G is for Groceries!
Save Time and Money with Menu
Planning and an Action Plan
Preparing
for Your Trip to the Store
Check the weekly grocery fliers and shop
for sale items. If chicken is on sale
this week…come up with a minimum of three chicken dish ideas. Check the recipes and make sure to add all
the ingredients to your shopping list.
For those with the luxury of a big
freezer, plan out shopping lists to make a few meals in advance using the sale
items available that week. In our house, we seldom if ever buy meat
that is not on sale…if it is pork at one store, we only buy our pork then…if it
is chicken at another, it is usually, worth the extra drive to stock up on
chicken at a second store. Get to
know what is a good deal and what is not.
Checking flyers, comparing prices between
them is a really good exercise to save you money. Last
week a big chain in our area had 500grams of cheese on sale for 6.99 so my plan
was to go there to buy some but on further checking through the flyers, another
chain grocer had the same on sale for 4.99 same cheese, same size, both on “SALE”.
Going to multiple stores does take a
little extra time, but if entering each store armed with a shopping list, and
simply grabbing the items that are pre-planned on the grocery list – it is
worth the dollar savings for sure!
Making
a List – Checking it Twice
Making a grocery list is essential to
good planning. It helps us stay on budget,
it saves us time, and it saves us money.
To make shopping trips as quick as possible, save time walking back and
forth in the stores my making shopping lists using categories such as:
·
Dairy
·
Meats
·
Breads
·
Frozen Foods
·
Produce (I like to sub-categorize this further)
·
Fruits
·
Vegetables
Online, you can find free
downloadable PDF Grocery Lists
Before going to the store take a few
minutes to clear out any science experiments in the refrigerator. During this process you may notice you are
low on staple items such as Ketchup, Eggs and Milk…wipe off any shelves that
are a little gooey. Double check the
pantry and check boxes to make sure none have been put back on the shelf
empty. The goal here is to be able to
put new purchases away as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible and
then get on with the remainder of the day.
Heading out the
Door - Last Minute Check
- Keys
- Purse (is your bank card in there?)
- Sunglasses
- List
- Shopping Bags in the trunk
- Cooler in trunk for frozen items (not a necessity but sure helpful)
- Coupons or Store Reward Cards
- Kids (do they need a snack to go?
- Any library books to return on your way? Goodwill to drop? Make each trip count.
At the Store
Make time count, follow the list, and don’t be
swayed by the items at the ends of the isles or at the front cash. Get in; get out…keeping extra dollars in
hand rather than in the store’s cash register.
Leave the store under budget?
Tuck the excess away in a vacation jar or a Christmas fund.
Home
Again, Home Again…
Put frozen items away first.
Fridge items away next. Consider taking some extra during this process to do a little extra preparation for the
meats – pre-marinade chicken, put in a Ziploc bag with the marinade, label then
freeze…make hamburger patties in advance, then freeze…add sauces to the pot
roast in advance, then freeze, sauce and all, in a labelled Ziploc. Now, not
only is there new food in the freezer, some of it is prepped and ready to go.
I
almost always add marinades to meat in advance. Freeze and then when needed, toss the entire contents, while still
frozen, into the crock pot in the morning – throw my vegies on top and
then it is finished and yummy by the end of the day.
Back to the Groceries. Finish off with the canned goods - put new items behind the older
ones ensuring you consume the oldest first. If there are cans of food in the panty that are likely never going to be consumed, consider donating them to the Food Bank but make sure they have not expired. If they have expired, toss!
Personally,
I tend to get rid of a lot of the packing.
Boxes take up a lot of room so items like crackers go into mason jars,
or sometimes the cookie jar – am I the only one who has noticed that the boxes
are only half full now? Cereal goes
into sealed Tupperware type containers to ensure no pests can get to the food
once it is opened. Rice, flour, sugar
etc…all come out of the original packaging and into glass jars or plastic food
storage containers. When using glass or
clear plastic, another advantage is that it is easy to see when items are
running low.
Oh yes, don’t forget to take all the
bags back out to the trunk for the next “Adventures in Groceries”
Happy
Shopping!
