Hmm. Not the type of list I'd like to have! : )
Dear Readers,
This morning I was musing on the benefits and methodologies of Master Shopping Lists. I kid you not. Yes, it is a random thing to be thinking about so early in the morning.
I said to myself, "Ah! I have a blog. The perfect outlet to find the answer to my question. Let's ask our kind readers if they can give me some enlightenment on the subject".
Here is where you come in--If you use a Master Shopping List for your family, how do you set it up? Is it organized by store (Costco, Trader Joes, Co-op, etc) or by food catagory (dairy, grain, produce, paper goods)? Do you have several sections of the list, or just one actual piece of paper?
I am very interested to hear the specifics of your enterprise in household organization. : ) So, feel free to be detailed.
Resting in His joy,
Rebecca for the ServenClan
22 comments:
I could not resist commenting. You have hit upon the very thing I delight in! Shopping! Not just shopping, but the challenge of feeding a largish family on a smallish budget. Ever changing, this challenge provides a constant learning experience, which is stimulating to my accounting-oriented mind. In fact it is much more stimulating than...say...laundry, which is sometimes (ok more than sometimes) a problem. Thankfully I am now at the point where my "maidens" (as my mother calls them) can take over that drab task for me and I can plunge into that which brings me true "fulfillment" as the feministic mantra goes ;)
In our family, we buy our general bulk items at Sams Club, ever mindful of the fact that Sams is not always the least expensive. It is, however, extremely economical on many items. On most items, I have drilled into my subconscious what the general "lowest price" is, but for items I am not sure about, such as the items which are constantly changing the "standard" sizes (no longer a 28 oz bottle, now it's "new and improved" and ...smaller!) I have kept a little book in my purse where I just jot down prices for later reference. I make a list before I go to Sams for the “Sams” items.
We also order from 4 co-ops - one for farm fresh milk, one for raw cheese, one for grains, and the other for anything else “healthy” - so certain items are already taken care of on a monthly or semi annual basis. The biggest co-op has a catalog with monthly sales, so we try to stock up on those sale items. Hopefully we will eventually have more of our own animals and avoid having to buy milk, cheese, etc. Because we buy in bulk, we usually get a pretty good price, or we can at least get, say, the raw cheese, for the same price as the store cheese. It is always fulfilling to know that I am feeding my family better for the same money. My parents also raise grass fed beef, so we are blessed to be able to buy our beef from them at the same price that we would at the grocery store.
Although at times I force myself to go to Walmart, I do not like the store. There are too many imports, it is usually not clean, it is crowded, and I avoid it. OK – you didn’t ask for a tirade against Walmart. Price is not everything. It is not worth it to me to go to Walmart, Save a lot, etc. only to save 12 cents on a can of tomatoes, etc. IF I am there already, I will buy 10 cans. I will make a list before I go which includes my “Walmart items”. We like to have items for current use and then some for “backup”.
For the balance of our grocery needs, we have a very nice Florida based store which is slightly higher in price on most items, but also have very regular buy one get one sales. These sales bring the price of many items, especially condiments, to far below the Sams Club price. When I buy the “BOGO” sales, I stock up to the point where the cashier usually asks things like, “Oh! Are you having a party?” or “You must be doing a lot of baking!” etc. I sometimes wonder if the concept of “stocking up” ever crossed their minds. Of course that may just be the Florida, AKA “entertainment center of the world”/“everything is disposable” mindset. The store’s flier comes in the newspaper with the weekly sales, so I try to go through it ahead of time and make a list of what I am buying, see if I have any corresponding coupons, etc. We also keep a running list of items that we need for the next time we go to the store. This store is where we fill in the blanks, so to speak.
I did not always shop this way, and may not always in the future, but for now this works best for us. I have also found that when we began making our bread, grinding our wheat, making our laundry soap, etc. we made less trips to the store overall!
Hope this wasn’t too long. That’s a great topic! I look forward to reading others’ thoughts on this subject.
God Bless!
Mrs. Discher
Btw-We loved your list! So funny! Can you interpret the 7th item?
I do use a master shopping list for going to the fruit market, and it is arranged according to my usual path through the store, and where those items are located in the store.
Grocery store items are written on the top right corner, and my menu list is written on the back.
I try to use the same list for one month before printing out a new list. On subsequent shopping trips in the same month I may circle or put a star by items needed to avoid confusion.
