Growing up my mom always went to the grocery store with a list. Sometimes it was long, usually it was considering there were 6 kids, sometimes it was short, but my mom pretty much stuck to buying what was on the list. Once in a great while we could talk her into a little something extra like ritz crackers or what-have-you, but my mom was a stickler for baking from scratch and saving money wherever she could and being as healthy as she could afford. When you are poor, you have to be that way. You don’t buy it when you can make it, especially when you can make it for a fraction of the cost, which is usually the way it goes.
So it has always seemed natural and normal to me to make a grocery list before I shop.
When we lived in Colorado Springs the grocery store there, King Soopers a.k.a. Kroger, had a delivery service that took great advantage of and LOVED. I never stepped foot in the grocery store and it was AWESOME. Especially while I was pregnant with baby #4, who we now know and love as, Scarlett.
As you can imagine, grocery shopping with 4 children is no cake walk. Of course I always make sure I go when my oldest is at school (he is the beggar in the family…) but when I do take him with me, I have him read the grocery list and help with crossing things off so he isn’t perusing the shelves quite as much. Because I do have to take my 3 youngest children with me most of time (since here in Montana delivery is not an option), sometimes I am able to leave them with my sister-in-law or something but most of time, it’s me and the kids. Thinking and trying to figure out what I need, in the store with 3 children attempting to control themselves but finding it difficult, just means that a list makes things 100x’s easier.
The other reason I find it to be very important to plan ahead is where we live in relation to the grocery store. It takes about 20 minutes for me to get to the grocery store, which isn’t really all that long but when you factor in getting the kids dressed, shoes on, make sure they are fed (because it is a BAD idea to take hungry children to the grocery store), get them into the car drive there, unload everyone and get them situated and lecture them about not begging or dancing or running in the grocery store, it’s totally necessary to only go shopping once a week.
Yes, once a week is the only time I set foot in the grocery store. We have a dairy goat who provides us with milk, some of which I turn into cheese and sour cream and other yummy things (at the moment she just had babies though so I wont be getting milk from her for a week or so) We also buy half a cow each year and this year we are buying a pig to butcher and maybe chickens and we already have eggs from our laying chickens. I make nearly all our bread products and snacks as well so that helps in not needing to go shopping.
Ok so here is how I do it.
I always (pretty much) grocery shop on Tuesdays. It was Wednesday’s but I recently switched to Tuesdays for a couple reasons. So on monday afternoon, after all my housework is done and I have posted a recipe on here, I sit down and make a menu. This is what this week looks like:
| Dinner | Breakfast | Lunch | Snacks | |
| Monday: | Monday: | Black bean and chicken burritos | Granola bars | |
| chicken and potato soup w/ rolls | oatmeal, fruit | chicken salad w/ avacado and mango | chips andsalsa | |
| Tuesday: | Tuesday: | chicken fattoosh salad | yogurt | |
| Steak and yams, salad | scrambled eggs, toast | popcorn | ||
| Wednesday | Wednesday: | wasa crackers | ||
| french dip and steamed broccoli | protein pancakes, fruit | deviled eggs | ||
| Thursday: | Thursday: | cottage cheese | ||
| lasagna, salad | waffles, fruit | raw veggies | ||
| Friday: | Friday: | |||
| carnitas, rice, salad | quiche, fruit | |||
| Saturday: | Saturday: | |||
| cottagepie, salad | french toast, fruit | |||
| Sunday: | Sunday: | |||
| ham and scallop potatoes, green beans | scrambled eggs, biscuits |
I don’t usually plan a lot for lunches since we eat a lot of leftovers but I like to have a couple healthy ideas for if we don’t have much in the way of leftovers.
The granola bars I make so they are healthy, here is the recipe if you would like it (click here).
So after I have my menu all filled in I make a list. I actually end up making two lists.
The first one is where I look at my menu and go down the list of things I am going to make and look at all the ingredients I will need for each recipe (side dishes included) for each ingredient I decide if I need to buy it or if I already have it. If I need to purchase the ingredient it goes on my list. I go through the whole menu like this. Then, once I have a list of everything I need, I organize the list.
I always shop at Costco and/or Town and Country which is a local grocery store here that I love. Their price are great and they usually have any strange ingredients I may want and I love supporting local business. Plus since I pretty much always shop at those two places I know where to find things which dictates how I arrange my next list.
My actual grocery list.
I take the things on the first list and arrange them by category so when I am shopping I make sure I have crossed off everything in that category before I move to the next one. This saves me having to go back and get something because I skimmed over it and didn’t get it. So this is what my grocery list ends up looking like:
And yes I do know that eggs are not a dairy product but the eggs are directly across from all the milk so I put it in the dairy section and also, I am still buying eggs, despite having chickens, because as you can see from my menu, we eat a lot of them. I have to use about 7-8 eggs each time I make scrambled eggs plus baking and such. Another reason I shop at Town and Country, they supply local farm fresh eggs which are just about as good as the ones from my chickens. Soon, though, I shouldn’t need to buy eggs since we have 9 more chicks and 4 ducks who should all start laying by the end of summer.
The other huge thing I do is I do not purchase something not on my list. I am a stickler for this. Just like mom.
It is one way I save money and am not tempted to purchase things I want and do not need. Plus it makes warding off the kids requests super easy, “Sorry, it’s not on the list…”
So that’s how I do it!
Feel free to leave a question or comment or tell us all how you like to shop to save money and keep your sanity!
- Huckleberry Plum Pie - January 1, 2017
- Fresh Mango Sorbet - July 17, 2016
- Steak Caesar Salad - June 8, 2016
