How do you make your grocery list each week?

[lawryde]

Hey everyone.

God Bless!

I have three kids, and I always seem to have a hard time putting together my recipes each week and making a grocery list.

Any suggestions?

 

[soblessed53]

Wow,sorry,but I never made a grocery list,except for ingredients for any "new" recipes I wanted to try,even when my 3 kids were small! I just kept in my head what main courses I wanted to make,and shopped accordingly. Bet I couldn't do that for a family of 5 today,LOL!

 

[Heart of a Seeker]

I do mine every two weeks because that's how often I grocery shop. For years I've done a 'menu' and then wrote down what I needed from there. The first place I saw that was in Woman's Day magazine. It works really well for me. Every day I know what I'm going to have and if I DON'T feel like eating or making whatever is on that day, I just switch it.

 

[soblessed53]

That sounds like an excellent way to do it!

 

[Heart of a Seeker]

Thanks SoBlessed. Like I said, it works for me. I don't know if I could do my shopping another way anymore.

 

[firestar]

Sorry this probably won't help you, but I rarely put together a grocery list. When I do, I try to list items by department that way it's easier to remember what I need.

 

[pimorton]

Our system is similar to seeking1's. We have a four-week menu that we just keep rotating through. We don't always shop for all four weeks at a time, but it works well for our family of six.

 

[skipper]

1. make up four menus one for each season
2. use your menus and make a shopping list for each one
3. print out your shopping list each week or however often you shop.
4. scratch off what you don't need each week and shop for what you do need.
5. I keep one day a week on each menu open for eating out or a new recipe.

I keep all my menus in plastic protectors the one I use is on the fridge and the off season menus are kept in the family planner.
I do menus by seasons so you know what fruits and veggies are in season and who wants to make winter food in the summer.

 

[Ms.Garnet]

Wow ! I admire you ladies so much ! We eat so weird I don't do menu's anymore. There are 3 of us -one grown son still at home & he seldom eats what we eat. I usually buy what I know he will eat. DH & I eat almost anything . Right now one local store has a lot of buy 1 get 2 free stuff. I take the sale paper & write down the sale items that I know we use (I never buy an item just because it is on sale - we must use it for me to buy it). Then I look at my coupons & use as many of them as I can on the sale items. Last week they had Hamburger Helper buy 1 get 2 and I had a 75c coupon on the purchase of 3. So I paid about 41c each for 3 boxes. I add whatever else we need for the week. Last week I had around $85 worth of groceries , but I only paid $43. & some odd cents for them all.

 

[leytonstones]

We make a menu each week to work out what we need and we also right down anything as it is finished to that the stock cupboard is replenished. It works pretty well.

 

[Naomi4Christ]

I don't make a list for when I go to the shops - I just pick up what I like the look of or what's on special.

For online shopping, the websites keep track of everything you have ever ordered (both online and in person) and saves it to a 'favourites' list. It's one click to add all your favourites, and then maybe remove the one or two things you don't want that time.

 

[smiledaily]

A lot of great tip's here, thanks.

 

[churchlady]

Hey everyone.

God Bless!

I have three kids, and I always seem to have a hard time putting together my recipes each week and making a grocery list.

Any suggestions?

Look at the newspaper to see what meat cuts are on sale (example - whole fryers, smoked picnics etc.), and then build several recipes around these as your entres'.

If whole fryers are on sale, I might make home made chicken soup with some of the meat, and a baked casserole with the rest. Buy an extra for the freezer for later.

If chuck roasts are on sale, get one for the freezer, one for a nice pot roast, and slice the rest real thin for open faced sandwiches, etc. Or get a large one and cut it in half, one for roast and one for a nice pot of beef stew.

Build your recipes around the entre' and around the sale items.

 

[mnphysicist]

I have a program on my pda that keeps track of every item I buy, what aisle its in, what store, and what a good price is. When I get low on something, I check the box on my pda. Then when I get to the store, I pull up the store entry, and go through the aisles. Initially it took a while to load all of the items, but I did it as a bought them. Now, maybe I add something once a month if that.

 

[VickiY]

I vary my approach. I will either buy what's on sale (two freezers!) and build a menu around it, or sit there with recipes that appeal, and build a shopping list around those.

For the genuinely lost, I have heard of a good website (by subscription, but there's a sample there) called "Saving Dinner". There is a week's menu, and shopping list, with amounts. There are also different menus one can buy, low-carb, heart-healthy, etc. I've seen a few recipes, and they seem decent.

I have too many cookbooks ever to pay for such a service, but for some, it is a God-send.

 

[CindyisHis]

I make my grocery list 2 ways.

I plan 4 meals a week. That's all we need because of leftovers, which often gets made into a dish of its own for a meal - soup, or whatever.

Once I've determined the menu, here's what I do.
1. I write down the items I need for those meals.
2. I keep a list handy at all times to write down things we run out of or are getting low on.

I also read sales flyers. I buy what's on sale and save $$$$. This usually means I'm cooking with the season and am using the freshest ingredients.

 

[ChrisCountryGirl]

I eat simple meals like Guacamole & chips/peppers. I also eat a lot of fruits & vegetables/leafy greens like kale.

 

[whitcoco]

yes it is best to be orginized when you go shopping and dont go hungury lol cause then everything seams to end up in the cart,

 

[VeronicasImage]

I run mine off my home organization list but add new items last minute.

 

[Gwen'sMom]

I keep a notepad on a magnet on the fridge and whenever I think of something I write it down. When shopping day comes I grab the list and stick it in my purse. I would normally forget half of the things if I didn't have my list. And I would have wasted a lot of time going back to the store.