I keep this list, with the menu list facing forward, posted on the refrigerator and tell my family to write on it any needed items, so when I go to make my next list, I'm reminded of what we need.
It has worked for me for many years.
That looks like my handwriting...
Oh, has to be organized by store. Then the stores organized by city. :-) I write it up on an actual piece of notebook paper every month in my special notebook that is the organizer for all my shopping, errands, and wish lists. For a family of 2 adults and 2 small children, I want to keep my life as simple as possible, while I can. I realize as my family grows, shopping will expand, thus my list and the way I do things. Our tastes and menus change every month, so there is no "master" list that I keep for every month.
For right now-- it's perfect-- simple and organized as always. :-)
I too had to comment. Been a lurker for awhile but this question brought me out of the woodwork. We only have 5 children to feed but we recently moved up to the Sam's/GFS ranks in our shopping. So now I split my master list between the stores. I wrote down anything and everything we purchase of those two stores. I dumped it into my word program and made a checklist type of list. Each shopping trip I check through the pnatry and freezer and make note of what we are out of. Then I look over the sales flyer for GFS to see if there is anything we can stock up on. And that is how I do it. I have considerably less amount of children to feed but this is what works for me!
And Mrs. Discher, we too are in Florida but south of you! Loved your comments. :)
God Bless,
Michele
We're trying to find the best system for our household, too! Every Monday morning we make a list of our weekly activities and things that need done. Then the week's menu flows from that. Then the grocery/store list flows from that. Since we pantry, garden/can, and bulk buy, our usual weekly grocerying is intended to be small! Having a master grocery list that goes with me, then, seems useless and bulky (& a waste of paper). But having a list of usual items that come from each store seems very useful (check each master list as we make our weekly list), so that is what we are trying right now. I buy in three primary locations - Sam's, a natural bulk food supplier, and a local grocery store (that sells organic products fairly reasonably priced). So we have a master list for all three stores that includes those items that come from each. Then during the weekly planning, we can read through those and easily jog our memory on items we might need but that may not have made it onto our grocery list (which hangs on the side of the frig). The form we use is from an ebook we purchased on Crystal Paine's site: Menu Planning Made Easy by Sheri Graham. Although really designed to be used weekly to buy all items for a menu, it makes a handy form for our purposes as well. It is divided by categories like dairy, dry goods, baking needs, etc. This easily translates into the different storage areas of our home: pantry vs. frig vs. cleaning closet, etc, so each area can be quickly checked if necessary. For us, this method is more effective than a master grocery list in its usual way. All our forms and the weekly lists are kept in our homemaking notebook - three ring binder with inspiring picture and Proverbs 31:27 printed for the cover ;-).
We do enjoy your blog. Do you have suggested resources for finding gardening fencing and structure suggestions using natural (free) resources? I've noticed several of your gardening items made with long twigs, etc. We'd love to find pictures and ideas for beautifying the garden with only hard work necessary!
Blessings,
Mrs. Kincell
We've been using a master shopping list for as long as I can remember! It's just one actual piece of paper (heavy cardstock so it will stand up to constant use), with separate sections for nonfood (paper towels, toilet paper, etc.), freezer, pantry, produce, and other refrigerator items. We have a separate list for spices, since we don't inventory those as often.
When we make our grocery list, we'll go through our recipes for the week and make a list of all the items we need that we don't keep on hand. Then we'll do inventory to see what we need of those items (since we sometimes do have some things left from the week before) and make sure we have enough of everything on our master list.
Then we have a separate list showing all the items we buy and the prices at our three main grocery stores. We check that list to see where each item is cheapest, and then mark the appropriate store on that week's grocery store. We've never wanted to organize our master list by store since prices change, and we don't always buy items at the same store.
I hope this isn't too detailed! :)
Blessings, Anna
We shop at Trader Joe's, COSTCO, Aldi's, and the farmer's market as well as some regular stores for produce and we order from 2 co-ops! Whew! What I have done for many years is this: I have a meal plan for a particular number of weeks. I have a list of all the ingredients I need to make the meals on that plan for those 2 weeks. I have a master list which lists all items I regularly buy from Trader Joe's and Costco. Up until recently, this list was a handwritten version, which I would photocopy every shopping period. I also have Inventory lists: 1 for pantry items, another for freezer items. (Another for Bulk, but that keys to a different shopping list) The day before shopping day (a major "jolly-holiday" around here with 8 children!)my lovely eldest daughter does an inventory , updating those lists. I then sit down with our updated inventory lists, compare with the meal-plan ingredient list and write a quantity next to the items I need on the master list. The master list has 3 columns/sections, one per store. In each section, I list the items per aisle/category. For example, I know that when we walk into Trader Joe's, I will encounter the bread/meat and produce section first, so I list those items I buy from those sections first. Frozen are all in one section, dairy in another, condiments/pasta/olive oil, etc. in another. I do the same for Costco, and then I have a tiny section for Aldi's... as we only buy a few things there(great prices on apples and celery!)
