NEW YEAR REFRESH - GROCERY TIPS + TRICKS
While I mostly stay in “my lane” of interior decorating, I do LOVE all things organization and efficiency. When Travis and I first moved in together, I was writing out a grocery list on paper of everything we needed each week before our weekly grocery run. I’d leave the paper at home on accident or Travis would go without me and one of us would be left wandering down the aisles aimlessly without a solid plan in place. Which leads me to my first tip for some of the new year refreshes I’ll be posting about! Not only does this trick save you time, it also keeps you and your family accountable to making healthy choices with less waste since you go to the store and know exactly what you’re getting for the week ahead!
TIP 1 - Plan out your meals ahead of time.
I know that our grocery runs are almost always on Saturday mornings, so I have an action item on Fridays to meal plan for the week ahead and figure out what we’re making for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners over the weekend and throughout the next week. It helps that my fiance wants to eat mostly the same thing every week but even if you do switch it up, writing down the ingredients and saving the recipes you’ve decided on helps in making healthy choices for the week ahead.
TIP 2 - Audit your refrigerator and pantry, then make your list!
I also go through our refrigerator/freezer and figure out if anything went to waste (to note for the future) as well as to clean out for the groceries we’re getting over the weekend. I figure out if there’s anything we’re running low on in the pantry/freezer and add that to my FAVORITE part of this tips & tricks post of all - our shared grocery note.
TIP 3 - Start a shared grocery note!
We both have iPhones and one of the features is being able to write a “note” and share it with each other to view/edit as well. It stays on your phone until it’s deleted so you can always refer back to it under the app. If you don’t have an iPhone, there are also some apps like AnyList and OurGroceries that likely work in a similar manner. Our shared grocery note looks like this and whenever we notice something is low (or during my meal planning time), we can simply add it to the list right then and there without forgetting about it. I organized the list in the layout of the store to easily be able to go down the list in the direction I see everything without having to scroll up and down the whole time.
For items that we typically buy weekly, we just keep them on the list so we’re not constantly typing out an entire list each week. In the event that you wanted to copy and paste ours just to get a head start on your own, I’ve also listed this out in text format below.
Grocery List
Produce 🥦
Bananas
Grapes
Berries
Kale salad mix
Tri color bell peppers x1
Red onion x1
Yellow potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Broccoli
Asparagus
Protein/Refrigerator
Yogurt - Greek x2
Eggs
Salmon
Cold brew
Butter
Creamer
Almond milk
Chicken thighs x2
Chicken tenders x2
Beef x2
Pantry 🥙
Avocado oil spray
Coffee
Green beans
Peanut butter
Green peas
Oatmeal
Nuts
Rice
Home 🧼
Paper towels
Toilet paper
Frozen 🧊
Cauliflower rice medley
Waffles x1
Asian stir fry
Corn
Drink 🥤
Gatorade Zero
Bubly sparking water
I hope this is helpful and can’t wait to show you some more organizational tips and tricks in the future!
xx,
Megan
