Works for me Wednesday

I have mentioned before that one way we save money is having a big shopping trip once a month and a smaller, perishable foods trip biweekly. We have pretty standard fair in our house and I can plan the next month’s shopping trip based on the last one. I hate spending too much time shopping–it makes for cranky kids and I hate spending lots of time planning. Instead I have several tricks up my sleeve.

I have a preset monthly shopping list. I know what we use and have a list printed up and kept on the fridge where everyone marks things off as we get low. This list is divided up into food and product groups–canned goods, frozen, fridge, breads, baking, etc. This makes it easy for family members to find items on the list and check them off. I have a second private list that has all those things divided up into stores and aisles. I buy certain things at certain places so this list takes the previous list and divides it into stores (I seldom use coupons because the places I buy them generally don’t take coupons and are still cheaper–I don’t have time to do the grocery game and search around for all sorts of coupons. Due to food allergies and whatnot seldom are the things that are free or nearly free items we can use.) The nice thing about these two lists is that they took me about 10 minutes to create and save me about an hour or more each month since they keep me from forgetting things and having to run back out. Finally I do what shopping I can online. The wholesale organic food place I use charges 10% less if you order 24 hours before you pick the items up. I can order online and then when I get there they have already pulled the stock–all I need to do is pay–they even load the car. I LOVE this because it also saves me from spontaneously purchasing a 35# tub of almond butter or whatever. I recently learned you can do the same thing at Sam’s Club online. It is called Click and Pull and though I have yet to use it I know I will love it.

“You mean you will get all my groceries for me, and bring them to the front of the store so I don’t have to wander around the store with my whiny and tired child trying to find where you moved the soy milk while pushing 15 tons of groceries and you will do it for free???? Where do I sign up?”

These small things make a huge difference in the amount of time and stress that go into my once a month shopping trip. I apply the same tricks to my biweekly much smaller perishable foods trip (I go to GNC, Aldi, and Sam’s Club on that day but the same things apply.)

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