What makes my list different now is that each section is assigned to a particular group of children. We take the divide and conquer approach: I then highlight each older sibling's sections with his color, copy his items on to a special list just for him, and send him out in the store with a younger sibling to help. Meanwhile, I have my items to get (I get the baby! ;-) ) and they all report back to me, dumping (sometimes not too gently) their wares into my cart. My oldest son has his own cart and sometimes gets "dumped on" by one of the other groups. We can be in and out of Trader Joe's in less than 30 minutes if there isn't a distraction! And that's 2 weeks worth of food, for 10 people. I am not one who likes to shop, so I find this "many hands makes light work" approach very helpful.
If there is a problem, like "Mommy, they only had 18 pounds of carrots.... what do we do?", then I can simply tell that child to get an extra 10 pounds at Costco, our next stop, or make a substitution, or we simply decide to make do without. Most often, though, they will find a store employee and ask if they have more out back! They've come to know us there: "oh yes, we got in our shipment of frozen mangoes this morning. You should be all set!"
We also organize the freezer and pantry so we can take a quick inventory.... the painstaking work of my dear eldest daughter.
Hope this helps.
This is the first time I've ever commented on your blog, and I'd like to say thank you for such interesting, helpful, and delightful posts.
Blessings,
the Hellwig family
Rebecca,
Mr's Roach does a very fine detailed list by store...I've never seen such a list! Arranged by store, quantities and price.
A true work of art.
And then she usually leaves it on the counter when we leave for the store!!
Bill Roach
PS- But this is really the only fault my beautiful bride has...she calls it "ditch-brain." Named for her car accident 3 years ago...
Oh, shopping! I like shopping sometime but, I'm not the one paying for most of it!!! ;)
Y'all's Master shopping list was very funny. :)
Blessings,
Johanna Kautt
P.S. Also, we do have a HUGE shopping list most of the time that we go shopping!
I have a Master Shopping List on my computer, which, in the past, I would print out every week or two.
It is arranged by store with items sub-categoried by canned, frozen, paper, toiletries, household, etc. I would highlight or check off items that we needed.
Now that I have a phone with an organizer in it, I keep my list in my phone. Since I almost always remember my phone, I almost always have my list with me when needed : ) I also know where I want to purchase most items. My phone list is by store. So nice to not have to hunt for my list : )
I also keep price notes in my phone when I am figuring out the best price for an item.
We shop both Costco and Sams, with most items purchased at Costco. We also shop HEB and Sun Harvest, with WalMart and Target on occasion.
When I find clearance items I know we would use, I purchase as many as possible. Most HEB and Sun Harvest purchases are sale items, especially the produce.
I purchase grains and baking goods in bulk and store them in 5 gallon buckets.
So, is it Peter who writes in all caps? My husband writes in all caps too. Makes it hard to teach the children when caps are supposed to be used!
The Seargeant Family
http://PlymouthRockRanch.com
Recording the Faithfulness and Provision of God for Future Generations
Dearest Rebecca --
A resounding YES.. I almost always use a list!!
We shop for nearly everything at our base commissary. We have found with gas prices (we are still at nearly $4 here in NC) and everything else, that we just seem to always get the best deals, and freshest foods in our commissary.
My lists are always grouped by produce, meat, dairy, and product sections.. ie I know that cereals and coffees and grains are all in the same section of the store so those are all in the same section on my lists. Cleaning supplies have their own section as well and usually come before dairy because that is where they are in the store.
We are looking for co-ops and/or farmers markets but we are still too new to this area to know what is best yet so I am still trying to figure out if driving the distance would save me money in the long run. During the summer harvest times, it might. At the moment, probably not.
I appreciate the Dischers comment on trying to feed a large family economically. Our closest Sam's kind of stores though are at least 30 or more miles away and we have very small pantry area so not really worth it for us to shop in places like Sam's, though we did in AZ when the store was less than 5 minutes away.
