Tackling the grocery store madness is tough work, no doubt about it. First you have to decide what will be on your menu for the week ahead. Then you have to find those buried recipe cards and magazine tear-outs, compile a shopping list, check the pantry, and round up the family members to ask if they need anything. Is it any wonder many of us get to the grocery store grumpy, exhausted, and ready to shell out more money than we’re comfortable with on convenience foods in order to end the experience as quickly as possible?
We’ve all heard that a master grocery list saves time and energy at the store, but I’m going to show you a way to take that general idea and supercharge it. Like most good systems it will take a little time to set up, but I promise you it will be worth it. You’ll zip through the store in record time, leaving more energy for the really important things, like Monopoly tournaments with your kids. Ready? Let’s go!
Before You Start
First, it’s important to realise that you won’t be able to complete all of the steps in one hit. There’s a lot to work through, and you don’t want to burn out before you get the chance to enjoy all your hard work. Take your time!
What You’ll Need
- Small notebook
- Pen
- Access to a computer and printer
- Time (multiple visits to the grocery store are recommended, but don’t go out of your way - use your regular grocery trips spread out over a few days or weeks)
- Patience!
Step 1 - Reconnaissance
The next time you’re at your regular grocery store, take your pen and notebook and as you’re walking around the store, jot down aisle numbers and the items listed on the end-of-aisle hanging signs (there are usually about 6-10 items listed). For example:
Aisle 10
laundry powder
cleaning products
toilet paper
stationery
If you’re already familiar with the store, you’ll just be confirming what you already know, but get an ‘official’ list down on paper nonetheless. Finish your shopping and go home.
Step 2 - Delving Deeper
On your next grocery run, pick a ’start point’. This is typically the point at which you begin your natural meander around the store (for a full weekly shop, that is). Believe it or not, this isn’t always near the entrance. At my local supermarket, I ‘begin’ at the front end of Aisle 10, close to the registers, but the actual entrance to my store is near the produce/Aisle 1. Your own ‘order of business’ will depend on several factors, including the store layout and your personal preferences. Consider where the heavy items are, like laundry products and dog food. You might want to start near there. But for now, stick only to the aisles - not the perimeter. There’s a reason for this - trust me!
Once you’ve established your starting point, begin walking down the aisle in the direction you would naturally take - most people follow a fairly intuitive and predictable pattern as they shop. By all means combine this with your regular grocery shopping, but go slowly…and look UP. Along the length of the aisles, near the top shelves, there are usually ‘category markers’ signifying where certain subcategories of items begin and end within each aisle. Write these down. Using the Aisle 10 example we began earlier, you might see something like this:
laundry powder
laundry liquid
stain soakers
dishwashing liquids
toilet paper
paper towels
kitchen sponges
…and so on.
(An important note: Since the idea behind this version of the Master Grocery List is to minimize the ‘headless chicken factor’ (ie, backtracking between aisles when you forget an item), remember to look on both sides of the aisle. Try to keep the category markers from both sides of the aisle in order when you take your notes (you can double check the order later if you need to). Later, when you’re rocking the new system, you’ll only need to go down each aisle once - though you will occasionally ‘zig zag’ from one side of the aisle to the other - and everything will be in perfect, natural order).
Don’t worry too much if you notice markers for items or categories that you don’t actually buy (a good example is the dog food section if you don’t have a dog!). Just jot them down as they are - in later steps they will help you gauge where similar items might be kept.
With this step, it’s important to take your time - it took me several visits to get all the category markers (there could be as many as thirty per aisle, multiplied by however many aisles your store has). It will take you even longer if you typically take your children shopping with you.
Step 3 - Work The Perimeter
By now you should have a list of items, in the usual order that you’d shop in, sorted by aisle, not category. This is a significant difference over your standard Produce / Meat / Dairy type of list, and really the key to the whole system. Often, similarly-categorized products are not kept near each other in the store. An example at my own supermarket would be the cheese and milk fridges, which are at opposite ends of the store, despite both being ‘Dairy’. Using my old, standard type of master grocery list, I still had to walk back and forth in the store in order to cross an entire category off - nothing was arranged in my natural order of movement - which is exactly what the supermarket wants! More time looking for items or walking past end-of-aisle displays means more money for them. Let’s get smarter and beat them at their own game!
