How to Save Time at the Grocery Store
Just in time for the holidays, Domestic CEO is here to help you with 4 tips on how to save time (and money) at the grocery store!
If you’re like most people, going to the grocery store isn’t at the top of your Favorite Things To Do list. It’s something many of us enjoy a little, but it’s mostly done out of necessity. We have to eat, therefore we have to go purchase food from time to time.
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To help you get in and out of the grocery store faster than you can say Ready Whip, today I have 4 tips to help you speed up your shopping experience. Try one, or all of these tips, and see how much less time you can spend roaming the aisles of your local grocer:
Tip #1: Shop With a List
The first tip on how to save time at the grocery store is to shop with a list. Have you ever heard men complain about women’s shopping patterns at the mall? It usually has something to do with how they wander around, look at everything, pick 10 things up only to put them back after trying on, buy bags of clothes, then return home to complain they have nothing to wear. Men don’t understand why women would waste all that time at the stores. Generally, when they go to a store, they typically are going in for specific items. They get in, they get out.
The same principle applies to the grocery store. If you enter the grocery store without a list of the items you need, you are going to be relying on your memory and the cues you get from the store “SALE” signs to help you determine what you need to buy. If you have a list of the things you need to buy, you can be in and out in much less time, and be guaranteed that you have everything you need to feed your family.
To get your list of items you need, do a little meal planning to decide what you are going to eat for the week. From that plan, you can put together a list of the ingredients you will need. Then, take a peek into your pantry and fridge to see what staples are running low. Once you have this list, you are ready to have laser-focus when you go into the store. It will get you in and out in no time flat! See also: The Case for Meal Planning
Tip #2: Check Sales Online Before You Go
One thing that eats up lots of time at the store is stopping to check out all the sale tags. You know that you need pasta sauce, but when you get to the store there are 10 different brands, and some of them cost 2-3 times as much as other brands. You suddenly find yourself staring at pasta sauces for a good 6 minutes, trying to figure out which brand you should purchase. If only you had known which brands would be on sale before you got to that aisle.
Almost every grocery store, with the exception of some of the smaller mom-and-pop places, have websites with all their sales items listed out. Pop onto the website of your favorite store and you can easily plan down to the brand what you need to buy.
I also like to do this step before I do any meal planning because it helps me determine what I’m going to make each week. If I go onto the store’s website and see that pork roasts and chicken breasts are on sale, I can come up with a few recipes that use those 2 meats. Since meat is usually the most expensive item on a menu, going with the meats that are on sale will help you save on your weekly grocery budget.
Tip #3: Map Your Route
The next thing that will save you time is to evaluate how you navigate through the store. To be the most efficient in your trip, try to walk through each area you need to visit only once. When you enter the store, always turn the same way first. Then, following your list, start weaving your way up and down the aisles that have the items you need. If there is an aisle that has nothing you need, don’t waste your time walking down that aisle. As you make the turns around the ends of the aisle, make sure to grab the items from the back of the store that you need so you don’t have to backtrack to grab them later.
Now, you may be thinking this is easier said than done, but I promise you it can be very easy to never go down the same aisle twice. The trick is to have your shopping list organized by categories so that all produce is together, all meats are together, all frozen items are together, and so forth. You don’t want to run back into the pet supplies aisle because you jotted down a reminder to buy Fido’s dog food along with all your dairy items.
To help you out, here is a free downloadable grocery shopping template that I’ve created just for you. You can print it out and take it to the store, or use it to help you create a shopping list template of your own.
Tip #4: Go at a Different Time
The next tip to having quicker grocery store trips is to try going at a different time. Typically weekends and Monday evenings are very busy at grocery stores. Most people are stocking up on their days off from work, or after the first day of work each week. If you want to avoid the crowds, you may want to try going on another day.
Even if you aren’t able to make it to the store on a different day, you can start experimenting with what times work best for you. What you’ll find is that many people have a set time that they go grocery shopping. Adjusting your time by just 15 or 30 minutes may have a big impact on the crowds you will encounter at the store. You may find that if you make it to the store at 10:30am, you can be in and out before the moms who went to the 9:30am spin class at the gym next door stop in before heading home.
There are other factors to consider rather than just when people in your neighborhood are working. Weekday mornings tend to be a little quieter, but you may run into the stay-at-home mom crowds, which means that you should be prepared for more kids in the store. If you live in an area with lots of retirees, you may find there are certain times of the day when more of them are at the store, meaning the traffic in the store will move a little slower and there will be more check writers at the checkout. And remember that less customers means that the store will likely have less staff to help, so while you may be able to get through the aisles faster, if there are only a couple of cashiers, you may find yourself waiting in line for twice as long.
So those are my 4 tips on how to save time at the grocery store. Do you have any other time-saving tips? Share them on my Facebook wall, or tweet me @thedomesticceo. Also, keep your eyes out for next week’s episode on grocery store etiquette. You can still be the most polite person in the store, even if you are moving through at lightning speeds!
Until next time, I’m the Domestic CEO, helping you love your home.
Grocery shopping, map icon, and other images courtesy of Shutterstock.