I plan my grocery list from a menu. I have to be very specific for each meal (again not a lot of storage area so really no huge stockpile of groceries on hand)and each pay period. We usually only have enough food for two weeks plus a special meal or so if we have an unexpected dinner needed by friends or something on hand. This is not always easy to plan for with grocery shopping but it always seems to work out. For instance, I have 3 growing boys, 1 who most definitely has a never ending stomach capacity, with the other two not far behind. We have free range on our leftovers in the fridge for the next days lunch and snacks. Unfortunately, one day I made two roasts so I wouldn't have to cook the next day. Caleb saw "leftovers" and ate, throughout the course of the day, the WHOLE 5 pound pot roast all by himself. He said he was hungry and it was leftovers so he didn't think about it :-)... So, needless to say, I had to make do another night with a casserole of whatever I could find...LOL.. That was a week we were blessed also to provide for another family, though, and God always just makes everything last. I always smile and thank God for showing me His greatness in making all the food go where it needs to go, even if unplanned things might come up. I also ask him, of course, when he is gonna stop growing that 14 year old boy of mine.. Could I get a time frame at least?! Just kidding..
Anyway, I guess I really went over explanation of what you were wanting in a shopping list :-) Maybe at least you were able to chuckle a bit..
Have a blessed evening!!
Sallie
So I suppose I should quit complaining about living in a household of one. Shopping happens when it happens, and I wander through the store and get what seems interesting, is on sale, or I remember is nearly out. The logistics some of you have put together to mind the provisions is amazing... but I suppose MY method wouldn't work for a household of ten or twenty. I do remember having the duty of meal planning and shopping dropped in my lap when I lived in a mixed communal house of fifteen.... yes, meticulous planning, lists, envelopes with cash, all were part of the MO..... we ate well, though.
Someone asked for an interpretation of "item number seven" on Miss Rebecca's Master List, imaged with the post. MY best take on it is "maul - file". The maul is a long handled tool, similar to an axe but with a massive one-bladed head, typically 8 or 10 pounds weight, used for splitting bucked logs for stovewood. The file is used to keep the cutting edge sharp, making less work for the "operator". Maybe it means something else, but having been the "operator" of one of these devices over this past week, it seemed rather obvious to me...... gots ta keep warm in th' winter, ya know. I need about six cords put by to make it if the winter is cold and long.... like last year was. (what was that noise about global warming....? This must have been part of another planet last year.)
If someone else has another idea, I'd sure like to know it.... I may be way out in the woods.... but I did bring my maul, so I won't freeze.
hi servens!i have NO good advice on this subject. try to do the best i can with what we have available in this area! but......
check out jessica fisher's blog at www.lifeasmom.com! i know you're old friends! by far she has the best shopping, organization and planning blog out there for ladies!
and i am not even a paid spokeslady! lol!
love,
julie harris
Wow! Some of you ladies are extremely organized. I noticed a lot of you plan your menus and then shop. I tried that in the past and it seemed like I ended up having to buy a lot of things at full price.
If Rebecca doesn't mind, I would like to ask a question. Do you look at the sales first and plan the menu based on that, or do you plan based on what's already "in stock" and just fill in the little bit that you need when you go to the store? I tend to plan the menus after I shop, but that doesn't always work well.
Hi, Michelle from Florida! Kim's idea about basing the menu on the schedule is a great one - also liked the phone list - neato! Sallie, I have a "hollow leg" in my family as well, but I can't say he ever downed a 5# pot roast! WOW.
God Bless,
Beth Discher
To be fair, Beth, he did it over a few hours :-) Everytime he got hungry, he would go get "just a bit".... I don't think he meant to eat the WHOLE thing...lol
To answer your question, I don't plan by sales and things. I used to do that and realized that the money I'd save at the commissary was just so much better and I'd only have to drive to one place.
For instance, Yesterday I spent over $400 in two trips to the commissary -- I had so much the first time I couldn't fill up my cart anymore and so when I picked my husband up from work, we made a second quicker stop. I am praying it will last at least three to four weeks for breakfast, lunches, and dinners but I will probably have to go back and buy more dairy and eggs type things. I had been out of yeast but made sure I bought a jar yesterday to make our bread again. It's cheaper to make our own bread most times and I save time with using a machine. We try to do much of our cooking as a mixture of from scatch, or at least halfway from scratch. We don't eat lots of prepared or box foods (ie Hamburger Helper or whatever).. that stuff just doesn't sit well with our tummies. I think it saves us money doing things this way, too.