Once you have the aisles sorted, take the edge of the ‘perimeter’ of the store nearest to the end of the last aisle you’ve just walked down (remember, we’re going for a natural, intuitive walking pattern here, so don’t walk across the store!), and repeat Step 2. This part is a little trickier, because the perimeter of the store doesn’t always have the same category markers at top shelf level and they aren’t generally arranged in an easy ‘linear’ order as with the aisles. Your store should, however, have very distinct ‘areas’ around the perimeter - often these are Bakery, Produce, Deli Counter, Meat, Milk, and Freezer. In your notebook, put these areas down as headings, keeping them in order according to the direction you are walking. Using your natural meander as the basis, walk slowly through, or alongside, these areas, making note of the items you would typically buy. In Bakery (in my store, this consists of a few central tables plus a U-shaped shelved area), it might look something like:
white bread
grainy bread
bread rolls
hot dog buns
hamburger buns
bread sticks
…and so on
Work your way around the perimeter of the store. Since most of the fresh and frozen foods are around the perimeter, people tend to put these items in their carts last to minimize the ’squish factor’ - so tackling the aisles first (and then the perimeter) tends to follow a more natural walk-around-the-store pattern (see, I told you it would make sense!)
Step 4 - Embrace Technology
Well done - the hard part is over!
In your notebook, you should have an aisle-by-aisle (plus perimeter) breakdown of where everything is in the store. Written down in the order in which you would normally shop and using aisles and categories specific to your store.
Now it’s time to fire up a Word document. If you’ve tried out a Master Grocery List before, drag out your copy of that as well (your original master list will give you a great starting point, listing all of your ‘usually bought’ items). Open a new document and create a few headings - all your aisle numbers (’Aisle 10′, ‘Aisle 7′ and so on) plus all the perimeter categories (’Bakery’, ‘Meat’ etc). Remember to keep these headings in order beginning from your personal ‘Start Point’ and ending with the last perimeter section. Because I begin in Aisle 10, my list obviously begins with that as my first heading, and not Aisle 1.
Next, using the notes you made on your reconnaissance trips as a guide, enter each individual item from your original list onto your new Master Grocery List under the appropriate aisle/area heading and in the appropriate order. If you don’t already have a master list, don’t worry! Brainstorm your basic grocery items and throw those in, or look over a few old grocery receipts. During this step you can also safely skip over including any item you know you wouldn’t regularly buy. Your Master Grocery List should represent your family’s shopping habits, not someone else’s, and definitely not the store’s idea of what you should buy! Here’s how it might look:
Original List (or brainstormed items / receipts)
Dairy (using your standard Dairy / Meat / Produce layout - ie, nothing in order)
milk
cheese
yoghurt
cream cheese
cream
Master Grocery List
Aisle 1/Fridge (using your new, streamlined ‘even my non-grocery-shopping husband could do this’ approach)
full cream milk
half and half
fruit juice
thickened cream
magazines
sour cream
stationery
It looks random, but it’s not! You now have the most useful shopping list you’ve ever created in your hands!
I try to keep my Master Grocery List to just the one, one-sided page for ease, so I don’t list absolutely everything we buy, but certainly most things. Here’s what my Master Grocery List looks like:
(click to enlarge)
Each of the items I’ve included above is in order according to the layout in my store and you can see I’ve included some space to jot down any items we might need that week that aren’t part of our ‘regular’ groceries.
Step 5 - Wrapping Things Up
Can you imagine how much time and money you’ll save having all of your regular grocery items listed in the order they appear in the store? How much easier the weekly food shopping will be if you have little helpers along for the ride? No back-tracking down aisles (a pet peeve of my dear, but long-suffering husband!) If you get sick and have to have your significant other shop for you, you couldn’t possibly make it any easier for him!
For the first couple of weeks you’ll be constantly remembering things you want to include on your list and others you’ll want to take off. Print just one copy of your final list (you can print another later if you need to) and use the first week or two to take notes in the margins. If you buy something regularly, but there’s a long time between purchases, leave it off the list - the Master Grocery List is best suited to regular weekly or fortnightly grocery shopping.
Once you’ve got everything looking as you want it, print several copies of your Master Grocery List for your Household Notebook, and keep one on the fridge. Instead of a ’scratch pad’ approach, this kind of Master Grocery List also prompts you about items you normally buy, but may not need that week, in case you see a great unadvertised sale (”Oh wow! Brand A crackers are really cheap at the moment!” - glance at list - “I don’t need them this week, but the sale is too good to pass up, they’ll store well, and since it’s a regularly-purchased item we’ll use them eventually”). When you run out of something, use a highlighter or simply circle the item. When you put the item in your cart, cross it off the list.
The possibilities are endless! Once you’ve compiled your list for your regular grocery store, you might consider repeating the process for other stores in your area, or your favourite warehouse store. Of course, the bigger the store, the longer the set-up!
And the best part? I’m now memorizing my list. It’s quite hilarious when DH calls in at the supermarket for me on his way home from work and calls me because he can’t find something.
“Baker’s flour? Where on earth is that?”
“It’s in Aisle 6, right after the dried fruit but before the condiments. If you’re approaching from the front of the store it’s on your left, about halfway down the aisle, third shelf from bottom. You’re welcome!”
I can honestly say that re-working my old master list into this new format is one of the biggest time saving devices I implemented in 2009 - try it out!
