons (17 months and 2 months) and two golden labs so it’s fair to say we go through a bit of food from week to week.

Prior to kids I worked on ways to optimize our shopping trips and get them done in the shortest amount of time possible. I have been successful in cutting our time in the grocery store down to 45 minutes to an hour every second week…not a small feat.

With shopping this week I thought I would share with you some of the tips and tricks  I use when preparing to shop, shopping and leaving the grocery store. I hope you will find these tips useful the next time you and your family need to hit the markets.

1. Make a meal plan. Although this sounds like a daunting task it’s really not that bad and it will make writing your shopping list a lot easier. I do meal planning in two week blocks writing out what meals we will have each night. This not only makes shopping easier but also gets rid of the nightly question “What do you want for supper?”
2. Do a quick inventory at home. After setting up your meal plan and before making your list do a quick inventory at home seeing what ingredients you already have and which ones you need to purchase. All too often we go shopping, buy a box of spaghetti only to find there’s already 3 boxes in the pantry when we get home. This will help you spend less each trip and will result in a less cluttered pantry.
3. Always go with a list. This sounds obvious but a lot of people still walk aimlessly around the supermarket picking up things off shelves as they catch their eye. Not only is this more expensive but you will likely forget some of the essentials needed for the meals you’ve planned for the coming weeks. You’ll also spend a lot more time shopping as you’re now looking at every item on every shelf having to make the same decision for every item…do I need this? Do I have this at home? This one is simple, make a list and STICK TO IT!
4. Map out the store. Ok so I’m a bit of a nerd but yes I have the layout of our supermarket mapped out. You’d be surprised at how much time this saves!  If you know what you want and where it is in the store (even roughly) you can organize your shopping list according to where the items are in the store. This will help you fly through the aisles, from dairy to produce to bakery and you’re done.
5. Shop in pairs. Granted for some this isn’t conducive to a quick and efficient shop. My husband and I are very much on the same page when it comes to budgeting, eating right and time management so we find shopping together to be very helpful. We know exactly what we need (as we shop with a very detailed list) where to go (as we have the store mapped out) and we both get items into the cart when we’re in produce, for example, he’ll get the tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers and I’ll get the bananas, oranges and asparagus.

What do you do to make grocery shopping quick and efficient?  Share your tips in the comments.

Photo courtesy of B Tal