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Automate Your Shopping List
The shopping list, the thing we leave at home often...
I've done it from memory not than I've used one personally. I often forgot to take a list with me. Other times I forgot to put something we really needed on the list. It needed to be less complicated and more practical. To be honest, shopping lists are such an outdated concept, in 2022 we need to get in the habit of having a stockpile of supplies on hand.
An automated list will do just that. You can scale up the 1-month list to get extra food if desired. By using this process you'll get used to buying only what you need. You'll become more aware of your spending habits. No more buying a specific ingredient for 1 recipe and never using it again, banishing it to the cupboard to never be seen from our hard of again. You'll be less wasteful and less stressed about figuring out what's for dinner.
Why do they always ask that anyway?
So annoying 🙄 LOL.
So, let's break down the 3 steps to making your automated shopping list.
You'll begin by working out your weekly meal plan. Write out all the meals and snacks that you intend to have throughout the week b you'll want to notate the specifics of how much you currently consume. Don't write down "1 pack of raspberries" for instance. Instead write down "6 oz of raspberries", you want a quantifiable estimate to work with.
If you don't have any clue as to what these numbers look like for your family, you'll want to take inventory for a week. This will initially take a lot of work, but you'll save a lot of time once we've set up the automation, I promise!
2. Once you have the weekly meal plan, create a list of everything you'll need for each grocery trip. This includes all food, drinks, snacks and candy included, if those are your thing. If you plan to shop monthly, multiply by 4 for each week. If you shop biweekly, multiply your ingredients by 2, and so on. This is your automated shopping list. YAY!
Divide this grocery list into sections: vegetables, fruits, meats, starches, and all other miscellaneous items. The reason you want to do this is to allow room for flexibility. If you want to change a fruit or vegetable, you can swap out one for another of equal or lesser value. This is great if you find a sale, if you want to shop seasonally or if you need to make a substitution. This is also how you beat food fatigue! Changing from white potatoes to sweet potatoes can be a small change that makes the meal feel "different".
3. This part will take the most research but once you do this, you should never go over your grocery budget, unless YOU deviate from it.
Calculate the price for each of the items on your grocery list. You can do this on a website like instacart, or by going to your local grocer's website, for those that offer store pickup or delivery. Next, you'll need to add up the total price, including the estimated sales tax. Give yourself a cushion of at least $20 to account for increases in price, special occasions, or anything else that might come up. This is your finished grocery budget. Also, Yay!
Now that you've automated your grocery budget, you can go a step further. Why not set up auto delivery to make it easier? Many stores allow you to reorder items from a previous sale with one click, try that after your first month. There are so many other ways to make your life easier once you take these first 3 steps.
How will you make your grocery shopping easier?
Psst.... I have a special bonus for you for making it to the end. Here are two freebies you can download right now to get started!
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