"Grocery Shopping"
This may seem silly to some of you. But I seriously love grocery shopping. It's like a sport to me. So
over the last two and a half years I feel like I have perfected my flow. And I'd love to share it with you!
over the last two and a half years I feel like I have perfected my flow. And I'd love to share it with you!
So, I'll admit this to you, because I feel like relationships are best built on honesty. I am a major
"TACF" - Type A Control Freak. Or for now, let's just call it "Monica Geller". So I'm going to rate my
levels of my MG for you so that you understand I'm aware of how crazy I sound. However, I shop
every two weeks for 14 days worth of food at a time, and I can do it all in under an hour. So you tell
me whose crazy! (probably still me.)
- Shop your pantry! First things first, go look in your fridge and pantry and see what you have. You may have forgotten about that bag of garbanzo flour for chickpea pancakes you have stashed away behind your protein powder, true story. (Don't we sound so healthy?!
- Time to purge! This is probably my favorite thing to do. Every other Tuesday, the day before shopping day. I get a trash bag, and go through my fridge, I throw away all of the leftovers no one ate or the things past their expiration date. Then I slowly move everything around and take out all of my shelves and clean them! I love doing this. You would not believe how amazing it feels to open a clean fridge!
- Start your menu! I like to start mine on paper, I write out the recipes that sound good, and I know that we like. (level 1 control freak) And then I go to my pinterest board for the rest.
- Time to organize! After I make my menu on the front of my page, I turn it over and write the ingredients that we need, (level 2) After that I organize them into sections (meat, dairy, produce, etc). Then I like to put them into my phone in the order of the way the store is set up... (Level 3!) I do this because it helps me to minimize the amount of time that I would normally spend looking at snacks and cereal, and dessert that I don't need. Or aimlessly wandering around from one side of the store to the other over and over again.
- Task list phone app! So this app automatically comes on your iPhone, so if you have an iPhone, take advantage of this app! I put in all of my grocery list items into it, and then I just check them off as I go, and they disappear! It's amazing, and efficient!
- Don't forget snacks & lunch! So one of my big mistakes when I first started was omitting snacks, and lunches. I don't know why, but I used to always convince myself that I didn't need them, but I would inevitably be starved the next day at 10am, or 4pm, with nothing to eat! So don't forget to include some things to munch on. Almonds & blueberries, bananas, hummus & veggies, etc.
- Have a budget! So I don't know where this rates for you, but we budget $160 every paycheck for groceries. It will typically get us 10 dinners, and 5-8 lunches, breakfast every morning for two weeks, and snacks! Yes sometimes we do go over, but in that case, we would usually just skip the eating out a couple of times, and it makes up for it just fine.
- Price Check! Praise the Lord, Tulsa is finally catching up with the rest of the world, we have a Trader Joes! Then comes the dilemma, So many duplicates of so many things. However, I have noticed half of my things I get from Sprouts you either can't get from TJ's, or some are just cheaper (meat, canned beans, bulk nuts, frozen fruits…) Whereas I can get lots of things from TJ's for cheaper, (Ghee, salsa, packaged veggies, and fruits) about a month ago I started to put prices next to the items on my grocery list so that I could be sure!
- Under Budget? So here's a tip if you come in under budget, it's always exciting to see that you have $20-$30 that went unspent, but don't go mentally spending it on "that one thing" from Target just yet! Go to your bank, and get out the exact amount that you have left over, even if it's $23.86, and put it in an envelope or your wallet, for those times 8-12 days into your pay period when you KNOW that you will need that one random thing from the store!--you know, that thing you send your husband to get.
- Going bad? Juice it! Clearly not everything. Please don't juice anything weird and say that I told you to do it. I just mean, if you have any extra fruits and veggies, why not just throw them in the juicer! Cucumber, Kale, Spinach, any berries! It's so convenient and a great guilt free snack!
- Time for a pep talk! Ok, I can't tell you how many times I think to myself, "Ugh, but I just really want Chik-fil-a.." But remember, you just spent over $100 on food, and by golly, you are going to eat at home! You will never regret just going ahead and fixing something at home, but you may regret the two bean burritos that it felt more convenient to quickly grab, rather than cook.
- Putting things away! I know you thought I was done, but this is the last one. So you know all of those random bowls, vases, jars, and serve ware you never use? Time to pull them out! I always put our fruit and veggies in open bowls, it makes them look so much more appealing! I also always cut off the lid, and front flap of my egg containers, so that they stack easily and it just makes it look nicer!
So this is my way to grocery shop, I'm sure that everyone has a different method, but this is what works for me, and I honestly enjoy it! I started doing things this way because I noticed when I put a lot of pride into the presentation of our pantry and fridge, that I actually looked forward to cooking! So hopefully this helped someone out there with their grocery shopping rut.
Enjoy!
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