I don't always plan my menus but I do always kind of have a list in my head of what I need for what foods. I can walk the aisle at the store and say "OK, I'm going to make this, this, and this but I know I don't have this or that in my pantry anymore." By doing that, I know what to buy. If there are coupons or deals on foods for that week, I buy the specials. If not, then I go with the cheapest, but healthiest brand I can find. I might have said before that we always check the part of the tag that has the price per ounce/unit rather than the price of an item. That saved us tons of money when we really started paying attention to little details like that!!
Have a blessed weekend!!
Sallie
Hi, Rebecca.
I have worked off of a master grocery list for years and LOVE it! I typed mine on the computer and print lots of copies at once, so that every week I just have to grab one from the file each week. It is divided into categories that are organized according to how my local grocery store is organized. The categories are:
toilettries
paper products
dairy products
cleaning products
frozen foods
meats
condiments
crackers/cookies
coffee/tea
baking needs
pasta/dry goods
canned veggies/soups
canned fruit/juices
bread/chips
cereal/breakfast foods
refrigerated items
produce
deli
misc.
There is a little line in front of each item in each category, where I place a check mark if I need to purchase that item. Some items I typically buy multiples of...like gallons of milk...so those items have a little line after them, where I write the quantity I need. Some items also have a notation after them that says, "type"...as in type of potatoes, or type of squash, or type of cereal.
I do not make separate lists for separate stores, because sometimes the better deals on paper towels (for instance) might be at CVS instead of the grocery store that week. Instead I write a big "C" in front of those items I need to buy at Costco, "CVS" in front of items I'm buying there, etc.
If you'd like, I would be happy to email you my master list!
Goodwife H.
Happened upon your blog while searching for info about the "Hymns for Kith and Kin" CD.
Yes, regarding shopping lists! I started using one back in the early '80s, first generated on an old-fashioned typewriter, now on the computer. I print a bunch of lists for several weeks and simply highlight what I need.
My list is keyed to one large supermarket by my trek through the store. The list is also formatted so that it can be folded into 1/8s and easily held in my hand throughout the trip.
Lists make shopping for our now-grown family of four children easy and economical. If I could attach my list, I would! Feel free to contact my to whichever of my blogs come up, and I'll e-mail it, if you would like. :)
In answer to the question about making a shopping list from a menu list--I do often check the sale papers first to see if anything on sale there perks my interest for a meal. I also check our calendar to see if there is something going on that would require special meal planning--like a potluck, etc.
I also shop at Aldi and a food co-op, but I make separate lists for those as I don't go very often. Our family isn't large enough to justify shopping at Cosco or Sam's.
I have previously shopped with a lot of coupons, but these days I buy so few things that there are coupons for, that the store coupons on the sale papers are almost all I use (I take the papers with me).
Oh Sallie, your story of Caleb made me bust out laughing!! I can definitely relate, as I had two large ecomony sized hollow legs throughout all high school and well into my 30's. Being a VERY avid cyclist (10,000 miles my senior year of high school....), running track, rowing crew, I could out-eat nearly everyone else I knew..... and still weighed in at a mere 155 lbs twenty years on.
I'm glad you do thank God for that boy...and his appetite. As long as he's healthy and active and not turning into a roley poley, keep rejoicing. and turning out tasty potroasts (with signs on them when NOT in the leftover category). Funniest "kid story" I've heard in a week. Thanks for the great laugh!!
Wow. Thank you for all the wonderful ideas!!! It seems like everyone takes the idea of a Master Shopping list and adapts it for their own particular situation and family. I'll be certain to refer back to these when putting together our Master Shopping List. That is the best part of having a blog--you can archive things that you need and find them easily again [Everyone who has a blog knows exactly what I mean : ) ]
Thanks again so much!!
Resting in His joy,
Rebecca
Rebecca, What a hoot for me to even post on this one! Ode to the lists. Well I make them sometimes can get out of the house with them but the challenge is actually getting them into the store with me! I actually have a master shopping list on my computer I made up over a year ago and have yet to put to use. Well I am off to purge clutter while listening to may fav pastor (your dad of course) Blessings! Tammi Hall
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