When I went grocery shopping last week I accidentally left my list at home. I had several errands to run and the temperature was rising, so I just decided to do my best. I have used an Excel spreadsheet for years when creating my grocery list. Nothing fancy, but it works. I was able to pull my list up on my phone via Dropbox but I still managed to miss a few things.
I decided it was time to up my game. I Googled "best grocery list apps" and found several that looked interesting. One that caught my attention was "
Out of Milk." This app had a 4.6 rating. After downloading it, I realized it not only has a mobile app, but a web app that syncs.
The first thing you need to do is start building your pantry list. There are two ways to add items. You can scan them with your phone or type them in manually. I found manually to be much quicker. I chose to do that on the web page. This also makes the items generic, i.e. Peanut Butter, vs. brand specific, i.e. Jif Creamy Peanut Butter 40 oz.
It's helpful to create categories as you go to keep things organized, i.e. produce, meat, canned goods, etc.
Once you have items in your pantry you can add them to your shopping list. If you add an item to your shopping list it will
not automatically be added to your pantry list, so putting it in your pantry list first ensures that it is available the next time you want to go shopping.
If you create your categories as you go, then your items will be
sorted on your shopping list by category. This keeps like items
together, hopefully keeping you from making three trips to the produce
section after two trips to the meat department! Through the web page I was able to put my categories in order by the way I shop. I usually go the produce department first, then canned goods, keeping refrigerated items until last, so having my list in the same order was very helpful.
You can create more than one shopping list as well. I have my main list called Shopping List. I also have a list called Valley Produce for when I go to our local produce store. If you're planning to shop in more than one store I think a separate list for each location would be helpful. You could even create a Christmas shopping list to keep track of what you've purchased and who on the list you still need to buy for.
Once you're at the store, when you add something to your shopping cart, you check it off your list and it gets moved to the bottom. No more scratching off things you haven't picked up yet. Or when your pen dies and hoping you got everything because nothing got crossed off!
I created a To-Do list called Pre-Travel. There are certain things I do every time we are getting ready to head out of town and I always have them written down. I also think this will come in handy when I'm not at home and need to remind myself of something that needs to get done.
I used this in the store today and I felt SO organized! I got everything that was on my list (and a couple other things) and only made one trip down each aisle. Actually, I skipped the cereal/coffee aisle because I didn't need anything there.
Obviously this is only my first time to use Out of Milk, but so far so good.
